Tiny Victory Gardens: Growing food without a yard
Tiny Victory Gardens: Growing food without a yard
Regenerative farmer Acadia Tucker proves it’s possible to grow food without land. In this, her third easy-to-use gardening guide, Tucker describes how to cultivate bountiful container food gardens in pots, planters, and raised beds.
Climate activist and farmer Acadia Tucker fell in love with container gardening after glimpsing its potential to produce food—lots of food. By applying select growing practices, and managing for square inches rather than square feet, she has come up with instructions for growing a small-scale farm on your windowsill, your patio, or in your dining room.
Her book, loaded with helpful illustrations, includes:
Tips on how to grow 21 vegetables in pots, including tomatoes, peppers, and beans
Recipes for cultivating potted vegetable gardens
Tips on finding the right container
Information on designing for small spaces—and making food gardens beautiful
Guidance on how to raise crops in pots all year long
Tucker also describes how to maximize the environmental impact of growing food in pots. She offers tips on attracting pollinators, shows how to build microbe-rich living soil, and explains ways to ditch harmful pesticides and fertilizers. Her goal is to make it easier for anyone with access to a patch of sun to grow food, no backyard required.
ISBN: 9781734901108; SIZE: 6 x 9
PRAISE & PRESS
Tiny Victory Gardens is both a call to action and DIY instructional guidebook for people who don't have much space, but want to make the most of what they have. Expertly written, exceptionally well organized, and thoroughly 'user friendly' in presentation.
——Midwest Book Review
Whatever your motivation for container gardening, Tiny Victory Gardens is a resource worth exploring.
Acadia is an evangelist for the Earth.
—Jill Cloutier, Sustainable World Radio
Gardener extraordinaire Acadia Tucker provides those of us without much yard space everything we need for planting nutritious balcony crops, indoor container gardens, and lush green rooftop farms. More delicious climate-saving ideas from this inspirational farmer-writer.
–Virginia Aronson, Director, Food and Nutrition Resources Foundation
As home gardening continues to climb in response to COVID-19, farmer and environmentalist Acadia Tucker proves that readers do not need a backyard to grow their own food.
There is truly something for everyone in this book.
—Meribeth Deen, Bowen Island Undercurrent
“On your own small scale, you’re doing a really important thing as an individual to reverse the effects of climate change. Imagine if you, your neighbors, your family, and so on are all doing this in their backyard—as a cumulative action, it really can be quite powerful.”
-Acadia Tucker, interviewed in Well & Good
This handy little book is all you’ll need to innovatively grow a kitchen garden. I highly recommend Tiny Victory Gardens. It’s the kind of book that will become dirty and dog-eared because you’ll refer to it so often!
~Barb Skomorowski, Connecticut Horticultural Society
Everyone can grow food! Acadia Tucker provides a practical reference for growing a huge array of crops in small spaces. Useful charts and clear line drawings make this a user-friendly guide for anyone ready to try growing food in containers.
—American Gardener Magazine, American Horticultural Society
The food gardening that author Acadia Tucker describes in her books is a form of activism and rebellion.
–Kamea Chayne, Green Dreamer podcast
In a backyard, porch, balcony, or windowsill—you can grow food just about anywhere and Acadia’s here to show you how. A great read for those interested in gardening, and not sure where to start.
—Jes Walton, Green America
The regenerative farmer and author is back with her third book—a guide to growing crops in a confined space. Inspired by the rise in popularity of gardening during the pandemic, Tiny Victory Gardens is full of suggestions, tips and recipes about the best types of produce to grow in containers. No outdoor space necessary.
~Modern Farmer, “Five New Food & Farming Books by Women”
With so many great tips, ideas, and personal insights from her own gardening explorations, Acadia’s book is an engaging read. The contents are arranged almost like a handbook, and poke holes in any excuse you may have not to grow some food yourself in the space available.
–Cris Blackstone, UNH, Master Gardener News
“Even if they grow herbs on their window sill and make pasta sauce at night with fresh oregano, thyme and rosemary … container gardening really is transformational.”
-Acadia Tucker, from an interview with Joe the Gardener
You'd be amazed at how much you can get from growing plants in containers, and we have books to help you with that. One of my recent favorites is Tiny Victory Gardens by Acadia Tucker.
—Contra Costa County Public Library
This is another excellent effort from Acadia Tucker and should be a great help to anyone beginning container gardening.
—Todd Heft, BBOG
PEEK INSIDE
E X C E R P T
“Once I saw how much food I could get out of a single pot, I was all in. ”
Driving across the country with a sprig of basil riding shotgun heralded the start of my love affair with container gardening. My long trip home to New England, after spending six years farming in Washington State, wasn’t the first time I’d grown food in pots. But the way it came about shifted how I thought about container gardening…continue reading
A U T H O R & I L L U S T R A T O R
Acadia Tucker is a regenerative grower, climate activist, and author. Her books are a call to action for citizen gardeners everywhere and lay the groundwork for planting an organic, regenerative garden. For her, this is gardening, as if our future depends on it.
Before becoming an author, Acadia started a four-season organic market garden in Washington State inspired by farming pioneers Eliot Coleman and Jean-Martin Fortier. While managing the farm, Acadia grew 200 food crops before returning to school at the University of British Columbia to complete a Master's in Land and Water Systems.
Since moving back to her home State of Maine, Acadia has grown hops to support locally sourced craft beer in New England and cultivated sugar kelp in the cold waters of Frenchman Bay. She works as a Product Review Coordinator for the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI). Acadia is a Rodale Institute Ambassador for regenerative agriculture and has been recognized as the 2023 Emergent Communicator from Garden Communicators International.
In her free time, she grows food in her backyard with the help of her farm dogs, Nimbus and Pico, and a flock of runner ducks. She is also the author of Growing Perennial Foods: A field guide to raising resilient herbs, fruits, & vegetables and Growing Good Food: A citizen's guide to backyard carbon farming.
Emily Castle is an ecological gardener and writer based in Pennsylvania. She studied environmental science on the eastern shore of Maryland but began her love affair with plants when she visited tropical food forests abroad, becoming an instant believer in regenerative design. She currently helps propagate native plants at a botanical garden, but previously worked at an arboretum where she designed an edible and wildlife-friendly garden for children. While she takes pleasure in nurturing plants, she also enjoys illustrating them.
