Balcony Gardening - Trip to the Library

As part of my plans for getting a balcony garden up and running I went to the library to get some books so I could learn up on the topic.

After locating the gardening section I plonked myself down on the floor infront of the shelves and started browsing through the books. reading the titles hunting books that looked promising - ones about gardening in small spaces, growing food, books for beginners, stuff like that. The library had about three shelves full of gardening books, and after going through them all I'd pulled out a pile well over a foot high to narrow down from. I carefully picked up my pile, and garnering a few strange looks at the size of my pile of books I settled down in one of the armchairs and started looking through them more closely.

Some were completely not applicable to what I want to do, or the information was exclusively geared towards people with garden beds, so I managed to exclude a few quite quickly. Then after flicking through the rest and reading a few pages I narrowed it down to three books that I thought were worth getting out and reading through more thoroughly.

 The first book was "The Edible Balcony - Growing Fresh Produce in the Heart of the City" by Alex Mitchell.

Overall I found this book very useful and informative, the actual information in the book was nearly all relevant to what I'm hoping to do, and as well as listing general concepts it had more specific lists, ideas and examples. I particularly liked the "projects" and thinking outside the box" ideas, which really got you thinking of different ways to use all the space that you may have available.

However, I found some parts a bit wordy and irrelevant, there were whole pages where the author was waxing poetic about specific examples of balcony/roof gardens, which I found a bit excessive and too frequent - once I was halfway through the book I'd had enough and started skipping those sections. I also found that while the book was jam packed full of inspiring and attractive photos, they didn't always relate very well to the nearby text. Also, some of the projects would have benefited greatly from having a photo or diagram to explain them, as just the text instructions left me completely baffled. Some parts I had to remember to ignore as it was written by someone from the UK, so the climate concerns are somewhat different there than here in Melbourne.

Having said that, I did gather quite a lot of information from the book, including some ideas for inventive planting options, and the startings of a list of plants to try growing. There was also a fair bit of specific information about those plants that will be useful to go back to once I've chosen what I'm going to grow.

The second book I got was "Grow Your Own Vegetables in Pots: 35 Ideas for Growing Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs in Containers" by Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell

I was very disappointed by this book. On the surface it looks like a book aimed at beginners, containing information for beginner gardeners. However, there was quite a bit of gardening specific terminology that wasn't explained. They also don't give much contact to the plants they're suggesting, or the different conditions that the plants will grow particularly well or poorly in. They just give a whole heap of specific examples of unusual containers that could be used to grow the plants, but don't give any added information that explains why it is a good container for that plant. So unless you can find the specific container they're suggesting you don't really know what to try instead, as they don't tell you the particular aspects of the suggested container (or conditions or combination of plants) that are good.

I really tried to find a good point about this book, but I really struggled. The only thing I could think of was that they were good for adding captions of all their images. I don't feel that I gained any useful information from the book, and I won't be coming back to it as reference in the future.

The last book I got was "Sugar Snaps and Strawberries: Simple Solutions for Creating Your Own Small-Space Edible Garden" by Andrea Bellamy.

This book was quite useful, it had some more specific examples like the other books, but what I found particularly useful was the different chapters it had, in particular the ones near the beginning that talked about planning and such. For example, on chapter suggests writing a list of everything you'd like to grow, ignoring whether it's practical with the space/time/climate/budget you have. I decided to do this exercise, and the act of writing out a list really helped me get going with making some decisions about what I want to grow.

It also has quite an extensive list of plants with information about them and how to best grow them at the end of the book, which was very useful as reference material for narrowing down my list and using this information in combination with that from "The edible balcony" was how I chose my inital list for what I'm going to have a go at growing.

As I've implied in the above paragraphs, I have used these books (and a little bit of the internet and advise from friends) and progressed in my balcony gardening plans, which I shall post some more about soon.

Squee!!!

Look what I picked up from the DHL depot in my lunch break today!!!

That's right, Gertie's new book!! After hearing last week that it was shipping early from Amazon I jumped online and ordered myself a copy! I paid for the middle priced shipping option (the $15 one, rather than the $5 one), which brought the total cost up to $10 more than if I bought it from the book depository, but I decided that that $10 was a small price to pay to get the book sooner! (since the book depository still isn't even shipping yet).

