Keen gardeners will already have starter plants sprouting in their homes and greenhouses, but it’s not too late for you to prepare for the growing season. One of the newest ways in which your public library can help is with the Garden Tool Lending Library, coming soon to the Brodie and Waverley branches. Roots to Harvest and Thunder Bay Public Library staff have been working hard over the winter to bring you an all new collection at the library. Soon you will be able to select and borrow from a vast variety of garden tools for one week periods with your library card. We are also working to provide you the resources you need to succeed! In addition to the Library's collection of books and online tools Roots to Harvest is developing pamphlets and workshops to help you grow the best garden you can.
While all of this great new work is underway, why not check out some of the recent additions in gardening, food production, and outdoor spaces. Groundbreaking Food Gardens: 73 Plans That Will Change the Way You Grow Your Garden is not your average gardening book. There really is something for everyone here – from planning for 52 weeks of fresh greens, planting with the plan for a stocked pantry year round, growing your own cocktail ingredients, giving seedlings a boost, and much more. Each chapter is presented by an expert in that field, with more topics covered than you can shake a stick at (or think to cram into just 243 pages). Topping it all off is a suggested list of additional resources and plant list.
Talk to anyone at Roots to Harvest or any avid gardener and you will learn the importance of bees within our environment. Victory Gardens for Bees: A DIY Guide to Saving the Bees investigates the growing problem of bee mortality and offers practical measures we can all take to help. Just as citizens banded together to produce Victory Gardens to offset the perilous food shortages of World Wars I and II, now a similarly vital level of collective effort is needed to make our gardens into lifesaving shelters for bees. Planning a bee-friendly space can provide a beautiful and bountiful selection of edible crops, native plants and fragrant ornamentals, as well as herbs that have medicinal properties for both pollinators and people. With the help of ten inspiring garden plans and planting guides, this book shows how bee-friendly plants can be used in creative combinations for plots and pots of all sizes, and are easily grown by novices and seasoned gardeners alike. Victory Gardens for Bees is also buzzing with DIY projects that will provide nesting sites and essential supplies for precious pollinators.
Big Ideas for Small Spaces: Creative Ideas and 30 Projects for Balconies, Roof Gardens, Windowsills and Terraces is a great option for anyone living in an apartment or condo. This book provides instructions and photographs show to make 30 easy projects for the garden using inexpensive or found materials. It suggests practical solutions to greening a small and otherwise barren area including outer walls, tiny patios, balconies, courtyards, terraces, windowsills and rooftops. Also includes instructions on the basics of gardening.
Not to be forgotten is the Home Improvement Reference Center database (accessible with your Library Card and PIN via the Library’s website). Here you will find support and ideas for DIY projects in and around your home and outdoor space. Get out there and get planting with the knowledge that the library is behind you every step of the way!
Ruth Hamlin-Douglas
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