Written for a first garden The Garden Year Manual · First Edition
The Garden Year Manual Get the manual
Sasha Merritt · First Edition
From Grow with Sasha

Nobody is born knowing this. It is a short list, and somebody should just hand it to you.

Gardening is not a gift. It is a handful of things plants need, and a longer list of signs they give you when one of them is missing. This is that list written down: one hundred and eighty entries on light, soil, the growing year, the plants themselves, and what a sick leaf is actually telling you. One page each. Why it matters, then exactly what to do.

Get the manual + 2027 calendar · $47 See what’s inside

Or the manual on its own for $37.

“A dead plant is not a verdict on you. It is a sentence in a language you can learn.”

A whole chapter is about building the garden so you are not kneeling on the ground.

$47 for both · PDF · read on any device · 7-day refund

The Garden Year Manual
— One Hundred and Eighty Plain Answers, and a Garden That Finally Works
Sasha Merritt
Grow with Sasha
Manual + calendar A photograph on every page
198 pages · 180 entries · 12 chapters
01 · Why first gardens fail

Almost nobody fails at gardening. They fail at five specific things.

None of them are about talent, and none of them are visible while you are making them. That is the whole problem: the mistake happens in April and the garden tells you about it in July, by which point it looks like bad luck.

The green ink in the margin is which chapter answers each one. This page prints no figure for what you will save on groceries, because that depends on your yard, your season and your prices, and a page that promises you a number has told you something it cannot know.

$47. Once. The season comes back every year.

See both options

$47 once · emailed instantly · PDF · manual only $37

The chapter
that answers it ↓
A first garden
— what actually goes wrong —
The bed goes in the tidiest spotNot the sunniest oneCosts the whole seasonReading your own yard before you build anythingChapter 1 · 15 entries
A little water, every single dayThe most common habit there isShallow roots, gone in one hot weekDeep and less often, and the finger testChapters 2 & 6
Planting out on the warm week in AprilAverage last frost is an averageOne cold night takes the lotCounting back from your own frost datesChapter 4 · 15 entries
Crowding, because seedlings look smallPacket spacing feels absurd in MayMildew and a smaller harvestSpacing, airflow and what to sow in the gapsChapter 5 · 15 entries
A yellow leaf read as bad luckIt is a specific messageThe same loss again next yearFifteen signs and what each one meansChapter 11 · 15 entries
Kneeling on the ground for an hourEvery guide assumes you canQuitting by June, and blaming yourselfBuilding the garden to fit your bodyChapter 3 · 15 entries

Twelve chapters, aimed at every line on that page.

Growing advice is regional. Frost dates, hardiness zones and season length change what works in your yard, and the book says so on the pages where it matters and sends you to your own state extension service for local timings.
Nothing here is a promise about your harvest. It is the list of what to do and why.

02 · What’s inside

12 chapters, 180 entries, 198 pages.

Every entry is built the same way and takes one page. Why it matters, in plain words. Then exactly what to do about it, with real numbers. Then one line worth remembering. And a photograph, because a description of what a bolting lettuce looks like is worth far less than a picture of one.

You do not read it in order. Most people open it in March, do the three things on that page, and shut it again until April. That is the correct way to use it.

01

Where the Sun Falls

15 entries
  1. The Six Hour Rule
  2. How to Watch Your Yard for a Day
  3. Full Sun, Part Sun, Shade
  4. Morning Sun Beats Afternoon Sun
  5. Find Your Frost Dates
  6. What Your Hardiness Zone Tells You
  7. What Your Zone Does Not Tell You
  8. The North Side of the House
  9. Reflected Heat From Walls and Drives
  10. Wind Is the Quiet Killer
  11. Where the Water Goes When It Rains
  12. Start Smaller Than You Want To
  13. The Hose Test
  14. Mapping Your Garden on Paper
  15. The One Bed First Rule
02

Soil You Can Trust

15 entries
  1. What Soil Actually Is
  2. The Jar Test
  3. Sand, Silt and Clay
  4. Garden Soil Is Not Potting Mix
  5. The Raised Bed Fill Recipe
  6. Compost, and How Much
  7. Making Compost Without a Bin
  8. What Not to Compost
  9. Mulch, the Free Half of Watering
  10. How Deep Is Deep Enough
  11. Testing Your pH
  12. Correcting Acid and Alkaline Soil
  13. Do Not Dig, Do This Instead
  14. Topping Up Beds Every Spring
  15. Worms Are the Report Card
03

A Garden That Fits Your Body

15 entries
  1. Build the Bed to Your Hands
  2. The Sweet Spot Height
  3. How Wide Is Too Wide
  4. Path Width You Will Not Regret
  5. A Place to Sit in Every Garden
  6. Long Handled Tools Change Everything
  7. The Kneeler That Turns Into a Seat
  8. Grip Size and Sore Hands
  9. Container Gardening at Table Height
  10. Vertical Growing Saves Your Back
  11. Water Where You Stand
  12. Soaker Hose and a Timer
  13. Lightweight Fabric Beds
  14. Break the Work Into Fifteen Minutes
  15. The Cool Hours
04

