You Grow Girl: The Groundbreaking Guide to Gardening

This is not your grandmother's gardening book. You Grow Girl is a hip, humorous how-to for crafty gals everywhere who are discovering a passion for gardening but lack the know-how to turn their dreams of homegrown tomatoes and fresh-cut flowers into a reality.

Gayla Trail, creator of YouGrowGirl.com, provides guidance for both beginning and intermediate gardeners with engaging tips, projects, and recipes — whether you have access to a small backyard or merely to a fire escape. You Grow Girl eliminates the intimidation factor and reveals how easy and enjoyable it can be to cultivate plants and flowers even when resources and space are limited. Divided into accessible sections like Plan, Plant, and Grow, You Grow Girl takes readers through the entire gardening experience:

• Preparing soil
• Nurturing seedlings
• Fending off critters
• Reaping the bounty
• Readying plants for winter
• Preparing for the seasons ahead

Gayla also includes a wealth of ingenious and creative projects, such as:

• Transforming your garden's harvest into lush bath and beauty products
• Converting household junk into canny containers
• Growing and bagging herbal tea
• Concocting homemade pest repellents

...and much, much more.

Witty, wise, and as practical as it is stylish, You Grow Girl is guaranteed to show you how to get your garden on. All you need is a windowsill and a dream!

"While this book's subtitle may be an overstatement-despite the quirky illustrations and chatty style, there isn't much 'groundbreaking' advice here-the book itself is a competent guide to getting a little dirt under your fingernails. Trail, a graphic designer, writer, gardener and creator of www.YouGrowGirl.com, believes gardening, like knitting and crocheting, has become cool again. Her advice to young women who want to take up the hobby is 'follow your heart.' Gardening doesn't have to be intimidating, she says, and her book certainly proves that. In instructional subdivisions such as 'Mulch, Love It or Leave It' and 'Not Your Grandmother's Gardening Apron,' she coaches readers on basic aspects of gardening, keeping her tone light and her advice simple. Chapters detail planting, growing, collecting bounty (like herbs, fruits and vegetables) and preparing a garden for winter. Each project-from assembling devices to keep pests away to instructions for growing potted tomatoes-is marked to show its difficulty level, and Trail is equally attuned to the needs of both city dwellers and those with more space to develop their green thumb. 100 color photos." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

This hip, humorous how-to for the blossoming new generation of crafty gals opens up a new way to think about and enjoy gardening, based on the most visited noncommercial gardening site on the Web: www.YouGrowGirl.com. Illustrations & 100 full-color photos throughout.

This is not your grandmother's gardening book. You Grow Girl is a fresh and funny guide for the millions of women who are discovering a passion for gardening — but lack the know-how to turn their dreams of homegrown tomatoes and fresh-cut flowers into a reality. Gayla Sanders, creator of www.YouGrowGirl.com. provides guidance for both beginning and intermediate gardeners with engaging tips, projects, and recipes — whether they have access to a small back yard or merely a fire escape. You Grow Girl eliminates the intimidation factor and reveals how easy and enjoyable it can be to cultivate plants and flowers even when resources and space are limited. Gayla includes a wealth of ingenious and creative projects — transforming a kiddie pool into an herb garden, converting household junk into canny containers, growing and bagging tea, and concocting homemade pest repellants. Divided into accessible sections like Plan, Plant, and Grow. You Grow Girl takes readers through the entire gardening experience — preparing soil, nurturing seedlings, fending off critters, reaping the bounty, readying plants for winter, and preparing for the seasons ahead. Witty, wise, and as practical as it is stylish. You Grow Girl is guaranteed to fire the imagination of aspiring gardeners, and prove that all you need is a windowsill and a dream.

Gayla Trail created her acclaimed gardening website,YouGrowGirl.com, in 2000. A graphic designer, writer, photographer, and gardener, she has contributed to BUST and ReadyMade magazines as a gardening guru. She lives in Toronto.

Contents

Introduction

• In the Beginning • Getting Gardening Fever

Chapter One: Plan

Spaces and Places

• Whatcha Got • Growing Guerrilla • Defining Space • Blazing Trails • Rustic Woven Twig Fence • Homegrown Stones • What to Do with a Chunk of Dirt • Planning and Design • Designing with Containers • Planter Box

Getting Your Fix without Getting Burned

• Who to Bring Home • Tag Decoding • Annuals, Biennials, Perennials • Plant Science

Chapter Two: Plant

Soiled Again

• All About pH • Nutrients and Deficiencies • Texture • Texture Tests • Making Good Dirt • Making Compost • Mulch: Love it or Leave it

Container Planting

• Choosing Container Soil • What's in Container Mix • Mulching Containers • Growing in Containers • Edible Flower Container • Chive Blossom-Infused Vinegar • Healthier Candied Flowers • Growing in a Window Box

Gearing Up

• A Guide to Can't-Live-Without-Them Tools • Caring for Your Tools • Not Your Grandmother's Gardening Apron

Planting Seeds

• Seed-Starting Basics • Suitable Containers • Sowing • Labeling • Make a Copper Tag Holder • Light • Fertilizing • Thinning • Hardening Off • Protecting Your Babies

One, Two, Three, Plant

• Ground Planting • Container Planting • Companion Planting • Chalkboard Pots

Chapter Three: Grow

Good Growing Basics

• Growing Organic • Light • Water and Humidity • Simple Irrigation System • Succulent Container • Fertilizing • Organic Fertilizers • Become a Plant Whisperer • Rank Tea • Foliar Feeding • Subterranean Worm World • Pruning • All About Staking • Weeds

Here Comes Trouble

• Gardening with Insects • Good Bugs, Bad Bugs • Six Pest- Protection Pointers • Send In the Troops • Plants That Eat Meat • Pest Prophylactics • Natural Insect Control Products • Kitchen Concoctions: Pest Repellents • Animal Critters • Cat Garden • Chicken Wire Cloche • Diseases • What Ails Them: Common Plant Diseases • Organic Disease Remedies • Troubleshooting • Kitchen Concoctions: Disease Remedies

Growing Food

• Container Farming • Pretty Delicious • Potted Tomatoes • Herbal Tea Garden • Easy-Sew Tea bags

Chapter Four: Bounty

Collecting the Booty

• Herbs • Leafy Greens • Fruits and Vegetables • Harvest Tips • Green Tomato Chutney • Eat Less Dirt: Washing Herbs and Produce

Until Tomorrow

• Freezing • Oily Herb Paste • Drying • How to Dry Herbs • Storing Dried Herbs

Bath and Beauty Plants

• Body Food • Peppermint Foot Scrub • Herbal Hair Rinse • Gardener's Healing Hand Salve • Loofah Bath Scrub

Seed Harvest

• Smackdown: Open Pollinated vs. Hybrids • Seed Harvest How-to • Harvesting Vegetable Seeds • Fermenting Tomato Seeds • Storing Seeds • Putting Them to the Test • Seed Packets

Your Babies Making Babies

• Division • Cuttings

Chapter Five: Chill

Reflections

• Ch-ch-changes • Get to Learning • Garden Memory Journal • Make Your Own Bookcloth

All the Leaves Are Brown

• Fall Pruning

The Big Chill

• In-Ground Gardens • Potted Gardens • Keeping Them Cold • Salt Protection • Here Comes the Sun • Winter Prep Checklist

Appendix • Glossary • Resources • USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map

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