One Magic Square: The Easy, Organic Way to Grow Your Own Food on a 3-Foot Square [Paperback]

I picked up this book at my local Library. Spring is here and I am always on the look out for a gardening book that is going to motivate me. I did my usual flip the book to the back, and began perusing backwards and came upon the chapter entitled "Hardware In the Food Garden". The first sentence reads "Those lovely pictures of vegetable gardens featuring colorful rows in beds and heaped black soil may be reality somewhere, but not in my climate and not always in gardens run on clean and green principles." Suddenly I wanted to know more. How often have I looked in books and magazines and felt intimidated by the ornate beauty and presentation of the designs. I have never been a confident gardener, but I have always wanted to take control of my own food supply . This book speaks to me on so many levels. It helps me design plots based on what my needs will be (salad plots, stir-fry plots, the herb plot, curry plot etc.). It tells me what I can plant, it lays it all out for me. It tells me how to prepare and maintain my garden without having to spend a fortune. It reads like a book that has been passed down from your favorite Grandmother who is sharing all her secrets with you. I will definitely be purchasing this book. It gets a huge organic green thumbs up from me.

My garden happens to be based entirely on multiple 3'x3' beds, so I was THRILLED to find a book whose entire premise is supposed to be gardening on 3'x3' units.

The book is authored by a lady who has survived a childhood in WWII Europe, and who advocates growing your own food. While I really liked the upbeat, sweet vibe of the text that reminded me of my childhood in my grandmother's garden, I found the book to be very unrealistic in it's claims.

I have been veg gardening for 20 years, using the biointensive method (which means: plants spaced as closely as possible, grown in raised beds, with very deeply worked, excellent quality soil), and I find that the book's bed layouts are completely useless and misleading. The author suggests such crowding of plants that it is preposterous to expect any harvest at all!

For example, in her pizza/pasta plot, the author crams not only 3 eggplants and 6 peppers into one 3'x3' square (which would already be very crowded), but also 3 tomatoes (!), 1 arugula, several red onions, one basil. In addition, all this is grown around a center filled with more onions, while chives are sprinkled around 3 of the peppers!

As I have mentioned, I have gardened for 20 years, and for at least part of this time, I have been using the 3'x3' layout. I have raised tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and all the other plants mentioned above, and believe me, they can't even begin to fit into one square, all at the same time. Typically, if the weather cooperates, and you have great soil, you can just barely fit 2 tomatoes into one of those beds, and if all the stars align, then maybe 1 pepper and 1 basil in addition. And that would be pushing it! If you go ahead and plant all of those plants in one bed, you will guarantee that you will get next to no harvest, and that your plants will be so stressed by the intense competition with the others, that they will be a prime target for every pest and disease within a 10 mile radius.

In another example, the author has you place 3 flowering broccolis, 6 cabbages, and 5 mini cauliflowers just in the very corners of one bed, while the center is occupied with many, many more plants.

If there is one veggie that I am an expert on, it is cabbage, and I can tell you right now that even if you use miniature cabbages, you can barely fit 9 within one square, but if we follow the spacing in this book, I should be able to grow all 9 plus 5 more in just the corners, leaving the center open for many more plants.

The reason why for me the spacings in this book are such a deal breaker, is that if you are an inexperienced gardener and/or rely on your garden to feed your family (and in this economy, many do), a season of growing veggies in this way can be dissapointing to the point of turning a new gardener off of gardening forever, or in a worse case scenario, it can spell a disaster to a family in need.

On the whole, despite it's happy vibe, I can not recommend this book, because of it's sheer impracticality.

You could probably use this book to garden for the next 10 years and not experience everything that she proposes. The instructions are easy, the index of fruits/veggies/trees in the back is indespensible, and the colored pictures are timely. Yes, the theme is of a magic square, but before you know it you'll have 4 or more going, without that much effort. I'm using this book to plan my garden in Bavaria and can't wait to companion plant some rosemary with our pear tree, or see the mustard plant take off.

She relies heavily on Blood & Bone and manure as fertilizers, and considering I own a Mini Cooper, that doesn't sound easy to acquire, so I'll probably just try it with some compost this year and see how the plants take to that.

Warning, the book is written from an Australian perspective, so when she says "north," you know she means "south" for the southern hemisphere. Also, she can plant through winter, and the weather where we are is below freezing for about 4 months out of the year. If you've gardened a little bit before and want to take things to the next level, this is for you.

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