I found a FANTASTIC magazine! GROW, a special issue on vegetable gardening from Fine Gardening. I'm reading it word-by-word and enjoying all the photos. It was great to find it displayed right up front by the registers at the super market.
It has sections on types of wood for garden use. A great section on manure. And lots of gardening tips. (And that's just the first few pages - I'm reading it slowly...)
A section on layouts for raised beds gardens has beautiful photos and describes an old style - a four-square design - with four large beds up to 9 x 9 ft, all about 10 inches deep. These beds seem to big to me. You'd have to walk in them to work the middle. So you need to leave room between veggies for paths and then you'd be working and amending paths - not the point of raised beds. But it does look very nice.
My other reading material now is the Burpee catalog that just came in with lots of annual flower photos. So nice to imagine these in my yard. I'd like a new method for carrying/washing my harvested vegetables this year and am admiring the hod on page 132. I'm trying to find a cheaper alternative.
And I'm totally taken by the summer flip flops on covers of clothing catalogs now. They seem so ... summer! If I buy several, will summer come sooner?
Only thing I don't see - a nice gardening clothing catalog. Someday I should put one together..... Light weight, long sleeved shirts that look great covered with dirt. Cheap nitrile gloves. Study shoes. And lots of hats... This would definitely make summer come soon.
9 comments:
Sounds like a very informative magazine. I'll have to look for it when I go to the store.
I'm currently reading Gardening for Birds & Butterflies published by Birds & Blooms. It cost more than I'd usually spend on a magazine, but it has a lot of useful info so I think it was worth the cost!
I'm Fine Gardening's web editor and I get an e-mail from Google every time someone mentions us online. I just wanted to say thanks for plugging Grow, and I also wanted to invite you to check out our veggie gardening site, http://www.vegetablegardener.com.
I just spent some time looking at your photos. They are absolutely gorgeous and would be a welcome addition to our online community. Thanks again for the mention!
I will have to look for this particular edition. Sounds like it is right up my alley. I really like 'Organic Gardening' magazine, I read it at the library all the time. One of these days I will have to subscribe.
That's a magazine I've been meaning to subscribe to also. Thanks for the reminder - I just signed up.
What's it say there about horse manure? I'm hesitant to put it on our plots without composting it first, or at least, not putting it directly on things like carrots, beets or potatoes (green beans, peas, things like that might be ok, but i'd worry about burning the plants).
I agree. I just found GROW the other day. What a great read. Very informative. I also recently picked the All Seasons Garden Guide by The Old Farmers Almanac. I was really pleasantly surprised. I had always though OFA was kind of old fashioned but this edition is turning out to be a terrific resource. For me the test of a good magazine is whether I keep it after I read it. Grow and the All Seasons Garden Guide both meet that criteria for me, and I read a lot of magazines!
They say to compost horse manure for 2 months before use. So what we put on my garden last month is fine, but any more I collect should go onto the compost pile until fall.
I look forward to finding the Farmers Almanac soon. I always enjoyed the old fashioned style of it.
I just bought this magazine too and you are right - it is very good. It really makes me look forward the the warmer growing season - like I wasn't already, right?
Kathy,
I've been getting great e-newsletters from Fine Gardening recently (they started a vegetable gardening one not too long ago with great archived articles from Kitchen Garden included). I'm going to look for this magazine, too.
And sign me up for your gardening gear catalog, when you put it together....
Lisa
P.S. I started getting Organic Gardening about a year ago, and really enjoy it.
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