No matter your skill level, beginner or expert, a gardener is always looking for tips and tricks to make your garden more abundant and the weeds fewer. Julia Watkins shares her experience with different varieties and gives clear and easy to understand how they respond to full sun, shade, fertilizer and watering. I learned many new steps to make sure my garden produces enough to share.

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read and review this book. This is a guide to growing a garden in your backyard. Watkins makes it user friendly, so if you are new to gardening this is a simple guide that is easy to follow. "The book covers all the nuts and bolts of creating and caring for your garden—planning, building, planting, tending, and harvesting—followed by a deeper dive into the plants themselves: demystifying annuals vs. perennials, cold-weather vs. warm-weather veggies, and profiles of favorite crops." I learned a lot and can't wait to have a backyard so I can grow a garden of my own someday.

I found some great pointers on here to apply to my garden. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book; I highly recommend this to anyone who's rarin' to start a garden and also for those who are looking for new perspectives.

This was a great book and I think beginner gardeners will really enjoy this, as well as people who have gardened forever.

Gardening for everyone by Julia Watkins is a beautiful book full of recipes and instructions on how to have a successful garden. The book goes over different gardening methods, how to deal with pests and tips on growing from seed. This book also has profiles on different plants and herbs that are popular to grow. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn to garden or to refresh themselves on methods.

Lots of good information without being overwhelming, for gardeners of all skill levels and interests. Very inspirational!

Thank you to the author, Mariner Books and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a fantastic resource for those that are embarking on gardening, giving a lot of practical advice on everything involved in gardening, whether you have just a small balcony or a plot of land - and at the same time, tips and advice of experienced gardeners is included as well. The author covers a lot of ground, but does it in a structured and helpful way. Although I loved the gorgeous photographs, I did find them a bit too instagram-worthy and a bit unrealistic in terms of raising expectations - but that is the only quibble I have.

Julia Watkins has a wide variety of gardening experience, beginning with her grandparents' garden, gardening in a variety of jobs and in various sized backyards, even gardening as a Peace Corp worker in West Africa. Gardening for Everyone is a resource book organized by stages: planning, tending, building, planting, harvesting, and playing. She supplies plant profiles for many common kitchen garden plants. Watkins is definitely not a one size fits all gardener. She inspires gardeners with lots of options for creative use of space, even indoors. Her fun and practical ideas for playing will bring out the creative child in all of her readers. The photographs in this book are particularly beautiful and inspiring.

I am grateful to have received a complimentary copy of Gardening for Everyone from Mariner Books via NetGalley without obligation. All opinions expressed here are my own.

I am a total sucker for beautiful books and books about gardens, so what can be better than a beautifully illustrated book about gardens?

This book is meant to be a guide, but I did read it cover to cover, with plans to return to spend more time with various sections. There are craft instructions, plant guides, but most importantly, pretty pictures. Although the easy to follow instructions make gardening seem easy, I am still constrained by poor soil, inadequate sunlight, and a black thumb. But I can still dream and this book is perfect for bringing gardening dreams to fruition. #GardeningforEveryone #NetGalley

Gardening for Everyone

Amazing, approachable reference book for any gardener- from beginners to those looking to expand their gardening practice. Julia Watkins walks us through the entire process from planning to harvesting, including helpful information about improving soil and selecting plants based on individual circumstances.

I loved hearing about the author’s history with gardening and how her gardening evolved over time depending on her situation. As a new mother I especially enjoyed her mentions of gardening with her children as they were small, something I hope to do with my children.

She makes a point to stress that each garden should reflect the gardener- there is no right or wrong way to do it.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves gardening, or who is curious about starting but feels intimidated/doesn’t know where to begin.

*I received an Advance Digital Copy of this book and am leaving an honest review voluntarily.

Gardening for Everyone: Growing Vegetables, Herbs, and More at Home by Julia Watkins is currently scheduled for release on March 8 2022. It is a guide to creating and growing a backyard garden simply and sustainably—from planning to planting to harvest, with profiles of essential vegetables and herbs, ecological tips, and fun and creative projects. Growing food in your backyard, porch, or windowsill can be one of the simplest and most rewarding ways to nourish yourself, be self-sufficient, and connect with nature in a hands-on way. Here sustainability expert Julia Watkins shares everything you need to know to grow your own vegetables, fruits, and herbs (as well as wildflowers and other beneficial companion plants). The book covers all the nuts and bolts of creating and caring for your garden—planning, building, planting, tending, and harvesting—followed by a deeper dive into the plants themselves: demystifying annuals vs. perennials, cold-weather vs. warm-weather veggies, and profiles of favorite crops. Throughout, Julia offers tips for creating an eco-friendly and sustainable garden (such as vermicomposting, no-till “lasagna” gardening, and attracting pollinators), plus some fun and unexpected hands-on projects like how to build a bean teepee, make wildflower seed paper, and enjoy refreshing herbal lemonade ice pops.

