Grow Now

Grow Now is a guide to regenerative gardening for anyone with a patch of land, big or small. Emily Murphy argues that a garden can be a source of food and a haven for wildlife at once, and she lays out easy-to-follow principles for encouraging biodiversity and improving soil health. She also shows how each yard reflects and connects to the larger ecosystem around it.

The techniques are practical ones that almost anyone can use: no-dig growing, composting and mulching with care, and planting a mix of edible perennials that draw in bees and butterflies. The book also gives detailed advice on raising your nature quotient, choosing plants that return more carbon to the soil, and growing a wider range of vegetables and fruits to improve soil fertility. It looks at rethinking the space given to lawns, and at adding companion plants for pollinators to rewild any plot.

With photographs, lists and sidebars throughout, the book presents gardening as a hopeful, actionable way for individuals to make a climate contribution. It carries an endorsement from Paul Hawken, author of Drawdown and Regeneration.