Book Review: Pot it Grow it Eat it

Are you limited in garden space and thinking you can’t grow your own food? No worries! Read pot it, grow it, eat it to learn exactly how to be successful as a container grower as well as seasonal cook.

Just as a quick aside, we have a whole section in our book, The Do It Yourself Homestead, dedicated to container growing. If you’d like a FREE sample from that section, just shoot me an email at Tessa@homesteadlady.com and I’ll get you set up.    

By the way, I’m not forgetting to capitalize the title of this book – the text is simply all in lower case for some artsy, fartsy reason. Just didn’t want you to think I’d lost my mind.

pot it, grow it, eat it

I’m still plugging away at the stash of cool looking titles I pilfered from my local library and found another I thought might be useful for container gardeners. (Notice I only review the books I like? Some are just not worth my or your time!)

Container Gardening Reads

We recently reviewed Crops in Pots and I would say that if you’re looking to learn how to container garden, you might want to pick up that one AND this one:  pot it grow it eat it, by Kathryn Hawkins. Crops in pots is written with the idea of combining both ornamental and food-producing plants in one container. It’s a bit longer because of all it’s photos. However, if it’s your personality to prefer things a little more simple and tidy, Kathryn Hawkins book might be more appealing to you.

Pot it, grow it, eat it is both simpler than Crops in Pots and slightly more complicated. The voice of the book seems to be aimed at a more mature gardener, as opposed to one just starting out. However, the pictures are good and the instructions are clear, the book being quite thorough for such a shorty.

pot it, grow it, eat it Inside

Inside the book are profiles on many food producing plants. Each plant includes:

• cultural requirements (or growing conditions)
• pruning
• harvest times and methods
• preserving tips, including storing and freezing
• troubleshooting advice

Each plant gets it’s own pot, plain and simple. There are no plant combination designs (unlike Crops in Pots), except for herbs. Which is why reading both books might make it more fun, unless you really do prefer a more tidy presentation. Focusing on one plant at a time is certainly not a bad thing; in fact, it can help you focus on what you want to do. You could even have a theme for your garden – like this low-carb Keto Garden suggestion.

Bonus – Recipes!

My favorite part was the large section dedicated to recipes that utilize the oodles of produce you will have from your awesome container garden. Learning to effectively use up the produce from our garden will help us to truly eat seasonally. In fact,  part of the point of the book seems to be to inspire you to both plant and cook!

The book even includes a section on how to grow mushrooms which is something I’ve become interested in lately.

So, overall, although I wasn’t dazzled or enthralled, I found it to be worth a read (you can always learn something!), especially if what you need to learn how to do is garden in pots. Look at your ever-increasing skill set! You CAN grow your own wherever you are, even if it’s only a little. Go container gardeners!!

Background for cover graphic gratefully attributed to this Pexels user.