The Gardenerd Guide to Growing Great Vegetables

I don’t know if you remember a couple of summers ago I hosted an American carrot in my garden.   He wasn’t just any old carrot – Gardenerd was a rather large plush carrot in the midst of a world tour.  He was such a pleasure to have to visit and he helped me sow some carrot seeds in my garden and then we took him out on our boat for a tour of the Auckland Harbour.  You can read more about the fun times we had with our little orange friend >HERE< 

But there is more to Gardenerd than a cool travelling carrot.  Gardenerd is also website of the lovely Christy Wilhelmi.   Christy is a little like me, super passionate about growing food and encouraging others to grow their own.  She even runs gardening classes and food garden design services in Los Angeles where she lives and back in 2013 she released a great book called Gardening for Geeks which looks at the science behind the growing your food.   She has been sharing the gardening love for over a decade.

Christy got in touch with me just before we headed off on our holiday to let me know she had an exciting new project and asked if I was interested in checking it out.  Ten years ago, on the Gardenerd.com site Christy published a tip of a week each week for one week only.  Over time this resulted in hundreds of great and trustworthy gardening tips so the logical thing to do was to pop them all together in an e-book where all of the links made at the time could still be accessed.   Today’s technology has made it possible for this fantastic resource to come together as an interactive book:  400+ Tips for Organic Gardening Success.

I just had to check it out and downloaded it for my holiday reading.   It was my gardening fix at sea.  Each morning when I woke up I reached for my phone where I had it saved and eagerly swiped through the pages.  Aside from taking photos, my phone wasn’t good for much else as there was extremely limited WiFi where we were.  This did mean I wasn’t able to click on the links, but I took plenty of notes and jotted down the links I just had to check out once I got home.  This was a book a keen gardener can lose themselves in and with the ability to wander beyond the book, makes it so much more.

While the book is based in the Northern Hemisphere and has a lot of locational tips specific to America, these are still interesting to read for me down under, and often I sigh a huge sigh of relief that I don’t have to worry about some of those pests they have up there!  But aside from the few points of difference – the rest is practical and useful and either refreshed my memory or taught me something new.   For the most part, it doesn’t matter where you are – if you plant a tomato seed then you should get some tomatoes to eat.  As gardeners, we all speak the same language.

With the new season coming up and you are looking for advice on how to get the most out of your garden or maybe feel a tad rusty after the long, wet winter months – Christy’s e-book 400+ Tips for Organic Gardening Success will put you on the right track to a bountiful harvest.  Whether you dip in and out to find the tips you need or devour it whole in one sitting you will really get a lot out of it.  I certainly did.  You can get a copy from >Amazon< for a very affordable price.

I would like to wish Christy all the best with this project, you can see the care and passion behind every hint and tip and can tell she only wants the best for the gardeners who read her words.

Come again soon – Spring is so close now I can see, smell and hear it!

Sarah the Gardener : o)