For people who live in small spaces in cities, there is a small trend where people are growing vegetables indoors with grow lights, hydroponically or in soil. I've been preparing my economy apartment over the last 1 1/2 months to begin doing this.
Being a novice gardener, I've been actively seeking books on indoor gardening, but especially on indoor vegetable gardening, but the reality is that quality books on this subject are very few and far between.
I generally go to Amazon.com for books. With Amazon.com's easy publishing system, there are 10-25 very, very poor books on the subject of indoor vegetable gardening, which are obviously written by people with no experience, who simply want to cash in on a growing niche with a wide open market. Those books have no value whatsoever for someone who wants true information by people who have earned it in their own experience of indoor vegetable gardening.
That being said, in my 2 month search for books on indoor vegetable gardening, I've found 2 books that are quality, and are written by people with real experience in the subject.
I've written this post to list the books I've found, and hopefully to find other folks who have books to recommend on indoor vegetable gardening. If you know of any, please do share the information on them here.
The books I know of:
Indoor Salad, by Ginger Booth - This one covers grow lights and has do-it-yourself projects, in full detail, for growing tomatoes, cucumbers, salad greens, and root plants. She is against organic gardening, and is into hydroponics pretty extensively, but she also covers soil-based gardening. It's an interesting book from a woman with a scientific mind. I learned quite a bit about using grow lights indoors to grow vegetables from it.
Fresh Food from Small Spaces - The Square Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting, by R. J. Ruppenthal - This excellent book covers quite a bit of ground, from a man who clearly has years of experience in small-space city growing. He is against grow lights, because of the energy they consume, but he has extensive information on sprouts, fermenting, growing mushrooms, and growing vegetables in sunlight. I really wish he'd covered grow lights, but what he has covered is clearly expert advice and there are a lot of gems of information in this book.
A search on Amazon will produce 10-25 other "books", with 30-40 5 star reviews, but the authors clearly are gaming the system with them, paying people to buy the book and put a glowing review. For the majority of them, the poor cover image and page count, (generally, 25-75, and that is with large font, making the book essentially a long, unhelpful, confusing article), identifies the book as one of the useless, non-expert ones.
So, do you know of a good book on indoor vegetable gardening? Or, at least, on indoor herb gardening with grow lights? Or, maybe, a greenhouse-based book with information on grow lights that could be converted to use in an apartment in the city?
I'm completely sure that in 3-5 years there will be a lot more truly valuable books on this topic from experienced gardeners, as the niche is very underserved and there's much room for an expert to share good information.
I'm looking forward to any info anyone can share!
Being a novice gardener, I've been actively seeking books on indoor gardening, but especially on indoor vegetable gardening, but the reality is that quality books on this subject are very few and far between.
I generally go to Amazon.com for books. With Amazon.com's easy publishing system, there are 10-25 very, very poor books on the subject of indoor vegetable gardening, which are obviously written by people with no experience, who simply want to cash in on a growing niche with a wide open market. Those books have no value whatsoever for someone who wants true information by people who have earned it in their own experience of indoor vegetable gardening.
That being said, in my 2 month search for books on indoor vegetable gardening, I've found 2 books that are quality, and are written by people with real experience in the subject.
I've written this post to list the books I've found, and hopefully to find other folks who have books to recommend on indoor vegetable gardening. If you know of any, please do share the information on them here.
The books I know of:
Indoor Salad, by Ginger Booth - This one covers grow lights and has do-it-yourself projects, in full detail, for growing tomatoes, cucumbers, salad greens, and root plants. She is against organic gardening, and is into hydroponics pretty extensively, but she also covers soil-based gardening. It's an interesting book from a woman with a scientific mind. I learned quite a bit about using grow lights indoors to grow vegetables from it.
Fresh Food from Small Spaces - The Square Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting, by R. J. Ruppenthal - This excellent book covers quite a bit of ground, from a man who clearly has years of experience in small-space city growing. He is against grow lights, because of the energy they consume, but he has extensive information on sprouts, fermenting, growing mushrooms, and growing vegetables in sunlight. I really wish he'd covered grow lights, but what he has covered is clearly expert advice and there are a lot of gems of information in this book.
A search on Amazon will produce 10-25 other "books", with 30-40 5 star reviews, but the authors clearly are gaming the system with them, paying people to buy the book and put a glowing review. For the majority of them, the poor cover image and page count, (generally, 25-75, and that is with large font, making the book essentially a long, unhelpful, confusing article), identifies the book as one of the useless, non-expert ones.
So, do you know of a good book on indoor vegetable gardening? Or, at least, on indoor herb gardening with grow lights? Or, maybe, a greenhouse-based book with information on grow lights that could be converted to use in an apartment in the city?
I'm completely sure that in 3-5 years there will be a lot more truly valuable books on this topic from experienced gardeners, as the niche is very underserved and there's much room for an expert to share good information.
I'm looking forward to any info anyone can share!