I don’t have a green thumb or a black thumb when it comes to gardening. I have a thumb busy doing other things. I’m a Jew originally from New York City; we don’t garden. Toiling in soil rife with bugs has never been my idea of fun. But for some reason this year, I have decided that I’m going to have a garden, damn it. I am approaching this venture with the usual vigor one has at the start of some new project that might become a lifelong hobby. I am reading books on how to garden.
Apparently, you can’t just throw seeds in the ground, pray for water and get tomatoes, corn and green beans. So, I’ve got some books. The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch: fabulous, chock-full of ways to garden organically and a dense 820 pages. Then there’s Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding! by Patricia Lanza. This book assumes that some people don’t have hours to spend toiling in the garden. A great book and only 244 pages. At least the page length is getting better. But you know what? I don’t like reading gardening books. Not that these and other books aren’t gorgeously written and beautifully illustrated and exactly what every real gardener is craving. I, however, don’t care about all the detail. I just want things to grow. So, I started looking at the kids’ section.
Now we’re talking! I found a great little sleeper book from last year, from Good Year Books: Ready, Set Grow! A Kid’s Guide to Gardening by Rebecca Spohn. Full of pictures, simple ideas explained: just how does a seed grow? There’s no soil analysis, no lengthy discussion of what goes best with what, but a very simple credo: tall things in back, shorter things up front. This I can handle.
A new release from Lorenz, The Ultimate Step-By-Step Kid’s First Gardening Book: Fantastic Gardening Ideas for 5–12 Year Olds, from Growing Fruit and Vegetables and Having Fun with Nature Projects by Jenny Handy promises to be just my speed. Do-able activities that promise success and fun things to do in the garden. And when I get confused about just what the row is supposed to look like, there are 900 photos to help guide me.
I live in Vermont and we aren’t supposed to plant anything until Memorial Day—theoretically, the chance of 
frost has finally passed by the end of May, and until then, things can die. And I’m not going to go cover plants with blankets, so I’ll wait. But I’m not a patient person, so to get me excited about the gardening idea, I’ve taken home the new kit from Chronicle: Sprout Your Own Sweet Scents: Complete Mini-Garden Kit with Seeds, Peat Pellets and Planters. They sprout in 3–10 days and I’ll have scented leaves in two weeks. I’ll post again when things start smelling good.
When I need basic, how the heck to do it information, I often turn to kids’ books. It’s a secret brilliance, I think. 🙂 So, what are you going to do with all these bountiful vegetables?
I agree- if you want to know something read a kid’s book! Good luck with the garden Josie, I hope there is someone who can give you advice when you need it. I love to garden but my vegetables don’t always turn out the way I want them to. You can plant your peas early though!
My favorite is You Grow Girl, by Gayla Trail. It’s not a kids’ book, but it is aimed at young hipsters with small gardens, so it’s similarly low-key. It weighs in at 208 pages, but that’s mostly illustrations. Good luck with your garden!
There are a couple of good books put out my Dk. One is called Family Gardening and one is called Grow It, Cook It which is indeed a gardening/cookbook made for kids. Theory is by growing and cooking they will want to eat their vegetables. Beautifully illustrated as all DK books are.