The 20-Minute Gardener: The Garden of Your Dreams Without Giving Up Your Life, Your Job, or Your Sanity

by Marty Asher and Thomas Christopher

Book Overview

For those with only 20 minutes a day to spare, this hands-on, uproariously funny, user-friendly guide puts the fun back into gardening. Here, finally, is gardening for the rest of us. Author tour &... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375752668
• ISBN13: 9780375752667
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

completely satisfied

I am quite happy with this book, and would highly recommend it to others. I also have the 20 minute vegetable gardener, and I am so impressed with the info in both that I plan on sharing it with an aunt who LOVES to garden also, but who could definitely benefit from their thoughts and ideas for putting into play the 20 minute concept.

Not only informative, but damn funny!

These guys should've been stand-up comedians...instead, they are articulate, knowledgeable, outspoken advocates of stress-free, fun gardening. If you're looking for a way to keep your sanity AND have a beautiful yard, this is the book for you. If you want one of those full-color, photo-filled coffeetable gardening books that only uses the Latin names for plants (and assumes you have no life other than gardening) move on. My favorite chapter is "Peter Rabbit Had It Coming"!

This book rules

I'd rather shoot myself than read a chapter of most gardening books. This book has entertainment value. The authors don't take themselves too seriously. Why should they--they're discussing flowers and vegtables.

A Different and Intriguing Approach to Gardening

The most valuable thing I got out of this book was the change of attitude in gardening. I used to think that if an exotic and fragile plant didn't thrive in my garden, it was because I didn't treat it right (e.g. too much/too little sun, too much/too little water, not planting the seed on the exact day at the exact depth, etc., etc.) but this book advocates not coddling one's plants. After all, who has time for that unless one is a full-time horticulturalist? Thanks to this book, I now have a much more relaxed attitude toward gardening so that I can actually ENJOY it. It is also peppered with 20-minute projects, each of which may or may not be interesting or doable to a certain reader, but given the attitude of this book, I don't think the authors would be insulted if one did none of them (I am going to try some of them, though.) This book is fun to read even if one does no more gardening than keep a pot of houseplant. There is also some useful information on weeding, insect control, etc. I liked their mostly organic approach to these things, too. It is NOT a comprehensive guide to gardening, and is not meant to be. If that is what one needs, there is plenty available out there. The message here is 'Work smart, not hard, relax, and have fun.'

Entertaining And Worth Reading!

This book gives practical, hands-on tips on how to spend less time working in your garden and more time enjoying it. It gives tips on weeding (which I found to be funny, but not applicable to me), shopping for garden items and soil tips and techniques. I strongly recommend it for good reading cover to cover or as a gardening reference book.