Gardening for Everyone is a book that has something for everyone that is interested in growing their own food- regardless of the amount of land or time you may have at your disposal. Growing up my parents had a huge garden and most of our produce for the year come from it. I have fond memories of the fresh food, less fond memories of the work involved, and less land and time to invest in the process now than when I was a kid. What I love about the book and the author is that they meet the reader where they are. Information on how to do just about everything in the most sustainable way possible is offered, along with the understanding that not everyone is up for everything. The text is accessible and well written and organized while the included images are well chosen and brighten up the book. I think the reference style of the book offers readers the chance to explore all of the information they are interested in and the chance to explore options they might not have thought available to them, with no judgement about gardening style. For instance, I am a well intentioned gardener- I plant a garden with full intention of a great harvest and doing better than last year every year, but end up sharing the majority of my harvest with bunnies and birds every single year. The fact that the author admitted to having been that type of gardener at one point themselves made me feel much better. I loved that she covered every topic that I might have gone looking for, and included some that I had never considered. The recipes, crafts, and gardening projects included were interesting to me, and I might be trying some oft hem out this year to get the kids more involved. I also liked that some resources for supplies and further information was included at the end of the book.

Gardening for Everyone is a well written and useful book that I would recommend for public libraries and a spot in personal libraries for those with space for more.

This is a fantastic resource! It is full of great strategies, advice, and easy to implement ideas. This is one I'll return to again and again. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book.

Gardening for Everyone by Julia Watkins is subtitled Growing Vegetables, Herbs, and More at Home, which encapsulates this fine gardening aid. With an introduction and its chapters on planning, tending, building and playing in the garden, there are lots of useful tips for beginners and all level of experienced gardeners. It also has a most useful section on plant profiles for your veggie garden, if sadly remiss of personal favourites -pumpkin and potatoes. A delightful how to book with colourful photos and helpful advice that has a four-and-a-half-star rating. Hopefully, it will inspire readers in their own garden adventures. With thanks to Mariner Books and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own and freely given, without influence.

As the title states, this book is a gem for anyone already food gardening at home or for anyone wanting to start out in this satisfying endeavor. From sustainability to detailed looks at the plants themselves, this is a great book for any gardener.

The excitement I feel now when I see a gardening book is real; the emotion rising up when I get my first look at the cover and the photographs inside. That’s my first impression - before I actually read a gardening book, I skim through looking at photos and pertinent information that fits my gardening wants.

We recently moved to a new-to-us home on nearly 2 acres; I made notes while reading this and I’m looking forward to putting this new-found wisdom to good use once I get my garden going. I consider myself new to gardening (the last time I gardened was more than ten years ago and it was in an entirely different region of the country), and this title goes into many of the issues that concern me.

This book is a keeper, and one I’d suggest buying in physical book form.

Gardening for Everyone is an exuberant newbie-friendly general gardening guide by Julia Watkins. Due out 8th March 2022 from HarperCollins on their Mariner imprint, it's 304 pages and will be available in print and ebook formats.

This is an appealing book absolutely full of instagram worthy color photos of vegetables, herbs, and flowers bursting with health and undamaged by insects or covered in dirt/grime/who-knows-what. I've been gardening a long long time and am pretty realistic when it comes to yields and cosmetics of the plants I grow. I know that some years I'll get so much zucchini that my neighbors pretend they're not home when I come 'round. Some years, I fight vine borers and birds (!?) for enough to pickle to last through winter. This book is the equivalent of the winter-dreams perfection of the pictures on the seed packets and descriptions in the Thompson & Morgan plant catalogues which get us through winter blahs whilst waiting for springtime. How realistic they are, I'm not sure.

I fear that actual beginning gardeners will have unrealistic expectations and possibly give up because of the unrelenting expectations of perfection. That being said, this *is* a good general guide to gardening simply and effectively. Information is grouped thematically and sensibly in chapters: planning/assessing/execution, building (semi- and permaculture things such as raised beds and containers), planting (with a good general guide to seed starting and other essential skills), tending, and harvesting/using crops. The next section was the highlight of the book for me. It includes a nice selection of useful fun mini-tutorials for garden related crafts such as origami seed envelopes, citronella candles, hand scrub, syrups, treats, upcycled items, and more.

