Houbein - One magic square: vegetable gardening: the easy, organic way to grow your own food on a 3-foot square

The thirty Magic Square garden plots offer plenty of ideas, from a simple salad garden with a variety of lettuces, to gardens for soup, stir fry, root crops and more.

San Francisco Chronicle

So many gardening books feature plants mile-long Latin names and confusing charts. Not this one. Its easy-to-follow instructions, diagrams, and photos inspire desire to grow good-for-the-body fresh produce from little yard space. A bonus: some delicious serving suggestions. One Magic Square tells you everything you need to get started and profiles each plant.

The Virginian-Pilot

Australian gardener Houbein has a personal and intimate understanding of food security, having survived famine during the Nazi occupation in Holland. She warns of the dangers of globalized, corporate agribusiness and aims to put you in control of the production of at least part of the food you need... The book provides basic gardening information and a wide variety of square-yard vegetable garden plans... [and is] as much a compilation of Houbeins gardening life as a straightforward step-by-step how-to manual. Like an eccentric but wise great aunt, at turns whimsically practical... Houbein offers much valuable advice.

Publishers Weekly

One Magic Square... enchants on many levels. Veggie gardeners (especially rookies) will benefit from Houbeins knowledge, which is informed by science and folk wisdom, as well as the breadth of its content (growing information, 30 design plots, many recipes). This single line could sustain us for life: Never garden in a mood of wanting to control everything.

Chicago Tribune

From plot designs to starting seeds to composting, [One Magic Square] offers beginners a manageable way to get started with organic gardening. It also gives great advice on natural ways of keeping pests away, as well as useful vegetable groupings, [and] even recipes.

The Post-Star

Everything Is Real 1984

Walk a Barefoot Road 1988, 1990

The Sixth Sense 1992

Lily Makes a Living 1996

Island Girl 2009

Wrong Face in the Mirror 1990

Tibetan Transit 1999

Outside the Magic Square 2012

One Magic Square Vegetable Gardening: The Easy, Organic Way to Grow Your Own Food on a 3-Foot SquareExpanded Second Edition

Text and photographs copyright 2008, 2010, 2016 Lolo Houbein

First published in Australia in 2008 as One Magic Square by Wakefield Press. With excerpts from Outside the Magic Square, first published in 2012 by Wakefield Press.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Houbein, Lolo, author.

Title: One magic square : vegetable gardening : the easy, organic way to grow your own food on a 3-foot square / Lolo Houbein.

Other titles: Vegetable gardening

Description: Second edition. | New York, NY : The Experiment, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015041550 | ISBN 9781615193257 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Organic gardening. | Vegetable gardening. | Kitchen gardens.

Classification: LCC SB453.5 .H68 2016 | DDC 635/.0484--dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015041550

ISBN 978-1-61519-325-7
Ebook ISBN 978-1-61519-335-6

Cover design by Sarah Smith
Author photograph by Laura Smith
Text design by Sarah Smith

Manufactured in the United States of America
Distributed by Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
Distributed simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Ltd.

First printing February 2016
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my grandchildren Paul, David, Uaan, and Ty. This is a book for their future. And for Burwell, for putting up.

In memory of Hendrik Houbein (17961874), grower of cabbages, carrots, onions, and potatoes in North-West Frisia, and Uncle Wim Schild, who taught me about vegetables, fruits, and chickens in his magic food garden at Laren, North Holland.

MY UNDERSTANDING of food gardening comes from deep time, from my great-great-grandfather who was an estate gardener in Frysln, the Netherlands, where Friesian cows hail from. In later life he was registered as a kooltjer, a grower of four main vegetable crops: potatoes, cabbages, carrots, and onions. Maybe he became a market gardener because socioeconomic changes caused people to give up growing the familys food in favor of working for wages. Food had to be purchased and someone else had to grow it. His son operated a vegetable shop as well as teaching school, and his grandson, my grandfather, owned a vegetable shop and wholesale business. One of my grandfathers sons, my uncle, grew oranges in California. On my mothers side, Uncle Wim took me for walks from the time I toddled through his pride-and-joy food garden in Laren, North Holland.

Yet, just as surely as I carry this joyous history of food growing and harvesting, I suspect that my ongoing concern with hunger and food shortages also comes from deep time and from both sides of the family, as well as my personal experience of famine.

During 1944 and 1945, I endured a famine and, at 5 feet 8 inches tall, was reduced to 75 pounds of bone and sinew. I carry the memories of my hometown, Hilversum (population 80,000 in the 1940s), breaking down as war action cut off the region. All trees became firewood, as did doors, cupboards, furniture, and fences. Cats, dogs, and rabbits disappeared. I starved rather than eat our rabbit Trudy. Mice, rats, and birds went into the pot. Rivers were fished out. We ate chardnormally reserved for pig fodderand tulip bulbs, which made me ill. I dug for grass roots under the snow to steady my stomach. A long winter of famine ensued during which 24,000 people died of starvation. Now, I witness the worlds food-producing regions declining again through wars, landmines, and farmers deaths. All famines are caused by war. In peacetime, crop failures through natural calamities, usually local and short-term, can be met by rapid food aid.

I became a food gardener after I immigrated to Australia, in my first backyard. My daughter, son, and grandson now grow their own herbs, fruits, and vegetables. Yet I know people with no food-growing history whatsoever who produce impressive vegetables at first try! The time is here for everyone to get in touch with food at a grassroots level. Even if you do not have a garden, you can start or join a community garden in your neighborhood.