Grow Something

This is written for somebody who has never grown a plant, or who has tried and watched it die, and who has quietly concluded that they are the sort of person plants do not survive. There is no such person. There are only people who have not been told the four or five things that actually matter, most of which nobody explains because they seem too obvious to the person explaining. Eighteen chapters, from an empty windowsill to eating something you grew. How to read your own space and count the hours of direct sun, which is the exercise that prevents most beginner disasters. Why soil from the ground kills plants in pots. Why every container needs a drainage hole and why putting stones in the bottom does nothing. How deep to plant a seed, and why small seed planted too deep never appears at all. Watering, where too much kills far more often than too little, and where a drooping plant in wet compost needs less water rather than more. Then what to actually grow: vegetables with the light, container size and honest timescale for each, herbs split into the two families that need opposite treatment, and container and balcony growing including the weight, the wind and the reflected heat nobody warns you about. Pests without reaching for a spray. A full diagnostic chapter on why plants die, symptom by symptom. Pruning, supporting and harvesting so plants keep producing. And a chapter on the seasons written for anybody anywhere, using your own local growing season rather than a calendar printed for one country. Ending with fifty things that actually work, and a ninety day plan, week by week, that finishes with you eating something you grew.

• The four things that decide everything: light, water, what you grow in, and choosing the right plant
• How to count the direct sunlight in your space, which prevents most first year failures
• Why overwatering kills more plants than drought, and the finger test that replaces every schedule
• Which vegetables and herbs are worth a beginner's time, with the container size for each
• How to diagnose a dying plant from its symptoms, in order
• A ninety day week by week plan that ends with a harvest

• Anyone who has never grown a plant and would like to
• People who believe they kill everything, which is a setup problem rather than a character one
• Balcony, windowsill and rooftop growers with no ground at all
• Readers in hot climates, who are badly served by most gardening books
• Anyone who wants a plan for the next ninety days rather than a reference to browse

1. 01Introduction: One living thing
2. 02Getting started
3. 03Getting a plant going
4. 04What to grow
5. 05Keeping it going
6. 06Closing: The thing nobody tells you

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