Grow Your Own Spices: Harvest homegrown ginger, turmeric, saffron, wasabi, vanilla, cardamom, and other incredible spices -- no matter where you live!

What a wonderful, beautifully written and researched book!! A clear, concise format that is easy to use and understand. Real world advice written with a balance of history, herbalism, and horticulture, with a touch of whimsy. Beautiful photos too!! Pukalani Garden, Kauai and Jungle Girl send you much Aloha and mahalos!🌺

I ordered this one night and got it the next day in great shape. Love the book because of all the information that it gives in a clear manner.s

A nice reference book for growing and preserving your own spices.

I love this book. I learned so much. If you like to grow your own this is the book for you.

Beautiful photos. Very informative. Loving this book.

I have not been this excited by a gardening book in decades! I grew up in a tropical country and it took me a long time to learn how to grow a healthy garden in the US but there were so many lovely things that I was used to growing that seemed to be only available in a spice jar (yes, I tried growing those seeds without much luck).I ordered this book with a bit of hesitation since spices in gardening books I have read until now focus on herbs and spices for a western kitchen. Well, I could not be more impressed. Besides being beautiful to leaf through, the authors provide detailed instructions on growing conditions, how to germinate specific seeds, look after the plants, harvest and process the spices and adds in medicinal tips to boot. So many of my pantry staples are here - Cumin, turmeric, paprika, cardamom, ginger, pepper - they all have a two page spread with lots of useful information. Sprinkled in are herbs and spices more familiar to the western cook. lavender, dill and fennel are here right along with caraway, Fenugreek and Cardamom.Harvesting and processing are unique to each plant. For example you boil tubers of turmeric before drying them and then powdering them. (Or if you are an indian cook you make turmeric pickle by slicing them into lemon juice and letting them sit for a week - but that is not in the book.)Some of these are for the braver gardener and some for those in for the long haul. Tamarind, which can grow to a towering height, needs six years before it produces a crop and many of these are going to need some very specific growing conditions. Not all these plants will be accessible to every gardener but there are plenty of easy ones to grow in any garden. I have already got a pound of turmeric tubers soaking and ready to plant - these are easily found at South Asian grocery stores for a surprisingly low price.If there are any gaps in this book is that the information on the use of each plant is not always detailed enough. For example, fenugreek is grown not only for it's seeds but also for tender leaves used in Indian cooking. There are a plethora of Indian foods that use fresh fenugreek and the leaves have medicinal value as well.The book includes many pages on growth, care, composting, compost tea, problems in the garden, etc. It is a slim volume but a terrific first step in starting your very own spice garden.

This is a great little book for those of us just starting and wanting to have hands on material to mark up, write in, and highlight and makes notes in the margins. The information is mostly accessible through the internet, but it's bound together in a way that makes it fun to read and gives everything some history and it's place in the garden and cooking. Sometimes it's nice to be able to have information laid out in a way that draws your attention in and gives you cause to read it versus going out and searching for it yourself for things you may not have known you had an interest in.There's a lot of good information for beginners to intermediary farmers, homesteaders, or just someone who is interested in growing their own herbs versus grocery store bought or prices. It covers seeds, ones that can be propogated, rooted, and a few other methods. There's even some good information on compost and making tea to get the best boosts for the harvest. It's a nice book and I've enjoyed sitting down with it. It's beginner friendly. I'd get it again and read more by the author.

This is a thin hardback volume that's full of great pictures and text that I found very interesting and fun to read. I love spices and herbs. I love them for many reasons, culinary, medicinal, magical, aromatic... This book focuses on culinary and has some advice on medicinal use in traditional herbology. The author often draws from her own experience, including past fails, which I enjoyed reading about. I have grown a few of these spices myself, and can vouch for the instruction on dill, horseradish, turmeric, Ginger, and a few others. I've also bought from a few of the suppliers in the back! But that said, I've actually had good luck growing things right out of my kitchen cabinets which the author cautions against. I've started seeds from spice bottles and grown my horseradish, garlic, turmeric and ginger which are all doing great from bulbs/to roots that I got at the grocery store. I think anyone would enjoy reading this book who just likes to read cookbooks or gardening books. I think anyone who's also got a particular affinity for spices will like it as well. It's not a book that contains magical/folkmagic/occult uses of spices, but I do think it would appeal to any neopagian who might consider themselves a kitchen or green witch. :) It is a rather short book and can be finished by most people probably in less than three sessions, but it's good to keep on hand as a gardening reference book.

Lovely, great quality!