The Home Gardening Project Foundation
how to give raised-bed vegetable gardens to people in need
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Smithsonian:
"The Gift of a Garden" 
Sun: "Giving Away Gardens"
Sun: "Payday"
How to Give Away Gardens
download free how-to booklet for starting a Home Gardening Project (PDF)
About us: our history and mission, and how to help give gardens to people
Building raised-bed gardens
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Urban gardening and the benefits of gardening: Links to other sites
Gardening resources: books and websites
Below are links to selected resources about gardening, especially subjects related to vegetable gardening and the use of raised beds. If you have others to recommend, please email us and let us know what is especially valuable about the book or site you are recommending.
We're providing this page to help those who are searching for information about this subject; please check out these resources and your public library (reference librarians are always willing to assist you!). Older and out-of-print books are generally available at low prices from Amazon, Alibris, Halfcom, and others.
Gardening is America's most popular outdoor activity, and there is a great deal of information available about it in books, on the web, and at local nurseries (big store garden centers are not so reliable as information sources,in our experience). For information about a particular plant, problem, or technique, do a websearch: Google is fast and easy.
Books on vegetable gardening, and a cookbook or two
Crockett's Victory Garden. Crockett, James Underwood. Little, Brown; Toronto. Paperback, 1977. 326 pages. This book accompanied the original PBS television series, "The Victory Garden," which chronicled a raised-bed garden placed atop terrible soil in back of the WGBH station in Boston. Like the series, the book goes season by season, the author does some learning from events as all gardeners do, and the explanations are clear and logical. Covers just about everything regarding vegetable gardening, including soil, pests, flowers, and a regional guide to planting dates for all the usual crops. Highly recommended and still available from used-book sources. The newer edition, by other authors, is The Victory Garden:The Essential Companion. It includes "three complete volumes in one: Masters of the Victory Garden, The New Victory Garden, and The Victory Garden Landscape Guide. Over 1,000 photographs, drawings, and diagrams on 880 pages." We haven't seen this yet but
The Victory Garden Cookbook. Monash, Marian. Paperback and hardback, several editions. Companion to Crockett's Victory Garden, and the best vegetable cookbook we have seen, because for each vegetable it gives not only a variety of good recipes, but also clear advice on when to harvest, how to preserve, freeze, or keep, and the basic cooking methods. Alphabetical by vegetable, good color photos.
All New Square Foot Gardening. Bartholomew, Mel. Cool Springs Press. 2006. 272 pp. Paperback This book puts forward some different principles for planning a home garden: leave the long rows for the commercial growers, and plant in one-square-foot blocks grouped into sets of four; plant seeds carefully to avoid thinning, and limit numbers planted so that you end up with a realistic amount of produce instead of more than you can use. The book explains how to make all this work in your existing garden, as well as basics on when to plant what, using trellises, succession planting and rotation, soil improvement, and so on. When plants are spaced optimally, they develop better and more uniformly, but no space is wasted. There's less to water and weed; plants may get more attention in less time. The original edition is still very useful,and should be available used: Square Foot Gardening. Bartholomew, Mel. Rodale Press, Emmaus PA. 1981. 347 pp. Paperback.
Book sources: Amazon has new, used, and remaindered (new but discounted) copies of all books mentioned here; Halfcom generally does too. For used books, try Alibris and bookfinder.com.
Websites about gardening (we do not endorse any particular products that may be featured)
General vegetable gardening information. Cornell University has an online library of Vegetable Growing Guides ranging from Artichoke to Zucchini that are quite complete, even telling how many years seed lasts. They also have factsheets on gardening topics such as pests, diseases, getting started in vegetable gardening, when to harvest various crops and how to store them. The . Tips and Techniques at Gardenguides.com - Use the pulldown menu to choose good short instructions on topics such as succession planting, raised beds, and harvesting vegetables. Many include useful tables of specific information. The site also sells seeds and books. The National Gardening Association offers a wide variety of information on all aspects of gatrdening. [Except for hard-to-find items, look for seeds locally and save money. Seeds from local companies are also more likely to be adapted to your particular climate.]
State and regional Master Gardener sites offer information appropriate to your area, as well as ways to contact these trained volunteers. The American Horticultural Society has a clickable US map to master gardener sites by state; some of the state sites refer you also to county master gardener pages. The AHS page has links to Canadian master gardener sites too. Here's a sample, the Ohio Master Gardener site's excellent guide to vegetable gardening, full of information useful in any region. Another page gives advice on where to put your garden site for best results.
Intensive gardening produces more in less space, and generally includes raised beds, vertical gardening, succession planting, and very careful spacing of plants. Find out more at Vegetable Garden: Intensive Gardening Methods (Univ. of Arizona; includes spacing chart for different vegetable varieties), and Intensive Gardening Techniques (University of Nebraska--Lincoln; diagrams of trellis/climbing pole construction, interplanting chart). Square Foot Gardening, one of the books listed above, deals entirely with one method of intensive gardening.