Early Spring

15 entries
  1. The Six Weeks Before Last Frost
  2. Reading a Seed Packet
  3. Starting Seeds Indoors
  4. Light, Not Windowsills
  5. Bottom Watering Seedlings
  6. Damping Off
  7. Potting On
  8. Hardening Off
  9. What to Sow Directly Outside
  10. The Cold Frame You Already Own
  11. Peas Go In First
  12. Waking the Beds Up
  13. Do Not Work Wet Soil
  14. Buying Transplants Instead
  15. The Last Frost Bluff
05

Late Spring and Early Summer

15 entries
  1. Planting Out After Frost
  2. Plant Tomatoes Deep
  3. Spacing, and Why You Will Cheat
  4. Support Goes In on Planting Day
  5. The First Deep Watering
  6. Mulch Once the Soil Is Warm
  7. Succession Sowing
  8. Thinning
  9. Slugs, Snails and Cutworms
  10. Pinching Herbs to Bush Out
  11. Side Dressing the Heavy Feeders
  12. Weed While They Are Small
  13. Bolting, and What Triggers It
  14. Who Is Doing the Pollinating
  15. The June Check In
06

High Summer

15 entries
  1. Deep and Less Often
  2. The Finger Test
  3. Watering in a Heatwave
  4. Shade Cloth for the Worst Weeks
  5. Pruning Tomato Suckers
  6. Blossom End Rot Is a Water Problem
  7. Picking Often Makes More
  8. Powdery Mildew
  9. Second Sowings for Autumn
  10. Feeding in Midseason
  11. Keeping the Paths Clear
  12. Saving a Wilted Plant
  13. The Two Week Holiday Plan
  14. Letting Some Things Go
  15. Harvest at the Right Hour
07

Autumn and Putting the Garden to Bed

15 entries
  1. The First Frost Warning
  2. Ripening the Last Tomatoes
  3. Garlic Goes In Now
  4. Sowing a Cover Crop
  5. Cut, Do Not Pull
  6. The Autumn Compost Layer
  7. Leaves Are Not Rubbish
  8. Cleaning and Oiling Tools
  9. Draining Hoses and Barrels
  10. Which Herbs Survive Winter
  11. Protecting Perennials
  12. Emptying and Storing Pots
  13. Saving Seed, Safely
  14. The Season Notes
  15. Ordering for Next Year
08

Fifteen Vegetables That Forgive Beginners

15 entries
  1. Tomatoes
  2. Bush Beans
  3. Lettuce
  4. Zucchini and Summer Squash
  5. Radishes
  6. Swiss Chard
  7. Kale
  8. Cucumbers
  9. Sweet Peppers
  10. Beets
  11. Carrots
  12. Spinach
  13. Potatoes
  14. Scallions and Onions
  15. Peas
09

Fifteen Herbs and Windowsill Crops

15 entries
  1. Basil
  2. Mint
  3. Chives
  4. Parsley
  5. Thyme
  6. Rosemary
  7. Oregano
  8. Sage
  9. Cilantro
  10. Dill
  11. Lemon Balm
  12. Bay
  13. Microgreens
  14. Cut and Come Again Salad
  15. Scallions From Kitchen Scraps
10

Fifteen Flowers That Feed the Garden

15 entries
  1. Marigolds
  2. Nasturtiums
  3. Calendula
  4. Zinnias
  5. Cosmos
  6. Sunflowers
  7. Borage
  8. Sweet Alyssum
  9. Yarrow
  10. Lavender
  11. Coneflower
  12. Bee Balm
  13. Phacelia
  14. Sweet Peas, and One Warning
  15. Asters for the Last Bees
11

Reading the Leaf

15 entries
  1. Yellow Lower Leaves
  2. Yellow Between the Veins
  3. Purple Stems and Leaf Undersides
  4. Brown Crispy Leaf Edges
  5. Brown Soft Spots
  6. Wilting That Recovers by Evening
  7. Wilting That Does Not Recover
  8. Pale All Over and Slow
  9. Leggy and Stretched
  10. Holes in the Leaves
  11. Silvery Stippling and Fine Webbing
  12. Sticky Leaves and Black Film
  13. White Powder on the Surface
  14. Curling Leaves
  15. Flowers That Drop Without Fruit
12

Pests, Feeding and Fixes

15 entries
  1. Identify Before You Treat
  2. Aphids
  3. Cabbage Worms
  4. Squash Bugs and Vine Borers
  5. Japanese Beetles
  6. Tomato Hornworms
  7. Row Cover, the Underused Tool
  8. Hand Picking Beats Spraying
  9. If You Do Use a Product
  10. What N, P and K Mean
  11. Organic and Synthetic Fertiliser
  12. Do Not Feed a Sick Plant
  13. Compost Tea and Other Claims
  14. Crop Rotation in a Small Garden
  15. When to Give Up and Replant
A month from The 2027 Garden Calendar
Included · $47 option

The 2027 Garden Calendar

The manual tells you what to do. The calendar tells you when, which is the part beginners actually get wrong. Print it, hang it up, and the garden stops being something you remember too late.

