Beginner's Garden: A Practical Guide to Growing Vegetables & Fruit without Getting Your Hands Too Dirty (IMM Lifestyle) Gardening Tips, Recipes, & Projects for Beginners; Includes Herbs & Small Spaces

I have been growing vegetables for several years, and every year, certain aspects make me feel like a beginner. I try and add three new plants or varieties each garden season to replace some things that weren't successful in prior years. I am also fortunate to have a significant other who doesn't say a word when I take over more of the yard with additional raised beds. Where else would I go except to a beginner's guide to learn about plants I haven't grown before? My 2018 garden plan was finalized late last year but thanks to Alex Mitchell, I now have my three new plants to try next. I am intrigued by new salad potatoes, nasturtiums(edible flowers, who knew), and lemon verbena(for herbal tea).
There is a wealth of information in this book including starting from seed, understanding your soil, what you can grow in pots, composting and many selections for plants. I learned a lot from my failures and it wasn't until I got smart enough to spend time researching and learning from books like this that I started to have a more productive garden. I can see this being a useful resource no matter what your gardening skill level and I am thinking this will be a great gift for a friend of mine who swears she has a brown gardening thumb.
Thank you, Alex Mitchell, Fox Chapel Publishing and NetGalley for the complimentary e ARC.

I'm honestly baffled by the positive reviews for this book. As a true beginner, I expected something that was, you know, useful for a beginner, like something that would walk through the steps of planning your garden, digging it, preparing your soil, sowing, planting, composting, etc. Instead it's just sort of a random hodgepodge of pictures and vague ideas. I really don't understand how anyone would find this book useful.

Nicely written and easy to understand. Great, color pictures. I am new at gardening and a bit intimidated but this book has helped me get excited about trying to grow something that I actually may be able to eat! Recommend.

This is the first April weekend in Kansas that we don't have snow or ice in the forecast, so my mind is wandering to the garden, which in my case is a collection of pots, some with last year's garden disasters still there. But this year I have more hope, because I have Alex Mitchell's Beginner's Garden. 

Mitchell has been gardening and writing about gardening for 20 years. And although this was her first book, she recently went back to it to refresh it and update it for today's beginning gardener. She has lots of great tips for working in small spaces and makes it super easy to get started on a tasteful, tasty patio or balcony garden. 

Beginner's Garden is packed with great ideas to get started quickly (or slowly) with ideas on specific plants to try, from veggies to herbs to flowers. Arugula and lettuces, new potatoes, beets, peppers, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, even pumpkins and squashes can be grown by a beginner in a pot or a small raised bed. 

Mitchell walks readers through the seasons, talking about what to do when. She includes very specific strategies for dealing with the bugs and diseases that can affect each plant and even about some of the other garden villains she encounters, such as slugs or cats. 

There are shopping lists so that you don't even up with a bunch of stuff you won't need (and don't need to waste your money on) as well as ideas for design and recipes, so that you can share your garden with all your friends. She gives lots of ideas for personalizing the garden and adding special touches like string lights (although I've always preferred the British term "fairy lights"), and then serving your friends and family a bruschetta topped with tomatoes straight from your garden or mojitos made with fresh mint. 

All of Mitchell's years of experience come through in her down-to-earth advice, and her breezy writing style makes everything sound so simple and accessible. And she offers lots of options, so readers can feel like they can make their own garden path to best fir their space and their lifestyle. Although I tend to kill my garden every year either by over-or under-watering (I do get help with that from Mother Nature, so it's not all my fault, just mostly), I am inspired to try again. And I love her idea of setting up an automatic watering system, because that could give me a fighting chance against high summer in Kansas, which seems to scorch everything I plant (that I haven't already flooded). 

So if you're like me, starting over every year, or if you're trying a garden for the first time, or if you just need workable ideas for you small patio space, then Beginner's Garden is an excellent resource. Highly recommended for anyone struggling to set up a small garden and keep it healthy through all the growing seasons. 

Galleys for Beginner's Garden were provided by Fox Chapel Publishing through NetGalley, with many thanks. 

Gift for my niece and nephew, they were first time gardeners and have really put this book to practice! They now have a beautiful productive garden.

Very good book for beginners, what.... how.... when! Additional tidbits of priceless info for the beginner.
Retiring soon and will use as a reference on a regular basis.

Love this box. Easy to read and understand gardening. The author is whitty and great at breaking down easy gardening steps. I was extremely excited to start a garden after reading this.

Fairly straight forward but easy to read, well organized. It's a good base to start with.

Beginner's Garden is a great book for exactly what is just that - a beginner's guide for gardening. It is divided into sections which is great with unbelievable illustrations, and also gives you some recipes - and that is awesome. I love the tips on herbs because I am a cook and use them daily so I was excited about that section - but there is a section for everyone - enjoy.

A Beginner's Garden: A Practical Guide to Growing Vegetables & Fruit without Getting Your Hands Too Dirty is a beautifully illustrated tutorial for garden enthusiast who do not have a lot of gardening experience. The book is divided into sections according to the seasons, which is quite helpful. There are recipes included. I especially enjoyed the container combo tips, since I am an avid herb and container gardener myself. This book makes for an ideal housewarming gift.