Grow What You Love: 12 Food Plant Families To Change Your Life

by Emily Murphy

Overview

As seen on NBC's Today Show, Grow What You Love is an accessible and inspiring guide that explores just how easy it is to grow your favorite produce and herbs.

"Gardening blogger Murphy's beautiful debut makes gardening just as much an art as a science... Murphy writes in a way that makes it personal and joyous... Instead of focusing on inches, weeks, and weeding, the book is about cultivating a connection to the earth, the outdoors, and food... This book is for anyone who's interested in gardening, no matter how small or large the garden, or how limited the reader's experience."
— Publishers Weekly

Grow What You Love is a simple guide to growing vegetables, herbs and more that will add flavor and variety to the fresh produce readers can access throughout the year. Aimed at novice and experienced gardeners alike, Grow What You Love is an image-driven, how-to adventure from an expert organic gardener with an enthusiasm for an authentic life.

Lavishly illustrated with more than 250 photographs, the book begins with an exploration of Emily's approach to gardening and how it can fit into modern life with little time and effort. She gives advice on how best to choose food plants that readers love (or will grow to love), and follows with simple methods for garden-to-table growing, including a selection of her favorite seasonal recipes. The result for readers will be a garden-fresh bounty for any time of the year.

Complete with workshops that cover topics like composting, transplanting, pruning, and how to combine plants in the garden, and with online resources and hardiness zone maps, Grow What You Love is packed with goodness for every gardener.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780228100201
Publisher:	Firefly Books, Limited
Publication date:	03/01/2018
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	9.90(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Emily Murphy is an expert organic gardener trained in ethnobotany, environmental science and garden design. She teaches and speaks regularly about her gardening philosophies, and her writing has appeared in numerous online publications, including Better Homes and Gardens. Murphy is also a photographer, cook and creator of the celebrated blog Pass The Pistil. She lives in Northern California with her family and finds daily inspiration from the simple act of growing.

Table of Contents

Introduction 07

Getting Started

Set Your Garden Free 13

Planning Your Garden 13

Where to Start 14

The Basic Ingredients 15

Where to Plant 23

Workshop #1: Convert a Trough into a Raised Bed 29

Sheet Mulching 31

Gardener's Toolkit 32

Know the Rules So You Can Break Them 35

Laying the Groundwork: Cultivating Soil and Composting 37

Know Your Soil 38

Soil Building and Composting 44

Workshop #2: Hot Compost 46

Worm Composting 48

The Plant Directory

Tender Herbs 52

Recipe: Mix and Match Pesto 65

Perennial Herbs 66

Recipe: Rosemary Honey Ice Cream 80

Recipe: Summer Fresh Mojito 81

Tomatoes 82

Workshop #3: Planting and Pruning Tomatoes 86

Recipe: Slow-Roasted Tomatoes with Fresh Herbs 89

Summer Greens 90

Recipe: Summer Salad with Meyer Lemon and Chive Vinaigrette 103

Winter Greens 104

Recipe: Savory Galette 114

Hardy Greens 116

Recipe: Favorite Frittata 125

Root Vegetables 126

Recipe: Roasted Root Vegetables with Citrus, Herbs, Chilies and Pomegranate 139

Cucumbers and Summer Squash 140

Recipe: Summer Squash with Fresh Herbs and Capers 149

Pods and Beans 150

Recipe: Fava Beans, Greens and Fresh Herb Tartine 161

Edible Perennials 162

Recipe: Spiced Rhubarb Compote 175

Berries 176

Recipe: Summer Berry Shrub 189

Edible Flowers and companion Plants 190

Recipe: Candied Violets 206

Recipe: Nasturtium Capers 207

The Simple Act of Growing

Grow: Seeding, Planting and Propagating 211

Seed-Sowing Basics 211

Workshop #4: How to Grow Plants from Seed 218

Workshop #5: Transplanting 221

Succession Planting and Cut-and-Come Again Crops 222

How to Choose Plants at the Nursery 223

Workshop #6: Rooting Stem Cuttings in a Soilless Mix 224

Propagating Plants from Cuttings 226

Dividing Plants 227

Tending and Training 229

Gardening Basics 229

Smart Watering 230

Staking and Trellising 233

Pruning, Deadheading and Tidying Up 235

Feed Your Garden 236

Gardening in Winter 239

Follow Nature, Harvest and Continue Growing 243

Add Diversity to Your Garden 243

Workshop #7: How to Combine Plants 246

Organic Gardening 248

Good Bugs and Bad Bugs 250

Animals in the Garden 254

Continue Growing 255

Workshop #8: Four Easy Ways to Preserve Herbs 256

Workshop #9: Savoring Your Harvest 258

Planning Next Season's Garden 259

Pass It On 260

For My Girls 263

Resources 264

Hardiness and Extreme Minimum Temperature Zones 264

Conversion Table 266

Online Resources 266

Seed Companies 266

On My Shelf 267

A Note About the Gardens 268

Index 269

Editorial Reviews

03/05/2018
Gardening blogger Murphy’s beautiful debut makes gardening just as much an art as a science and encourages readers to adopt a more plant-driven lifestyle, from the garden to the kitchen. The book is divided into three sections: instructions on getting started gardening, a directory of 12 edible plant families, and information on how to tend the garden. While there is a lot of technical information, such as how to combine plants and how to convert a trough into a raised bed, Murphy writes in a way that makes it personal and joyous, not at all like a dry how-to guide. Instead of focusing on inches, weeks, and weeding, the book is about cultivating a connection to the earth, the outdoors, and food. The plant pages include descriptions as well as information on planting, picking, and enjoying the harvest. Murphy throws in some recipes: mix-and-match pesto; slow-roasted tomatoes with fresh herbs; fava beans, greens, and fresh herb tartine; rosemary honey ice cream; and spiced rhubarb compote. This book is for anyone who’s interested in gardening, no matter how small or large the garden, or how limited the reader’s experience. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

A nice volume for anyone looking for inspiration and motivation to start a garden.

