How to Grow Your Dinner Without Leaving the House is a fascinating and useful resource for container growing edible plants no matter what one's resources and space considerations. Due out 27th Aug 2020 from Laurence King Publishing, it's 128 pages and will be available in flexibound format.

I was surprised how much info I gleaned from this volume as well as how many usable bits of info were appropriate to my uses (despite having access to a large outdoor vegetable gardening area for the gardening season). The layout is accessible and logical. The introductory chapters cover some background (why grow vegetables indoors), planning (what should readers specifically grow), finding and using space efficiently, getting started, and some troubleshooting. The following chapters cover planting, transplanting seedlings into containers, maintaining plants and regular culture, troubleshooting, an herbal full of plants to grow and their specific culture requirements, and seasonal growing and space efficiency.

Full of specific advice for the challenging indoors culture of plants, this is an ideal book for people who either don't have access to more traditional growing platforms, or choose to extend the season indoors, or garden indoors year round (apartment dwellers and urban folks). A lot of the info will be useful to traditional gardeners as well who want to up their indoor gardening game. This volume is really full of interesting and useful tips and tricks. Photography and instructions are clear and easy to follow and understand. Especially important info is highlighted in text boxes in the sidebars. The book includes a cross referenced index.

Four stars. Well written and useful. Do I think that readers are going to be able to make a significant contribution to their vegetable intake? No, not really in practical terms. Do I think it's a valuable and worthwhile exercise -especially- with kids and -especially- in the current stressful climate of uncertainty with a pandemic and other social and cultural upheavals? Absolutely! Anything that gives us any semblance of control and even a small feeling of food security is invaluable.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes

How to Grow Your Dinner by Claire Ratinon is a quick read that helps you plan and act on producing your own food through gardening. I absolutely loved that the author included the logistics of planning the space of your garden and focused on a balcony as most books assume you live in a home and are inaccessible for those who live in apartments. She also included valuable tips I have not seen elsewhere such as logging a growing diary which I am now doing for both my garden and my houseplants! The author does an incredible job taking you through EVERY step in the process and explains each step clearly and concisely. This is a valuable book for anyone looking to start their own food garden and is gorgeous to boot!

Many thanks to the publisher Laurence King Publishing Ltd and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Beautiful and full of info!
I really enjoyed this book, and it makes the idea of 'growing your own' very easy. It explains things incredibly well, and the photographs also help with instructions and as a useful guide/example.
It's not a particularly long book but there is a lot of content there!

The reason I haven't given 5* is because of the layout of the book. It lists various plants/veg/fruit but there is no real structure to the order. I personally would have preferred it if they were in order of seasons to plant. It would have been great to include a table or wheel diagram to show when to sow and when to harvest particular plants. Having all of that info in one diagram/image would have been very beneficial and would have personally helped me suss out my planting plan.

**I received an e-ARC from NetGalley for an honest review**

I've been growing tomato plants for years, but I still find it hit and miss on whether or not I'll have any to harvest. This book helped me to see where I was going wrong! The writing is plain and easy to read without speaking down to the reader, unlike a lot of gardening books I've read.

I've always wanted to save seeds but I've never had the opportunity. This book lays it out and makes it seem like it might be time to give it a try.

Overall, I found the book to be incredibly helpful, and hope to be able to buy several copies to hand out for Christmas and birthday presents this year!

How to Grow Your Dinner Without Leaving the House by Claire Ratinon was a very well executed book. I feel it is very well geared towards a beginner as she includes so much information.

Some of the wisest advice I ever got when I started growing my food was not to grow everything but pick things that you really love to eat. She gives that same advice. On top of that, she goes into how there are hundreds of different kinds of seeds for the various varieties of one vegetable. So, if you really love tomatoes, try growing a few varieties to see what you really love and to play with the flavours while cooking and eating. While I have been growing a little bit of my own food for a few years now, I am still very much a novice. From this book, I learned how you can harden your seedlings. Something I never thought to do, but it makes total sense. Another section I loved was the one about various types of plants. She gives so much information on each plant from start to finish as each plant has different needs. My favourite section was the Saving Seeds part. For years I have wanted to learn how, but I have yet to find a source that has helped me get results. I cannot wait to take into account what Ratinon explains in this book.

This book is perfect for those who are extremely new as well as those (like me) who are still new to growing food and still learning from their mistakes year by year. This is a must buy!

I received an electronic advanced reader copy from Laurence King Publishing Ltd through NetGalley. All opinions are 100% my own.