Garden Planning Part 3: Tools & Books + MY FIRST GIVEAWAY!!

Hi guys it's Jen, and today I'm going to take you through part 3 of my garden series, that I promised you back forever ago and haven't followed through on so sorry about that, everythings kinda been in chaos lately. So, what I'm going to go through today are, books and tools that I use. It's one website and several books. Then I'm also going to do a giveaway at the end. So let's get started, the first book I'm going to cover is the Pruner's Handbook. This is an older book, I'll link to all of the books in the description below though, for you. But what I really love this book for, is this back section way back here. Espaliering trees. And if you have a small garden space, this works so well and they really talk you through what to do year one, what to do year two. and I really, really love this book. So if you're needing to do fruit trees. And wanting to make them also pretty, but save space. This is your book, TA DA! Book number 2. The Backyard Homestead. Now, this is pretty standard, it's got a ton of information, but it's broad based information. So if you are just getting into it and you don't want to get a book that's on one specific thing like canning, or livestock raising. Things like that, this is your book. It works really well, and it just gives you, like I say a broad overview on, on everything. I mean they've got goats, and how to butcher a chicken. Which there are better books out there. But, this gives you like I say just a general start, on things. Vegetable Gardeners Bible. Which I have affectionately named. The VGB. And, This guy covers everything, I have read it cover to cover, many times. It goes out with me in the garden, when I'm actually planting seeds. And…. There is so much information in this thing. It's lovely, he talks about intermingling plants and how to accurately space them. And the importance of cover crops! OH! Awesome! Okay so, awesome book! Vegetable Gardeners Bible. This one is How to Grow More Vegetables (and fruit, nuts, berries) Okay it has the longest title in the whole wide world! So I just shorten it to How To Grow More Vegetables. This is where I learned the, well I call it the triangle method. That I talked about in my last video. It has a lot of information. It's very dog eared from me. This is, the chart in here, that you're seeing is How to space and what kind of yeild you'll get from that space. So brief recap. Pruner's Handbook. The Backyard Homestead. The Vegetable Gardeners Bible. How to Grow More Vegetables. Those are my books that I reference all the time. I mean there are BAZILLION gardening books. And they're all fabulous. But these are the ones I reference frequently. They are water damaged, and dog eared and they come out with me to the garden, and I put them through just crap tons of abuse. I love these books, They're excellent references. Let's jump on over to the computer, so I can show you sunCalc. This one is called, SunCalc. So the website is SunCalc.net and I'm going to put in Olympia, and I'm going to zoom in. And we'll go to the YMCA, so we live at the YMCA. So the sun, is going to go In front, like on the front side of the building on the street side of the building. So you know that in high summer, The back side of the building is going to be in much more shade. So, you'll need to utilize that so you can put in your location You can even use latitude longitude doesn't matter However you want to do it, put in your own location. So you can see which way your house faces. So, this doesn't mean your house is actually going to face this direction, but it's going to show you the way the sun tracks over your house. For me this would've been really helpful when I first moved Into this house, because I planted a garden, like with tomatoes and peppers and all things that need hot high sun. And I planted them in the shade. And of course they didn't grow. They wouldn't do anything. So this is a great tool, To figure out how the sun tracks at your specific location. And if you are looking for, If you find oh, just I'm in the shade all the time. I'll also link to a blog post I did about what plants can grow in the shade. So, that's SunCalc for you. And I wanted to show you the book I'm going to do a give away for and that is Farm City. I love this book, it is so inspiring. This gal, Novella Carpenter, she also has a blog. She transformed her whole, urban lot, into a working vegetable and meat farm. She raised rabbits and ducks and turkeys and a pig! And I love it!! It's so inspiring to see what you can do with the ground that you have, or even ground that you commandeer as in her case. So I'm gonna give this baby away. I've read it acouple of times it's a lovely book Leave a comment and tell me why you want it, and I will Randomly pick and I will get in contact with you, and I'll let you know who won my next video. So, Thanks for watching you guys and I'll catch you later. Bye!