Don't Throw It, Grow It!: 68 windowsill plants from kitchen scraps [Paperback]

Product Details

• Paperback: 153 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (May 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1603420649
• ISBN-13: 978-1603420648
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 6.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  

By : Deborah Peterson
List Price : $10.95
Price : $8.40
You Save : $2.55 (23%)

 

Don't Throw It, Grow It!: 68 windowsill plants from kitchen scraps [Paperback]

 

Customer Reviews

I have one major problem with this book. I would give it an enthusiastic five stars but for this one oversight: it's very unclear about which plants are decorative and which will actually bear fruit/vegetables. On the cover of the book it shows a recycling triangle symbol with an avocado plant, suggesting that you could run a complete cycle with avocados. I'd be astonished if anyone got an indoor avocado plant to fruit. A few plants explicitly state that you can harvest (herbs, potatoes, and a few others), while a few pretty solidly suggest that they're just decorative, but an awful lot have no mention at all. For those of us with dreams of a mini-windowsill-victory garden, that's frustrating.
Another significant problem is that they'll casually mention when a plant is poisonous (potato, in the case that i recall). No bold face, no larger font, no red warning, just an offhand mention that every part of the potato plant except the potato itself is poisonous. For those of us with pets and children in the house, a little red warning box might be nice.
Beyond those, this is a wonderful book. I have but two west-facing windows in my apartment. No dirt. No patio. Not even any windowboxes. I've found, by trial, error, and luck, a few edible/fruiting plants that i can grow with some success in my windows (hot peppers, bush tomatoes, basil, mint). This book has 68. Sixty-eight. Wow.
And that's not even including hot peppers and tomatoes, which i suppose are less decorative than some of the book's suggestions.
Another omission that i'd love to see rectified in a future version of this book is the damp-paper-towel germination method. They include instruction on starting in water, soil, and gravel, and even have a description of the sphagnum-moss bag method, but for some seeds (avocado, especially), all you need is a dark place, a damp paper towel, and a plastic container. There's no reason to muck around with a sphagnum moss bag for that.
I know that sounds like a lot of criticisms for a book i call wonderful, but trust me, it's wonderful. It could be better, but it's still wonderful. Sixty eight plants!

You can't recycle organics, only paper, plastic, and glass -- or can you? "Don't Throw It, Grow It! 68 Windowsill Plants from Kitchen Scraps" is a novel but effective guide to turning ordinary household organic garbage into a thriving personal garden. "Don't Throw It, Grow It!" promotes the ability to take the remains of countless vegetables and nuts such as almonds, celery, kiwis, squash, and others, plant them, and grow them once more into food. The veggies can then be consumed again, repeating the cycle anew. A conservationist's manual of efficiency, "Don't Throw It, Grow It!" is highly recommended for community library gardening collections.

Related Product

Jiffy 5032 Professional Greenhouse 25-Plant Starter Kit

View