The Family Garden Plan: Grow a Year's Worth of Sustainable and Healthy Food

Great book. Has everything you need to be a good gardener. Ordering this book to give as a gift.I already have this same book.

Really helps to plan out the yearly family garden! A must have for all gardeners!

I like the helpful tips and planning charts in this book. Have referred to it often as I make plans for spring

Melissa Norris is a fifth generation homesteader, a wealth of knowledge and experience, and a fantastic teacher. I discovered Melissa Norris, her books, podcast, and Facebook groups several years ago. I’m grateful. I’ve learned much from her. Her books are a joy to read. It’s less like reading an instruction manual or textbook, and more like chatting with a good friend. Her guidance is invaluable.Her books “Hand Made” and “The Made From Scratch Life” inspired me to step back from the chaos of modern living and get back to old-fashioned living. From mason jars to cast iron cooking, Melissa and “Pioneering Today” academy has helped me confidently embrace a simpler, more satisfying, healthier life. Her newest book, “The Family Garden Plan: Grow a Year's Worth of Sustainable and Healthy Food” is a wonderful step by step guide to help us grow a year’s worth of healthy food in our own gardens!!This book is a perfect “how-to guide” for beginners covering every aspect from planning, choosing and starting seeds, planting, maintaining your garden, and bringing in and preserving the harvest. The charts, worksheets, and photos will make it easy to plan our best garden yet.While being perfect for beginners, it’s still a great resource for more experienced gardeners. The charts and worksheets are incredibly helpful. So much information, concisely organized in an easy to read, easy to find manner. It’s a handy way to keep notes together for planning each years garden. The food needs for a year worksheet will be helpful while planning out how much food we can anticipate needing. The charts on how much to plant per person to grow a years supply and how much each plant produces on average are helpful too. We will be more likely to grow enough of what we will use, and less of things we won’t. The sections on planning your garden space has so many practical and cleaver ideas for maximizing yield with minimal space. It also discusses things to consider for best garden placement, size, shape, and even info in raised beds and vertical gardening. The section on choosing seeds is so informative. I love that Melissa uses heirloom seeds passed down through the generations within her own family. Seed saving is a practical and valuable tradition, one I hope to start.The section on crop rotation and companion planting is packed with helpful tips. I was excited to learn more about trap crops; this is when you use another plant to trap or pull threats away from your desired harvest crop. This is such a wonderful way to protect your crops from bugs, without using chemicals. Attracting pollinators makes me happy too.There is even space in the book to record your garden plans. This will make it easier while planning next years garden taking crop rotation in mind.  Growing, harvesting, using, and preserving fresh herbs is one of my favorite things to do. Fresh herbs just taste better. Growing herbs is a very easy way for beginners to start and doesn’t require much skill or space. It’s refreshing to see an informative section on medicinal herbs. As a herbalist, I’m so glad this is included in this book!! Growing your own herbs is a wonderful way to become more self-reliant and self-sufficient. I’m eagerly going through this book. I’m starting to plan our garden based on our needs. I’ll be putting in more raised beds this year. This book has brought some concerns to my attention I had previously overlooked. This book is already helping me avoid making costly and inconvenient mistakes in my garden planning.Having a place to record information will be a nice time saver in future years, I can do my research once, then next year I’ll still have it all in one easy to find place. Of course, I’ll make updates as needed. I plan to use this resource as a guidebook and workbook. It will become a nice piece of our family history to pass on to the next generation, hopefully along with some of our own saved heirloom seeds.

I've been a fan of Melissa K. Norris for several years after finding her podcast (Pioneering Today Podcast, check it out if you're into homesteading, gardening, self-sufficiency, etc!)I have her other books, "The Made-from-Scratch Life" and "Hand Made" so I was very excited when I heard she was releasing another book.I put myself in the "beginner" category when it comes to gardening, but I have no doubt you will learn something new even if you've been gardening for decades. Not only does Melissa's book have an incredible value, but she also has awesome bonuses for those that order!Here are some of my favorite parts of the book:1) Microclimate descriptions with her home illustration. This was a fave because I'm a visual learner and appreciated the opportunity to see how you have implemented microclimates on her homestead. I've heard Melissa talk about it on her podcast multiple times but it was helpful to "see it in person".2) "No matter how many times I've grown the same crop or raised a garden, I learn something new every year and season. A garden will teach you many lessons and some of them are about food." Sometimes I get so hard on myself for failure or I get upset when something doesn't go as planned. *recovering perfectionist* so hearing about the constant learning even by an experienced gardener is super comforting and something I have to remind myself of over and over.3) I'm going to just group ALL of the charts as my other favorite part of this book. I can't tell you how invaluable this is. I've tried to come up with my own system the last time I had my little garden and I was just completely overwhelmed and it flopped.Having everything I need to track already done up for me is a huge blessing and something that will give me more "brain space" and not have to reinvent the wheel.If you want to start a garden, no matter how big or small. You need to get your hands on this book. Not only is the book incredible, but the charts and bonuses themselves make this book worth it! I will be referring to this book often in the yeas to come!

This book is perfect if you are looking to grow enough food to feed your family for a year, but don't know where to start. It tells you the average amount of produce plants produce each year and how to figure out how many of those plants you will need per person in your family. This is a must have book!

This book is a must have. It's the first book I see that gives you the method to calculate how much you need to grow for your needs and your family. It's very well-written and understanding. I recommend it to every one.

I bought this book based on a Tik tok recommendation but it had lots of info I already knew from watching YouTube videos. It has some good info but not as much as I would have liked.

This book is a good book for anyone wanting to take their vegetable gardening efforts to the next level with more planning and determination of what they want as their end product and why.

Great book. Look forward to making a nice garden this year.

This book is so good, I have to order a hard copy too.