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| Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting | 
 enlarge | Author: R.j. Ruppenthal
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $15.61
You Save: $9.34 (37%)
New (21) Used (5) from $15.61
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.8 x 6.9 x 0.4
ISBN: 160358028X
Dewey Decimal Number: 635
EAN: 9781603580281
Publication Date: November 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
Books on container gardening have been wildly popular with urban and suburban readers, but until now, there has been no comprehensive "how-to" guide for growing fresh food in the absence of open land. Fresh Food from Small Spaces fills the gap as a practical, comprehensive, and downright fun guide to growing food in small spaces. It provides readers with the knowledge and skills necessary to produce their own fresh vegetables, mushrooms, sprouts, and fermented foods as well as to raise bees and chickensall without reliance on energy-intensive systems like indoor lighting and hydroponics.Readers will learn how to transform their balconies and windowsills into productive vegetable gardens, their countertops and storage lockers into commercial-quality sprout and mushroom farms, and their outside nooks and crannies into whatever they can imagine, including sustainable nurseries for honeybees and chickens. Free space for the city gardener might be no more than a cramped patio, balcony, rooftop, windowsill, hanging rafter, dark cabinet, garage, or storage area, but no space is too small or too dark to raise food.With this book as a guide, people living in apartments, condominiums, townhouses, and single-family homes will be able to grow up to 20 percent of their own fresh food using a combination of traditional gardening methods and space-saving techniques such as reflected lighting and container "terracing." Those with access to yards can produce even more.Author R. J. Ruppenthal worked on an organic vegetable farm in his youth, but his expertise in urban and indoor gardening has been hard-won through years of trial-and-error experience. In the small city homes where he has lived, often with no more than a balcony, windowsill, and countertop for gardening, Ruppenthal and his family have been able to eat at least some homegrown food 365 days per year. In an era of declining resources and environmental disruption, Ruppenthal shows that even urban dwellers can contribute to a rebirth of local, fresh foods.
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| Customer Reviews:
Best book on urban gardening and indoor food gardening to date! December 17, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a wonderful book - I have never read anything like it! I've had so many people ask me what to grow in apartments with low light, and I've always wondered what to say! Really, all I could think of was well, salad greens, maybe some herbs... I knew that lettuce loved the shade, but I never knew there were so many options for growing food in lower light levels and indoors!
This book is a nice introductory guide to a great number of topics - basic gardening, growing food in tight urban gardens, growing food indoors, growing mushrooms, fermenting to make kefir or yogurt, sprouting seeds for fresh sprouts, composting without much room, keeping chickens in a small yard, and even a chapter on keeping bees. All of it wonderful for the urban or apartment dweller.
This is really the first book of its kind that I have seen - it is so practical and talks specifically about how to make self-watering planters, and exactly which crops you can grow in what kind of light, and which plants you might be able to grow on a not-quite-so-sunny windowsill. Brilliant, really. It's obvious that Ruppenthal has been doing this for years and really knows his stuff.
What's so crazy is that several of my gardening friends who are now stuck in apartments have been wondering what would grow in their windows, or in containers on their window-access-only balcony. Now I know what to say! I've ordered some seeds to start experimenting myself, and this book is going to more than one person for Christmas!
Excellent November 23, 2008
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
The book was in better condition than expected and the delivery
time was exceptional. I choose sellers by rating and location.
I highly recommend them. Thank you!
Great book, amazing resource October 31, 2008
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
This book is INCREDIBLE! It really helped me understand the possibilities for urban gardening. Who would have thought you can grow so much food in so little space? Apartments, condominiums, townhouses, balconies, windowsills...this book shows you how to use any space to grow food. Ruppenthal's writing is very down to earth, plain English, accessible for all levels of readers and beginning gardeners. Great resource for city gardening. I really think this book is something new--I've read a lot of books, but never anything like this. If you have limited space or need a gift for someone who lives in an apartment or condo, then try Fresh Food From Small Spaces.
 Be more self-reliant - grow lots of food in a small area October 25, 2008
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
[Update: I read the book again; and I wish I had given it five stars rather than four. I cannot seem to edit the number of stars. But just pretend that I gave it five stars, OK? Thanks!]
'Fresh Food from Small Spaces' is an exciting book, an inspirational and informative book. Ruppenthal's main topics are container gardening, sprouting, fermenting, growing mushrooms, and small livestock (chickens and bees only), making compost and worm boxes. He lists and describes steps that anyone can take towards helping to build a more sustainable planet and living more lightly on the earth, as well as being more self-reliant.
I was very glad to see a short chapter on 'Survival During Resource Shortages' and one on 'Helping to Build a Sustainable Future'. The 'Introduction' also touches on these topics.
I was also glad to see that Ruppenthal recommends the use of Self-Watering Containers. I know from personal experience (and from being the listowner for a list devoted to Edible Container Gardening) that this is a very, very superior way to grow vegetables in containers.
What the book is *not*: it is definitely not a how-to book. It is *not* the only book you'll ever need about *any* of the topics that it covers. If you buy the book thinking that it is, you'll probably be disappointed. Instead, it gives an excellent general overview and introduction to some very disparate topics. It gives you ideas for things *you can actually do*. The author also points you towards more detailed sources of information on each topic. I doubt if anyone could have written a detailed instructional guide on all of these very different topics.
Major disappointment: the only illustrations are black-and-white stock photos. Some color photos - and more personal photos - would have been a great addition. This is really a very glaring lack. (Shame on you, Chelsea Green Publishers!)
Second major disappointment: no index. I would have expected an index in anything published by Chelsea Green, a quality publisher.
Major plus: The book is referenced, with endnotes. There is a list of resources as well.
I would definitely have given this book my unalloyed praise if it only had better photos and an index. I have no other criticisms. Ruppenthal writes well, too, by the way.
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