Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts

Book Review: The Vegetable Garden Planner: A Crop-by-Crop Guide for Planning and Tracking Your Garden Bounty Each Year, from Seed Starting to Harvest by Lynn Byczynski

The Vegetable Garden Planner: A Crop-by-Crop Guide for Planning and Tracking Your Garden Bounty Each Year, from Seed Starting to Harvest by Lynn Byczynski is a handy guide that offers gardeners an easy way to track the growth and harvest of their vegetables from year to year. The book is organized alphabetically by vegetable, with several pages of note space for each crop so that readers can easily compare one year’s plant growth, variety performance and flavor, harvest amounts, weather trends, and pest pressure to those from previous years. Author and expert grower Lynn Byczynski offers sage advice throughout, for when and how to start seeds, when to harvest, and a wealth of insightful tips gleaned from her more than 40 years of farming and gardening. With high-quality paper and lay-flat binding, this is the perfect gift for any vegetable gardener.


The Vegetable Garden Planner is a helpful read, and I really like that the book is organized by crop rather than by season, this makes finding exactly the information you might need, whether it is a bit of information you remembered reading last year, what you did different, or dates of certain events like planting or frost that might have effected your gardening results.  There is plenty of space for the reading gardeners notes for this very purpose. The information on the mentioned crops is good but not extensive, and I felt like there could have been less drawings of the plants and more information, or a wider variety of vegetables included. However, that could just be that I have already read up on the mentioned crops that I do grow, and the others included in the book would not be appreciated in my house or do not grow well in my area so I rarely try. I think this is a great resource for those that are just getting started with their vegetable gardening experience, and will help them plan and track what works and what does not. I think more experienced (read stubborn) gardeners are less likely to make use of and learn from this handy book. 

Early Book Review: The Thrifty Baker: Shop, Bake & Eat on a Budget by Hermine Dossou

The Thrifty Baker: Shop, Bake & Eat on a Budget
 by Hermine Dossou is currently scheduled for release on September 12 2023. It offers readers sixty five delicious, affordable and impressive recipes, complete with gluten-free options, plus advice, tips and hacks covering many areas of shopping, baking and cooking in general. Filled with clever ideas and useful features, the book is written with a realism and empathy that comes from the heart, from a lived experience. It isn’t just a book of great recipes, but an essential manual for anyone baking today.

The Thrifty Baker: Shop, Bake & Eat on a Budget is a well written and informative cookbook. I loved the honest and real tone of the book, and the focus on not just cost but reducing waste. I thought the introduction with instructions on how to make things like your own muffin liners and piping bags was great, and the information on tools and ingredients are things that I might have known but those just starting out on their own are not likely to even think about in advance. I also appreciated that each recipe included all measurement systems- so everyone can use this book without having to do conversions. As someone that is always looking to do my baking in the most efficient way, both cost and time wise, I found all the information about the best use of the baking time and multitasking to limit waste of ingredients and energy to be helpful. I really loved that while there is a wide variety of recipes, most are ones that appeal to me and my family and normal life. Yes there are fancy items, but there are also hot dog pretzels and mug cakes- which my teenagers would love and can help make. I think this is a great book for bakers that are looking to learn, are looking to conserve, and just want to eat well with limited funds and waste. 

The Thrifty Baker: Shop, Bake & Eat on a Budget is a cookbook that I just might be looking to squeeze into my overcrowded bookcase. If not, it is one I will be borrowing from the library to re read and make great use of.