Edible East Bay Blog - Kristina Sepetys

Beauty, clarity and simplicity are hallmarks of this guide to growing vegetables, herbs and small fruits — beginning with the table of contents, laid out to allow for a speedy zeroing in on a topic of immediate interest. That might be edible flowers, summer greens, berries, or one of the recipes... Each section of the book is easily scanned and presented in a pleasantly chatty, common-sense style, as in wise tips for setting out on the gardening path... The main, central section is a directory of plants divided into 12 types that include winter greens, root vegetables, berries, pods and beans, and so on. For each individual listing there is a roster of varieties to consider and concise information on where and how to plant, when to pick, and how to use. In the perennial herbs section, for example, thyme is described as a strong, earthy herb that pairs well with squash, onion and potatoes. Before and following the directory, basics are covered: composting, soil types and fertility, container gardens, common pests. Seed-sowing basics includes a recipe for making your own seed starting mix. Among the six workshops scattered throughout the book is a step-by-step, colour-illustrated guide to rooting stem cuttings... Filled with inspiring photos and easy-reading, helpful information. It's a useful pleasure.

Times Colonist - Helen Chesnut

Beautifully put together... It's pure gardener's eye candy... Murphy writes as though she is sitting across from you, chatting over a basket of fresh produce... It's a lifestyle book with the message: get out there, plant something, eat every part of it, and enjoy the process.

Gardenerd.com - Christy Wilhelmi

If you have a friend on the cusp of gardening or need to recharge your own love of it, this book will rev you up. The information is excellent—practical, creative, and informative, the photos are gorgeous, and the mood captures that (wish I had a better word for it) magic we find by indulging in the seasons, digging in the dirt, growing beautiful and edible things, and sharing them with people we love.

Empress of Dirt Blog - Melissa Will

Filled to the brim with ideas and solutions for every gardener. This new book will help you optimize your space while influencing you to fill your life with flavor, variety, positivity and inspiration.

Angie the Freckled Rose Blog - Angie Rose

Grow What You Love by Emily Murphy is perfect whether you're starting your first garden or looking for ways to optimize your existing garden. Lavishly illustrated with more than 250 photographs, it focuses on the plants that are the stars of both the kitchen and the garden, and it includes recipes, personal notes and ideas for growing a garden in the space you have on hand.

Creators - Jeff Rugg

A beautiful publication... Each page is filled with colorful and uplifting images. Each chapter is dedicated to teaching the reader how to dive into their passion and grow what they love.

Creating Living with Bren Haas Blog - Bren Haas

Grow What You Love is essentially an organic gardener's manifesto, part how-to grow food guide and part how to live a gardening life guide. Emily makes gardening feel unthreatening and uncomplicated, and if the target audience is the Millennial non-gardener, it has definitely succeeded. It is a beautifully photographed book.

Slow Flowers Journal Blog - Debra Prinzing

Not only teaches readers to grow and harvest gardens but to apply this philosophy to life as well. Murphy helps readers to plan out gardens to best suite their space and needs. She shares tips and techniques for growing a successful garden.

Mother Earth News

Filled with "garden porn" photography, this lovely how to book not only shares how to grow edibles, but includes recipes to use your harvest in appetizing ways. Guaranteed to get gardeners itching to plant new varieties.

Niagara Escarpment Views

Emily's colorful photography and accessible text guides the novice and experienced gardener to consider a different path when growing things — to grow what you love and fit it in to the modern lifestyle... The book instantly comes alive as you read the first few pages. I felt as if I was sitting across from Emily, as I read (in her conversational tone) how her book is more than just about gardening or food-making: "It's about cultivating joy and growing all parts of your life."... Gardening books sometimes fall neatly and squarely into one category: either it's directed at the beginner gardener or it's an expansive detailed publication for the advanced gardener. What I like best about Emily's book is that it bridges both realms: it offers practical advice for those new to gardening and offers ideas for more experienced gardeners. Emily Murphy's love of learning and growing plants not only exudes from the pages of her new book, but also the fact that she cares — and wants others to be successful... Emily has several garden-to-table recipes for readers to try, whether they grow the food themselves or buy it at the farmer's market... Filled with gorgeous photography and an easy conversational style, "Grow What You Love" is destined to join other great gardening books on my bookshelf.

Frau Zinnie Garden Blog - Jen

Not only teaches readers to grow and harvest gardens but to apply this philosophy to life as well. Murphy helps readers to plan out gardens to best suite their space and needs. She shares tips and techniques for growing a successful garden.

Mother Earth News

Emily's colorful photography and accessible text guides the novice and experienced gardener to consider a different path when growing things — to grow what you love and fit it in to the modern lifestyle... The book instantly comes alive as you read the first few pages. I felt as if I was sitting across from Emily, as I read (in her conversational tone) how her book is more than just about gardening or food-making: "It's about cultivating joy and growing all parts of your life."... Gardening books sometimes fall neatly and squarely into one category: either it's directed at the beginner gardener or it's an expansive detailed publication for the advanced gardener. What I like best about Emily's book is that it bridges both realms: it offers practical advice for those new to gardening and offers ideas for more experienced gardeners. Emily Murphy's love of learning and growing plants not only exudes from the pages of her new book, but also the fact that she cares — and wants others to be successful... Emily has several garden-to-table recipes for readers to try, whether they grow the food themselves or buy it at the farmer's market... Filled with gorgeous photography and an easy conversational style, "Grow What You Love" is destined to join other great gardening books on my bookshelf.

Frau Zinnie Garden Blog - Jen