The Urban Harvest Guide: Grow Real Food, Cultivate Community, and Feed Your Family Seasonally

Discover how you can build food security and resilience through urban gardening and local food systems, right from your patio, suburban backyard, or neighborhood garden.The Urban Harvest Guide is for anyone seeking a more sustainable and nourishing lifestyle—wherever you live. And it’s not limited to growing vegetables; you can harvest bushels of fruits, herbs, luffa sponges for cleaning, and much more, in almost any space and climate. Author Elise Pickett provides you with the tools and inspiration to reconnect with where your food comes from by growing your own crops, locally sourcing what you can’t or don’t want to grow, and reducing your dependence on industrial supply chains.This comprehensive guide blends practical gardening instruction with strategies for seasonal eating, blueprints for maximizing your growing space, tips for scaling up gradually, and ideas for building supportive community connections, from plant swaps to harvest potlucks. Elise—who grows one-third to one-half of the food her family of four consumes annually on a 5,600-square-foot (1/10-acre) lot—demystifies self-sufficiency and shows that you don’t need a rural homestead to achieve abundance. Through intentional choices and local collaboration, The Urban Harvest Guide offers an encouraging approach to cultivating personal and community resilience right in the heart of your city or suburb.Chapters cover:Choosing crops based on space, season, and lifestyleGrowing in containers, in raised beds, and in the groundThe basics of permaculture, cover crops, and succession plantingPest management, organic compost, and efficient wateringSourcing meat and protein to supplement your harvestCreating a resilient local food networkGarden-to-table recipe inspiration Read more