Vegetables from Seed to Harvest: How 50 Most Common Garden Plants Thrive

A gardener creates an environment for plants to grow. We want to recreate the ideal environment for their life and optimize the growth process. We do not grow for them and do not regulate all vital life processes. We just want to please them as much as possible so that their growth rewards us with crops. The book Vegetables from Seed to Crop contains a systematic sharing of experience, supported by biological knowledge of plants. As much information has been collected as a gardener is able to put it into practice - not to understand it theoretically. The big difference is that we have practice above all, not just bare knowledge. The described cultivation of 50 plants is consistent with soil preparation without digging and with mulching with compost and other organic materials.

The book is intended for a new generation of gardeners who trust natural principles and dare to grow their own food differently - above all, more easily and systematically.Technically described procedures for growing 50 different types of vegetables lead the gardener to success. The book contains only author's photographs and practical experiences from the Garden of Abundance. Plant cultivation is consistent with soil preparation without digging and mulching with compost and other organic materials.

The concept of growing vegetables in a family garden is different from that of a farm that grows vegetables for sale or a modern enterprise that grows specific plants for marketing in large retail chains. Therefore, the book is not intended for agronomists and professional farms that rely (too much) on fertilizer dosing and treatment with pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Also, many natural self-care products are not mentioned because (in our opinion) they require too much time for too little contribution. Just remember that time (or our attention) is the key to success.

Nowadays, there is (too) much talk about self-sufficiency and growing your own food, rather than gardens that actually feed people. Not so many years old photographs and postcards speak for themselves, when we see a vegetable garden next to every house and block of flats, and on a larger patch of land potatoes, beans, cabbage, etc. grew. But for so many gardeners, there is only one key factor that is missing from their intended gardening success - too little time!

During the main gardening season from February to November, we spend a total of 20 hours (10 hours each) per week in the garden, for which we already have a part-time job, and we haven't even harvested the produce yet. Picking, cooking and preserving require additional time. Don't be intimidated by these calculated hours, but we need some measure of how long it takes to tend a 500 m2 garden, which mainly grows vegetables.

At the Garden of Plenty, we grow enough vegetables for our own self-sufficiency.There is a lack of those field plants that are also an integral part of the human plant diet - especially dry legumes, grains and oilseeds, which are rarely grown in gardens in sufficient quantities to meet the needs for various legumes, grains and vegetable oil.

Softcover, 16.5 x 23.5, 323 pages.

ABOUT THE GARDEN OF ABUNDANCE PROJECT:

The Obilja Garden is a sustainable vegetable garden, designed for self-sufficiency. Tjaša Štruc and Robert Špiler have been gardening there since they were 22 years old. We create our own little magical world and gratefully harvest each crop separately. The specialty of our garden is that we do not dig the soil, we only mulch it with compost mulch and other organic materials every year. This way we obtain universally fertile soil for all plants, because we basically take care of our best garden neighbors – soil organisms. Both the smallest bacteria and hardworking earthworms.

The area is constantly growing and currently covers almost 500 m2, but we still understand very well everyone who is newly establishing their first flower bed. It is especially difficult in the beginning when a different way of gardening is not supported by family, friends or neighbors.