The book earned me, back in 1979, nearly universal praise (someone from Wisconsin’s Mt. Horeb Mail said it was a damned fine book, with pictures and everything) and garnered me a fortune in royalties, totaling nearly $800, if memory serves me correct. It also taught me a valuable lesson about the concept of growing plants in containers: People weren’t ready for it.
Today, more than 30 years later, all that has changed. For one thing, I’m just about exactly 30 years older. For another, I’m a whole lot smarter. And, finally, people are ready for it.
Why the change in attitude? Why is the time right today for a book on growing plants in containers—and not only plants, but edible plants, fruits of the womb, sustainable-growth harvestable manna—as opposed to a book on container gardening more than three decades ago?
Well, for starters, more people than ever before are living in urban environments. Apartments, condominiums, spider holes stacked nearly one on top of another—just about any habitable space is being inhabited. That means that more people than ever before are no longer able to enjoy the benefits of traditional gardening. But that doesn't mean they can't enjoy container gardening!
A Healthier Alternative
People feel a need to garden because they’re more health-conscious than their ancestors were. They’re better informed about the world around us. With all of the periodic stories about tainted produce, who wouldn’t worry? With all the tales about produce laced with toxins and heavy metals, about irradiated and otherwise diminished foodstuffs of questionable nutritional value and similar concerns, it’s suddenly not only socially expedient but also physiologically critical to find a source of clean, fresh, vitamin-rich produce.
Yet, today, when you visit the produce section of your local supermarket, you find apples that were picked in Madagascar three weeks ago; tomatoes that were plucked green, gassed, and trucked up from Mexico four weeks ago; bananas that were picked unripened from a plantation in Costa Rico five weeks ago; and bell peppers whose origins and date of harvest are still a mystery.
Stand back and watch as little kids fondle the produce—right after holding their pet frogs and iguanas. See adults coughing and sneezing into their hands before hefting a dozen tomatoes and returning them to the stand as not quite ripe. Observe employees hoisting cardboard boxes from stacks of other cardboard boxes sitting on the floor and emptying their contents into bins marked “Special - $2.79 a Pound.” Fresh, healthful fruit and produce? You tell me.
Cutting Costs
People, too, are turning increasingly to gardening because they worry about the high cost of shopping. I remember a time not long ago when meat was the most expensive thing you could buy at your local supermarket and vegetarians were considered frugal, if not outright weird. Today, fresh fruits and vegetables rival and in many cases surpass the cost of meat—thanks in great part to spiraling harvest and delivery costs—and vegetarians present a glowing portrait of people who know something the rest of us don’t. Of course, they’re still considered weird, but that’s another story.
With the rising cost of produce such as we are experiencing, how can we cope? Who wants to take out a second mortgage on the condo merely to buy fresh fruits and vegetables? Who wants to give up financial liquidity for a few more years of physical and emotional well being? Or could there be another way?
I hate paying through the nose for those things that I could be supplying for myself and my family for next to no cost; and I wanted to put all of the knowledge I have gained about container gardening to good use. What choice did I have but to tackle the ultimate book on fruit and vegetable gardening?
There are other reasons for the timeliness of my book, of course. Improved technology makes no-yard gardening easier than ever. Modern inventions (mere pipedreams back during the early days of garden writing) and new discoveries about effective horticultural techniques make growing fruit and vegetables in pots more practical than ever. New varieties of plants—both fruits and vegetables—called cultivars (short for “cultivated varieties”) make container gardening much easier and more successful than in the good old days B.C. (Before Containers). Thus was born the concept for this book.
But those are not the only reasons for growing fruit and vegetables in pots—not by a long shot. There are others, and I’ll be talking about them soon. I'm guessing you'll be amazed at the things you can do and grow with a minimum of knowledge, a minimum of space, and a maximum of enjoyment. I'm also going to tell you how container gardening can not only change your life, but also very possibly save it.
You'll learn which fruit and vegetables grow best in pots, which varieties outperform their less robust cousins, how to plant and nurture your crops from planting to harvest, how to build your own best recipe for gardening success, and how get the message out to others: the time is right for container gardening. And you’re going to learn about it right here. Guaranteed.
Check out From Container to Kitchen: Growing Fruits and Vegetables in Pots by gardening author D. J. Herda, available from Amazon.com and booksellers everywhere. Or get the Kindle Edition Here.
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