R. J. Ruppenthal

This book was written for apartment, condo, and small-house dwellers. The author gives suggestions for eking home-grown/sprouted/fermented foods out of postage-stamp yards, balconies, laundry rooms, sunken patios, cupboards, windowsills, and closets. He covers vegetable gardening (using reflected light, trellising, and terracing), compact fruits and berries, sprouting, fermenting (yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, and kimchi), cultivating mushrooms, keeping chickens and bees, and composting. Somewhere in there was also a mention of foraging. He says:

“Using this book, most urban residents can learn to grow as much as 10 to 20 percent of the fresh food their families eat from an average-sized urban condominium or apartment space.” [pg xiii]

I found many interesting nuggets in this low-visual, high-text book: Mr. Ruppenthal has some great advice on making your own extra-large self-watering containers out of storage bins, and he makes a convincing argument for sprouting (convincing enough to get even me thinking about trying it).

The final chapter discusses the sustainability movement (local food, organic agriculture, farmers markets, etc.). Just before that is an unexpected chapter on emergency preparedness. After that: no index. That bit took me by surprise – there's not many non-fiction books without indexes these days.… (altro)

This is a good book for ideas - the author dips into gardening, beekeeping, mushroom growing, sprouts, etc... with more expertise in the gardening and sprouting areas. I may not be as ready as he is to contemplate more closely any future shortages in resources that will make more urban food production necessary, but I'm thinking I might try raspberries this spring and may try out some sprouting this winter. The writing style made my eyes roll from time to time (supernouns and "you may laugh" especially) - but I've got the book put aside to go investigate some of the web resources that he lists. I'd like to see more books on urban food production out there.… (altro)

As Amazon booklets go, I found Blueberries in Your Backyard to be just a little better than average. The booklet provided basic information on varieties, where and how to plant them, soils and mulches, and caring for your blueberries. I have grown them in my yard for many years and found some of this to be informative. As a northern gardener, I found that the booklet was lacking some important information. More information should have been provided on pests and how to counter them. While birds were mentioned, deer and Japanese beetles were not. Deer love blueberry bushes and will chew them right to the ground if you don't protect protect the plants. Japanese beetles don't do long term damage, but can be a major irritation if they swarm. There was also nothing mentioned about the dangers of cold weather in the spring. If there is a frost or freeze at the wrong time, your blueberries will get nipped and you won't get any (or very few) berries. Finally, there was no discussion on the importance of pruning and rejuvenation to keep your plants vigorous and productive. Nearly half of the booklet was devoted to the first chapter on "Why Grow Blueberries?" This droned on far too long. If you bought this booklet (fortunately I got it for free), you are probably aware of most of this information anyway and just want to know how to get started. This chapter should have been sharply edited, so the other chapters could be expanded with more information on raising and caring for blueberries.… (altro)