Book Review: Home Grown Pantry by Barbara Pleasant

This Christmas, I received the book Homegrown Pantry: A Gardener’s Guide to Selecting the Best Varieties & Planting the Perfect Amounts for What You Want to Eat Year-Round by Barbara Pleasant.

Pleasant’s book covers not only what varieties to choose and how much to plant for your home pantry, but how to harvest and preserve your foods to maximize their flavors and quality. Pleasant also provides helpful timelines and tips for managing the intensive logistics of planting, growing, harvesting, and preserving foods.

She does all of this while encompassing the reader in the joy of gardening for your own food, and providing beautiful, rich photography.  

I would say one of the best things about her writing in this book is her ability to cover all of the relevant details in a concise manner with thoughtful organization throughout the book. This text is everything a beginner pantry-gardener needs to know, with a lot of helpful details that an intermediate gardener might benefit from as well. Despite how much she covers, the book never is never bogged down too many details.

Pleasant goes into sufficient detail for a new gardener to learn:

- how to freeze, dry, can, root cellar, or ferment your harvest

- how to grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs including how to manage different pests and diseases

- how to harvest and preserve each crop to maximize its potential

- how to manage your time to assure a stocked pantry and a happy gardener year round

I’ve read the Home Grown Pantry cover to cover a few times now, and I am glad to have it. I know I will be referencing it regularly as I continue to increase the amount of food we grow ourselves.

What have you been reading lately?

Cheers,

Susan