Rebel Gardening: A beginner’s handbook to organic urban gardening

Product Information

To apply this method to your growing space, if you have a lawn or weeds all over the ground, just put a layer of cardboard on top of it, making sure that the cardboard doesn’t have any tape on it (if you’ve reused a delivery box, like me, for example!). Ink should be fine, as in most cases it is vegetable ink on brown cardboard and not shiny as it often is with bits of plastic.

The compost is organic matter that is always disintegrating, and micro- and macroorganisms are eating it and excreting more nutrients than they would otherwise if you had disturbed and disrupted these creatures’ activities and the natural balance. In reality, Vitale, who says he had originally dreamed of becoming a tattoo artist, was a long way from the nearest wild river, mountain or lake, never mind his home. He was renting a house with barely any outdoor space in North London, and so he started growing chillies in a pot on the windowsill. This is a beginner’s handbook for organic urban gardening. If you have seen Vitale’s videos on social media, you know how empowering and motivational a gardener he is. Rebel Gardening brings us all the action. Not only is the book put together in the best way, but the instructions or guides to create your garden are also helpful. One of my main inspirations and gardening heroes is Charles Dowding, who taught me all I know about a method called No-Dig Gardening, where the principles focus on not disrupting the life within the soil.

Success!

At the beginning of each growing season, spread a thin coating of compost over the entire raised bed to provide new organic matter for the microorganisms and protect them. Add the cauliflower, onions, carrots and celery and simmer for 10–15 minutes, until the veg is cooked but still firm. One of Vitale’s gardening heroes is Charles ‘No Dig’ Dowding, author of multiple best-selling gardening books, whom he first met through a mutual acquaintance at the tail end of 2021. “I have always admired him and so I had gone to an open day with a friend of mine who had done many courses with him, and he introduced us.” Bring the vinegar or cider to a rolling boil in a large pan and add the cloves, bay leaves, mustard seeds, peppercorns and salt.

I’m Alessandro Vitale also known as “Spicymoustache”. I’m based in London and I have been an Urban farmer for 7+ years and content creator for the past 1 year, producing educational content about gardening and maximising the production of food in a small space (i grow my own food in 8×5 metres of space), foraging wild food, natural remedies and how to use every part of your fruit and vegetables with a zero waste approach for a more sustainable life even in the middle of the city. My goal is to educate people not only to grow their own food and re-create the missing link with nature but also reduce their impact on the environment by lowering their carbon footprint. The main point is to create digestible content in the most authentic way so anyone could do the same at home.Note: If you don’t have less decomposed compost, you can use mature compost. All you have to do is add compost to your raised beds once a year, and that’s all. The shady spots are never as shady as you think and the sunny spots are never as sunny. This partly explains why failure is an essential component of gardening. Just a few feet of separation can produce significant changes in light. I once planted two rose bushes within three feet of each other on the southeast exposure of my lawn. One prospered but the other faltered because of the dappled sunlight that reached it through overhanging trees. When I moved the laggard to what I had previously thought of as the too-shady side of my lawn, it doubled in size. Rebels can sometimes make facile assumptions about what parts of the organization would be most receptive to change. The team you think is ideal for your prototype because the leader is so friendly may actually harbor bamboo spikes underneath its surface. Go beyond superficial appearances.

Sadly, Pietro died when his grandson Alessandro was just 10, but more than twenty years on, the grown-up version of that little boy still credits his grandfather with teaching him how to really connect to the land and its abundance and how to have fun doing that. Do you live in the city and yearn for the space and time to grow your own food and live more connected with nature and the seasons? Rebel Gardening shows that anyone can grow a garden of delicious organic fruit and vegetables, wildlife-friendly wildflowers and abundant herbsin absolutely any urban space with a bit of know-how. Begin by adding a layer of less-decomposed compost (see Note, below), which is less mature and less rich in nutrients, to a raised bed. Alternatively, you could add a mix of mushroom compost, mature horse manure and/or store-bought compost. Place the cabbage in a large mixing bowl. Blanch the cabbage with boiling water, being careful that the bowl is big enough to fit the water in. You don’t want boiling water spilling all over you.Did you know cardboard could kill weeds for you? It’s just one gardening practice that Alessandro Vitale, a Londoner by way of Italy with a lifelong passion for growing things, champions in his new book, Rebel Gardening: A Beginner’s Handbook to Creating an Organic Urban Garden, for both its regenerative benefits and novice friendliness. Failure is an essential component of gardening and of being a Rebel at Work. It’s only been in the past year that, as a gardener, I’ve become comfortable in ripping out plants that didn’t work out where I put them. I used to think such bad outcomes were an indictment of my underdeveloped gardening skills. Now I understand that only through experimentation can I learn what works and what doesn’t. Now Rebels at Work probably can’t afford too many bad ideas, but if you can master the art of tiny pivots—small experiments that can test some aspect of a proposal, you can learn to leverage “failure.” Before gardeners invest real money in a new flower bed, they should first test just a plant here or there to see what works in the soil and light. The soil will also increase the moisture retention capabilities so you won’t have to water as much as in normal garden beds. The beauty of this method is that you can start planting your plants straightaway and start growing your own food as soon as you make your garden bed. In roughly six to eight months, the compost level in your raised bed will fall because microorganisms eat organic waste and excrete nutrients into the soil. This is a fantastic gardening book for new gardeners but experienced gardeners are likely to learn something too, especially with the international organic gardening techniques that he highlights. Vitale goes into all the steps in setting up your garden even in urban environments and focuses on doing it frugally and sustainably. He also talks about pests, watering, companion plants, compost, and tons more. He gives lots of instructions for projects too, and real photos of him and his garden are featured throughout.