I ordered it on Tuesday, and they tried delivering it to me in Melbourne on Friday - how's that for speedy delivery! Sadly I wasn't home, so I had to arrange to pick it up, and had the agonising wait over the weekend. I was practically bouncing around in my chair at work this morning, so I traded my lunchbreak  for an earlier one and on the dot of noon dashed off on my bike to North Melbourne to pick it up.

I haven't managed to do much more than flick through the book yet, but all I had to to was open the cover to fall in love. The dress pictured above is pictured on the first page of the book and it was love at first sight! After some frantic flicking through the book I discovered that this is one of the 10 patterns included in the book (phew!).

Yes, that is Liberty that Gertie has made the dress from. And did you want to know something fortunate? I have a nice big piece of the same liberty in the blue colourway just waiting to be made into something lovely, maybe this pattern will be it...

I'll be back in a few days when I've actually had a chance to read the book with a more thorough opinion, but I already suspect that my "to sew" list is about to explode!

Knitting Books - mini-reviews

Just before Christmas I went to the library to get out some books on knitting. As I thought they proved to be a valuable resource in my sock knitting endeavors. Some more than others however, so I thought I'd do a mini review of what I thought of them and what I found useful, from a beginner knitter's standpoint.

It should be noted that these three books were chosen somewhat at random from the selection available at the library that I went to.

This first book was "simple knitting - a how-to knit workshop with 20 desirable projects" by Erica Knight. I got this book because it starts right at the beginning with techniques, and then works onto projects of increasing difficulty. However, while it did cover the absolute basics, as a beginner I found that there were some things that were missing from the explanations and I actually needed another resource (another book or the internet) to fill in those gaps. The most useful section of this book was the images of the swatches of different stitches. Sadly, as a beginner, I personally wouldn't recommend buying this book.

The next book that I consulted was "The sock knitter's workshop - everything knitters need to knit socks beautifully" by Ewa Jostes and Stephanie van der Linden. This book also starts by covering the basics and then moves onto the many different options you have when knitting socks. While the book covers many many options, it makes things simpler for the beginner by having a blue or red "yarn" that you can follow through the book to find the relevant instructions for one of two "beginner" socks that they suggest. This book seems to be a fantastic reference book, with step by step instructions of how to do all the different variations (including many tips to do with options for better fitting socks for different foot shapes), with a stack of patterns at the end of the book. I think it would well serve a knitter right from the beginning of their sock knitting career through to when they are much more advanced.

I didn't actually follow the instructions in this book because I had to choose just one to follow as to not get confused, however I think that I could have easily and successfully followed the instructions here instead of the ones I chose.

The last book is the one that I consulted the most while knitting, it is called "Getting started: Knitting Socks" by Ann Budd.  It doesn't contain as much information as the second book, but includes a comprehensive coverage of how to knit socks. It presents the information in a slightly different order to the sock knitter's workshop, and I decided that it made a little more sense to my brain which is why I chose to use this book as a reference. I found this book a great reference as a beginner as it explains everything very clearly, giving a few alternatives without overwhelming you, and explaining why you might use them. However, I think that once you progress past beginner status you would find less use from this book than the sock knitter's workshop.

If I were to buy a book now (having had a go already) I would probably buy the sock knitter's workshop, however if i were to suggest a book for someone beginning knitting, wanting to try their hand at some socks, I would probably recommend the getting started knitting socks book.

I hope that these mini-reviews have been helpful to someone, and if you have any other recommendations for knitting books or sock knitting books please let me know so I can possibly check them out.

Book Review: The Fashion File

"The Fashion File - Advice, Tips and Inspiration from the Costume Designer of Mad Men"

I borrowed this book from a friend a while back and thought I'd share what I thought of it.

The book aims to help you define your own style, it discusses things like silhouettes, colours, styles and accessories, guiding you through from making self-reflective choices to tips for executing the style. I like that the suggestions are realistic, there is a focus on quality rather than quantity, for example with a section on variations of a little black dress.

I enjoyed reading the book, although I did prefer the earlier chapters such as "defining your silhouette and secrets for dressing your shape" over the later ones like "a passion for vintage". One thing that disappointed me was that despite the frequent references to altering items to suit your style and altering them to fit you perfectly, it was always in the context of taking them to a tailor. I would have liked it if even the idea of generating your own style didn't just rely on what could be found on the high street or in vintage stores, but what your imagination allows you to create by sewing it yourself. But then, I'm slightly biased in that regard.

It was a lovely book to read, inspiring photographs, illustrations to die for and really well written. I'm not sure it's an essential book to have in your library, but I would recommend reading it.