The final section of the book includes an herbal with good general plant suggestions. Plants listed include herbs and popular vegetables, but no strictly decorative plants. Basic info for each plant is given in bullet point lists in a highlighted text bar and includes common name, general botanical info (Latin nomenclature is not included), hardiness, best practice for selection and planting, culture needs (light/water) and rotation info. Each listing is also accompanied by a line drawing of the plant and short general essay on starting, growing, harvesting, and use.

This is a good basic book with easily accessible text. Graphically it's a beautiful book, full of really superlative color photos of plants bursting with health and vigor. The text is high contrast and easy to read. The author has included resource lists with retailers who are responsible and ethical with regard to organic & heirloom seed strains who focus on diversity and quality. I really liked that.

Four and a half stars. This is a good starter book. It would be a nice choice for gifting, perhaps bundled with a gift card to one of the seed sources in the back of the book.

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

I was so excited for this book and have been trying to get through it, but the formatting makes it impossible to read. Sentences are continually spliced and make no sense. I would still love to read this book, but will apparently need to come back,to after it is published and our library acquires a copy.

Gardening for Everyone is a wonderful informational piece of work that was written by Julia Watkins, an Instagram/Blogger sensation. In her newest book, she makes gardening fun and accessible to all with tips and tricks for any size of space you may have. From the gorgeous and functional illustrations to the fun extension crafts/recipes to enhance your garden experience, this book has it all. Even as a gardener of a few years, I have several takeaways that I want to implement this upcoming spring season which I appreciate.

Book: Gardening for Everyone: Growing Vegetables, Herbs, and More at Home
Author: Julia Watkins

Pub Info: 8 March 2022, Mariner Books
Genres: Arts & Photography, Home & Gardens, Leisure / Hobby, Nature, Food / Health,

I received an electronic copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for honest feedback. Thank you to the author, photographers, publisher, and NG.

Right off the bat, I thought that this book’s cover was gorgeous and eye-catching. I would definitely pick this one up at the library or at a store if I was browsing the respective section. The contents include thematic chapters like 1) Planning, 2) Building, 3) Planting, 4) Tending, 5) Harvesting, 6) Playing, 7) Plant Profiles. The layout is very modern, what stuck out to me the most was the font and photographs throughout.

I read the preface from the author and it is very clear that she is extremely passionate about gardening. Even more so, she is able to articulate a lot of information in clear cut ways that don’t take up too much room OR confuse the reader. Gardening is a really complex hobby, even if it can be pretty easy. There’s a lot that goes into it to prepare, upkeep, etc. Lots of supplies to make life easier and so on. The book has a substantial section for telling how to plan, which in my experience is so important for beginner gardeners. The next section that stood out to me the most was harvesting and plant profiles. I also liked the chart depicting various issues and how to spot them / what to do. This book has a lot of great content that is depicted visually and with straight forward instructions. Overall, I would highly suggest this for beginners and those who want to expand their gardening skills to the next level. The photography is really nice as well. I loved the page 163 on my reader that shows the cutting board and hanging plants. These sorts of things are what I envision every spring when the weather breaks and want to embrace the natural world. :P

"I tend my garden and my garden tends me." What a beautiful and relatable quote and sentiment! Gardening for Everyone is a very apt title...the author writes about gardening for every skill level. As a master gardener myself, I feel this is an excellent book particularly for beginners or those who find starting from scratch daunting. However, there are new ideas for experienced gardeners, too. Gardening constantly changes and there is always something to learn or improve upon.

Julie Watkins describes her happy gardening memories as a child and is passing her knowledge and passion to her own children who also enjoy tending plants and harbouring "traveling fairies". My gardening memories as a child really stand out in my mind, too, especially shelling rows and rows of peas in rapt attention to Mom telling us stories. Watkins details the many benefits of kitchen gardens, climate, frost-free dates (we only have 85-90 frost-free dates a year which is incredibly restrictive; however, the sun shines hotly in summer so what we have grows quickly), the joy and peace gardening gives, health benefits, gratification, gardening in small spaces (containers, bags, vertically), succession planting, pathways, raised beds, soil, sowing seeds, watering, fertilizing and composting. She also describes plants which repel the bad guys and attracting the good, edible flowers, creating seed tapes and growing herbs. And so much more. Many often ask how to preserve herbs...well, it's all here. The latter part of the book contains information on specific plant profiles including family, growing season, sun needs and so on.

Amongst my favourite projects in this book are making clay garden markets...brilliant idea...and the citronella-lemon bowl candles. The flower lollipops and summer bouquet ice pops look too pretty to eat! My plans are to make the Lilac Scones and Botanical Shortbread.

Reading this on a -30C day, it is hard to believe that in a few months we will see green growing things outside! But it is very inspirational no matter the season or weather, including the charming and lovely photographs.

My sincere thank you to Mariner Books and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this absorbing and informative book.