  • Thirteen pages, a real dated grid for every month
  • Five jobs worth doing that month, no more
  • Each job names the chapter that explains it
  • A photograph of me for every month
Get both · $47

$47 for the manual and the calendar together, against $37 for the manual on its own.

03 · The honest part

The deal this book makes with you.

✕The trick that works in one climateWhere advice depends on your region, the book says so and sends you to your own extension service instead of guessing for you.
✕The homemade spray from the internetThe pest chapters lean on netting, hand picking and spacing. Where a product is warranted, the book defers to the label, because a book cannot know what is registered where you live.
✕The plant that is quietly not edibleSweet peas get their own warning page, because the pods look like the ones you eat. Where something is ornamental only, it is labelled.
✕The advice that assumes a young backFifteen entries on bed height, reach, tool handles, watering without carrying, and working in fifteen minute pieces.
Sasha Merritt — Sasha
Sasha Merritt
Sasha Merritt
04 · Who is telling you this
“A garden should fit the person who tends it, not the other way around.”

I teach beginner gardeners at Grow with Sasha. The channel came out of one frustration: almost all gardening advice is written for people who already garden.

It assumes you know what hardening off means. It assumes you can kneel on the ground for an hour and get back up. It assumes a plant dying is something you will calmly diagnose rather than take personally. Very little of it is written for the person starting out at sixty with a sunny corner, a bad knee and a real wish to grow something.

So that is who this is for. Plain steps, honest numbers, and the reasons underneath them, because a gardener who knows why a rule exists can bend it correctly when their own yard disagrees.

Read it once through. Then start with one bed.

05 · Order the manual

Read it for a week. If it is not for you, I do not want your money.

Read it for seven days. If it has not answered something you were stuck on, or it simply is not for you, write to me and I will refund every cent, no questions. Pay once and it is yours to keep, on your phone, your tablet, or printed at the kitchen table.

The manual
The manual
$37
  • 198 pages, 180 entries
  • A photograph on every page
  • PDF, yours forever
  • No wall calendar
Get the manual
The manual The 2027 Garden Calendar
Manual + calendar · best value
$47
  • Everything in the manual
  • The 2027 Garden Calendar
  • Five jobs a month, dated
  • Print it and hang it up
Get both · $47
180Entries
198Pages
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06 · Questions

Questions people ask

I have never grown anything. Is this too advanced?

It is written for exactly that. It assumes no knowledge and no equipment, and it starts before the seeds, with how to work out where the sun actually falls in your own yard. Every term is explained the first time it appears.

Will this work where I live?

The methods do. The dates do not, and no book can fix that honestly. Timing depends on your frost dates and your season length, so the book teaches you to look those up once and count from them, and it points you at your own state extension service, which publishes free planting calendars for your county.

I only have a patio. Is it still worth it?

Yes. Containers, table-height pots and windowsill crops run right through it, and a whole chapter of herbs and cut-and-come-again salad needs no garden at all.

I cannot kneel or bend for long. Does that rule me out?

No, and this is the part most gardening books leave out. Chapter three is fifteen entries on bed height, how far you should have to reach, path width, long-handled tools, watering without carrying cans, and breaking the work into fifteen minute pieces.

What is the calendar, exactly?

A thirteen-page 2027 wall calendar. One photograph and a real date grid for each month, plus the five jobs worth doing that month, each pointing back to the chapter that explains it. It is a PDF you print at home.

Is there medical or financial advice in it?

None, deliberately. It is a gardening manual. It makes no claims about health, nutrition or money, and where a subject would touch either, it stops.

What do I get, and is it a subscription?

A 198-page PDF, emailed the moment you buy, plus the calendar PDF if you take that option. It reads on a phone, a tablet or a computer, and it is laid out to print at home. You pay once. Nothing renews.

Can I get it on paper?

Not as a printed book. It is a digital book you can print yourself, which is what keeps it at $37 instead of what a 198-page illustrated hardback would cost.

Something in your garden will die this year. That is information, not a verdict.

12 chapters on light, soil, a garden that fits your body, the growing year, the plants themselves, and what a sick leaf is telling you. 198 pages, 180 entries, a photograph on every one. $37, once.

Get both · $47

7-day refund · emailed instantly · PDF · manual on its own $37