Fresh Food From Small Spaces: The Square Inch Gardener's Guide

"This book is a practical guide to growing food for city residents with small spaces...Even if you have no yard and very little free space...I believe that anyone living in a typical city apartment, condominium, townhouse, or single-family home could apply just two or three of the strategies mentioned in...

By Lee Klein

October 26, 2010

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"This book is a practical guide to growing food for city residents with small spaces...Even if you have no yard and very little free space...I believe that anyone living in a typical city apartment, condominium, townhouse, or single-family home could apply just two or three of the strategies mentioned in this book and grow up to 10 to 20 percent of their own fresh food."

So begins the first comprehensive how-to guide for growing fresh food in limited space (first published in 2008). Learn how to grow container tomatoes and closet mushrooms; sprouts on the kitchen counter; low-light berries; pears on trellis-climbing trees; luscious honey from rooftop beehives; and mobile chicken coops. Author R.J. Ruppenthal places emphasis on practicality and promotes conservation, recycling, repurposing, and the importance of nutrition. In other words, Ruppenthal waxes holistic, and his timing couldn't be better: This idea of urban self-sustainability has been catching on across the country (urban restaurants are getting into the act too). City dwellers may not get to live off the grid entirely, but this book will help them create a highly productive garden using very little "farmland". Only gripe: Few photos and of poor quality; at times the book can be a little lax on specifics.

Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting
Author: R.J. Ruppenthal
Chelsea Green Publishing, Vermont
240 pages; $24.95 in paperback; available at Amazon for $16.47.
Amazon ranking: #43,961 - but #8 in the Container Gardening list.

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