How to grow your own fruit and vegetables without spending money, from free seeds and cuttings to homemade compost
A year of growing for free
Huw Richards, a young Welsh gardener with a popular YouTube channel, set himself a challenge: to grow his own food for a whole year without spending any money. This book shares what he learned. Its premise is that cost should not stop anyone from growing food, and that with a little ingenuity most of what a gardener needs, from seeds and plants to containers and fertility, can be found, saved, swapped or made.
Who will enjoy it
Beginner and budget-conscious gardeners, families and anyone who wants to grow food sustainably without buying a lot of equipment.
What you will get
A cheerful, practical guide to growing fruit and vegetables at almost no cost, full of clever ideas for saving seeds, reusing materials and building fertile soil.
Grow Food for Free Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Nonfiction · Vegetable gardening · Saving money · Sustainable growing
Length
224 pages · ≈ 7 h
More about this book
The first part covers the free resources every garden needs: how to save and swap seeds, take cuttings and divide plants, collect rainwater, make compost and leaf mould, and turn things like old pallets and containers into beds and planters. Richards also explains how to choose where to grow, whether in the ground, in raised beds or in pots, and how to plan so that little goes to waste.
The second part offers clear growing guides for more than thirty popular crops, both annual and perennial, followed by a week-by-week journal of his own year of growing for free, which shows the method in action through the seasons. There is even advice on selling surplus produce to fund expansion. The photographs and layout are bright and clear, in the usual style of DK books. The advice is based on a mild British climate, so readers elsewhere may need to adjust timings.
Encouraging and resourceful, it pairs well with the author's Veg in One Bed. Most of the ideas cost nothing to try, which makes the book easy to put into practice straight away, even on a balcony or a small patch of ground. About 224 pages in the DK paperback.
Veg in One Bed
How to Grow More Vegetables
All New Square Foot Gardening
The One-Straw Revolution
The Plant Rescuer
No Dig
Expecting Better
Raised-Bed Gardening for Beginners
Cribsheet
Zero Waste Home
Rick Steves Europe Through the Back Door
The Whole-Brain Child