The Comic Book Guide to Growing Food: Step-By-Step Vegetable Gardening for Everyone

Equally charming and useful, this illustrated introduction to gardening is a delightful resource for anyone looking to dig into homegrown veggies. Tychonievich, editor of Rock Garden Quarterly magazine, keeps the tone light and directions simple, framing the guide around a conversation between two neighbors—a technophobic gardening expert and an iPhone-loving novice. The amiable gardening expert astutely refrains from being overly ambitious, instead advising his novice neighbor to keep her gardens small, grow relatively hardy veggies, and (most important) to plant things she loves to eat. Sometimes overly corny, the repartee includes jokes like multiple “number one” rules. Most helpful are how-tos on topics such as building raised beds, dealing with bugs, and deciding which plants to buy, as well as clear instructions on how to fertilize, mulch, and plant. Kozik takes loving care with the bright visual details of the flora and fauna, drawing vegetables, weeds, and insects with specificity such that readers should be able to recognize them in their own backyards. Her art takes the book up a notch, filling what could be a dry instructional manual with verdant leafy spreads and cute cartoony details. This pleasant and unintimidating manual should be a go-to for any comics fan dreaming of sustainable salads. (Feb.)