When my husband first began teaching, he was amazed at the number of textbook offers he got each semester - publishers who wanted him to review and rate existing textbooks. Some even wanted him to suggest ideas for new ones, and they offered to help him submit manuscripts. "This is ridiculous!" he would often say. "Why would I write my own textbook when there are so many others out there?"

After a few years of teaching, however, he began to see why this idea was so appealing. One book might have excellent information in one area, but another area was under-represented or poor; if he was teaching a complex course, he'd have to pool together information from several texts. And some information seemed to have been left out of all the books completely; in those cases, he'd assign reading from periodicals or even (gasp!) websites.

R. J. Ruppenthal began writing Fresh Food From Small Spaces: The Square Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting and Sprouting after a similar experience. In the introduction, he writes, "I know firsthand of the need for this book, because I have been searching for it for many years." An staunch urbanite, he wanted to know how he could make the most of the space he had to grow usable, practical foods - enough for his family, and perhaps a little left over to share, barter or sell. (He got points in my book for using "grow" in a more expansive sense: not just fruits and vegetables but also honey, sprouts, eggs and mushrooms.) So he set to work doing research, and he came up with this collection of information.

The problem with the book, then, is exactly what makes it so useful to Ruppenthal: it's very personal. Not personal in the way of gardening memoirs, which use narrative to communicate important information; personal in the way of prioritizing according to fancy. For instance, there's a small section on cold frames (that actually references this book) but the author stops there, casually mentioning that you can buy a kit for around $100 online before moving on. When he comes to self-watering planters, however, he spends several pages detailing exactly how to make your own - and includes several down-and-dirty photos of what looks like a project he completed in his garage. Most of the ideas in this book suffer from similarly thin research; the three "t's" of vertical gardening (terracing, trellising and tumbling) are described in very little detail and without enough information to actually do it yourself, without getting some more books. A section on beekeeping is admittedly drawn from "books and from others who have raised bees and told me about it." The compost section contains both too much detail (charts detailing the N-P-K content of common manures) and too little (an interesting story about a sheet composting that takes a nosedive when the author admits he "cannot yet report on the results because the pile is still decomposing.") It reads very much like a personal journal, which it more useful at some times than others. The presence of many stock photos also erodes some of his credibility; it's as if he cobbled all of this information together to make a presentation, and he waited until the night before to look for visual aids.

The good points: There is a lot of good, solid information about fruit-bearing plants, both where to buy them and what to expect from them. Again, there is a disproportionate amount of information about pollination, but that was obviously a personal interest of his. The section on sprouting is also quite useful, including several recipe ideas to use up your bounty. The chapter about fermented foods (yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, etc.) is interesting, although I found Nourishing Traditions a far more thorough and well-researched source of information. I also thought the chapter titled "Survival During Resource Shortages" was both wise and timely.

This book falls into the category of books whose first chapter really, really excited me, but it failed to deliver. It could have been much more successful as a compendium of resources and data - where to find out more information about topics that interest you - or as a meandering memoir of a city-dweller with a conscience and a strict budget. I wish I could have read that book. But maybe that means I'll have to write it myself!

Larry Gilg has 27 rainbarrels stacked up against the side of his house. Over the rainy season, he's able to collect much of the water he needs to water his garden during the dry season. He could have used a standard electric pump to bring the water to his garden. But that's just not Larry's style.



Larry hooked a water pump to a bicycle trainer and uses it to pump water out of his rainwater system. He must get some funny looks when the neighbors walk by. But can you imagine a more refreshing way to exercise?

I found this story (and the images) on HarvestH20.com, a website dedicated to rainwater harvest. You can read an in-depth interview with Larry on that site, or get step-by-step instructions on how to build Larry's system.