Book Review: I Garden: Urban Style

I GARDEN: Urban Style

Grow the Garden that Fits Your Space & Schedule

by Reggie Solomon and Michael Nolan

160 pages

Betterway Books, 2010

List price: $17.99

Kindle edition: $9.99

There are many things I like about this book. Visually, it's a treat. Not too overwhelming with its photographs, which are complimented by the colors and layout of the pages. On my first thumb-through of the book, I got the feeling of a scrapbook - a gardening treasury of tips and tools for not only general gardening, but the best way to do it in the sometimes confining spaces of urban living.

While the focus is on edibles, annuals and perennials are spoken for too. In fact, when it comes to what you need to know about urban gardening (and then some), I'm not sure they left anything out.

Authors Reggie Solomon and Michael Nolan, both come with credentials of their own as well as collectively, being the creators of the popular website, Urban Garden Casual. Here, they collaborate again, to share a wealth of information about how you can garden, even if you don't have a large expanse of yard in which to do it. They also enlist the help of some other internet urban gardening rock stars throughout the book. The best books about gardening are those that have a wide appeal to gardeners of all types.

Though this book was written for urban gardeners, the information shared here will benefit gardeners, period. And it's done in a fun, hip way that will leave you feeling as if you have no excuse not to garden if you really want to, no matter what your dwelling situation might be.

Reggie Solomon is the creator of two blogs - UrbanGardenCasual.com and TomatoCasual.com. Urban Garden Casual is focused on helpin gurban dwellers garden. Reggie enjoys ending to a small backyard garden located a block from the intersection I-95 and I-91 in New Haven, Connecticut, where he grows more than twenty varieties of tomatoes and ten varieties of basil.

Michael Nolan has been a gardener since childhood and is the founder of the Riverside Community Garden in Atlanta, Georgia. He is a full-time writer who lives the casual gardening lifestyle that he writes about. Michael also hosts the weekly Internet-based radio show, The Cheap & Easy Show that combines gardening and frugal living topics with music from unsigned musicians.