Soil and compost. Composting is a way to improve your garden soil, just as nature does, except that you put the organic material--weeds and other plants, uncooked kitchen waste like peelings, coffee grounds, soil, manure, even grass clippings if applied judiciously--in a pit or pile or wire cage and let it break down before adding it to the garden. The breakdown process uses some of the soil's existing nitrogen (a plant nutrient,or fertilizer), so by composting separately your plants don't have to compete for the nitrogen. Here's one detailed article on the Hows and Whys of composting by a company that sells special barrels and containers for composting; absorb their information but remember that Nature composts all the time with no special plastic gadgets. This shorter article offers basics of composting, and links to more. Composting and Mulching, from the Univ. of Minn., covers both topics thoroughly, with drawings. Curious about what makes your soil the way it is? Have a look at Improving Clay Soils and How's Your Soil Texture? from the pages of Fine Gardening and Kitchen Garden. Worming your way to rich, black compost tells how easy it is to have your own colony of red worms to turn kitchen scraps into compost; extra worms can then be moved into your garden beds to improve and aereate the soil there.
Choosing vegetable varieties. Go with the standard varieties for your area, especially plants sold at good local nurseries or seeds marketed by smaller seed companies located in your region. Some are specialized for your climate; check with local Ag Extension by phone or on the web, the Master Gardener sites listed above, or a good local nursery. Also, we can now choose from many heirloom varieties, with flavor and vigor often superior to the modern varieties developed for commercial growers. Sources of information about particular vegetables and vegetable varieties include articles in garden magazines; your local newspaper; and Cornell University's online Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners service, which tallies the ratings of gardeners from all over the country for all sorts of vegetable varieties. Tomatoes deserve extra attention; all of your home garden produce will taste much better than store-bought, but many of us rank the taste of a home-grown tomato--perfectly ripe, sunwarmed, fresh off the plant--as one of the supreme pleasures of gardening. And there are many varieties of tomatoes, including dozens of heirloom and foreign varieties available now, all with different taste, acidity, color, texture, and growing qualities. They also have intriguing names like Mortgage Lifter, Brandywine, and Nebraska Wedding. The Gardening in Western Washington site (Univ. of WA) has a good list of Tomato Varieties and seed sources for all. This list of tomato varieties grouped by type (beefsteak or cherry tomatoes, tomatoes for salads or for paste, etc.), has many more varieties, with good descriptions, but no sources for seed. Herbs. Hort on the Internet has a good page of links to information about growing herbs . No. Carolina University has good pages on herbs and their cultivation, with information for each of the commonly grown culinary herbs and how to preserve and use; a thorough guide to growing herbs from W. Virginia Extension Service, includes line drawings, instructions on drying and use.
Gardening magazines come in almost as many varieties as tomatoes. Most magazines archive some of their articles on their websites, so you can read them for free. Here are some to try: The Kitchen Garden; Organic Gardening has online articles concerning Edibles, Techniques, and Soil.
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© 2005 The Home Gardening Project Foundation. Last updated October 2005.
Remember, it's your garden!
If you are a beginner, or having a problem, by all means do a little research. But don't be obsessive. Put those seeds or plants in the ground and start learning for yourself.
Soil, sun, water: every garden needs these. Soil should hold water (organic material does that)
and not turn to concrete when dry. Most food plants need at least half a day of sun. Water when the soil seems dry or (definitely!) when leaves begin to droop, but don't keep the soil soaking wet all the time.
Those are the basics. Plant what you like to eat, have a good time, and visit your garden every day for at least a brief time so the garden can teach you more. Soon you will be thinking, like all gardeners, "Next season I think I'll try this,or do that a little differently."
Jot down notes on a calendar or in a notebook, if you want to keep track of when you planted the corn, when it came up,and when the ears were ready for eating, or record ideas for next year. Include some snapshots and a tally of harvests, in ears of corn or baskets of tomatoes, if you like. In the winter, you have memories of summer's flowers and tomatoes and corn, seed catalogs or gardening articles to read, and next year's garden to fantasize about!
Feelin' Good in the Garden
by Cathy Cromwell
I've profiled more than 100 gardeners for articles... A recurring theme is how gardening acts as a major stress reducer. It doesn't matter if they are actively turning the soil, passively watching hummingbirds come to feed, or interacting with children as they share ladybug discoveries. These moments all provide time to breathe deeply and let go of a bit of the hectic day. Some people have described how gardening has helped them cope emotionally with major illness or loss. Many times I've heard, "I don't know what I'd have done without my garden," or "I feel so much better after 30 minutes in the yard." My favorite quote is from a fellow who described himself as "self-medicating" while working with plants!
It's a challenge to find a newspaper or magazine without a headline blaring the detrimental effects of stress on health and longevity. "REDUCE STRESS!" we are admonished. Well, for many, that might be easier said than done. But we lucky gardeners have a direct route to stress reduction. Just get out in the garden. If you think you're too tired to do anything "productive," then sit in a lawn chair and observe. Notice patterns from different vantage points or sun exposures that you might not have caught before. Look at the backside of a leaf or the interior of a flower up close. Rub velvety soft lamb's ears or globe mallow foliage between your fingers.
If you feel too busy to step out into the garden, you probably really need to do so. Tell yourself it will take just 10 minutes. I bet those 10 minutes will renew you. It's not a scientifically controlled survey, but all those gardeners I've talked to from all walks of life can't be wrong!
--National Gardening Association article
