The package from Burpee Seeds classified this sweet pea as “High Scent,” which immediately captured my attention and imagination as I stood in front of the racks of seeds in the garden centre in early spring. Sure enough, they didn’t falsify such a claim. These sweet peas smell like all the deeply delightful Lathyrus odoratus cultivars – whatever they were – of my childhood. I’m growing them out on the balcony and I keep stepping outside for a sniff. I may be a little obsessed.
Sugar Snaps and Strawberries: Simple Solutions for Creating Your Own Small-Space Edible Garden – Andrea Bellamy (2010, Timber Press, Inc., Portland)
This beautifully-photographed tome is a must-have for wannabe small-space urban gardeners: it’s a comprehensive how-to manual that details all of the necessities for creating an aesthetically-pleasing and highly productive food garden on a balcony, deck, courtyard, driveway, or small yard. Containers, of course, are the cornerstones of Bellamy’s designs, but she also offers construction plans for raised beds. All the gardening nuts and bolts are covered: light, water, soil, amendments, fertilizers, siting, pest control (organically, natch!) and all of the cultural requirements from sowing to pruning to harvest (including a really great section about saving seed and deliniating the terms “heirloom” and “hybrid”).
About one third of the book is devoted to the food plants themselves, with brief, detailed portraits of standby greens, herbs, tomatoes, root veggies and small fruits – and some surprises, such as mushrooms and grains. I’m a bit astonished that Bellamy has included larger plants such as apples and corn on this list (particularly the latter, about which she writes, “Unfortunately, corn, also known as maize, is not suited to growing in very small places.” I’m not quite sure it belongs here, especially as she doesn’t mention that it can be grown as shoots, which may be more appropriate given the theme of the book. In her defense, though, a small yard can support a few corn plants, soooooo). All in all, however, the plant selections are excellent small-space choices and many of them can be grown even in geographical locations with limited frost-free days.
Written in a easy-going, very accessible manner (and as an aside, I LOVE the fonts and layout!), this is THE primer for small-space gardeners looking to get started on their first food garden…it’s well worth purchasing as a reference tool.
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Bellamy is the creator of the blog Heavy Petal, which can be found here.
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Related posts: The Book of Little Hostas.
