The Garden Year ManualSasha Merritt · from Grow with Sasha

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

One hundred and eighty plain answers on light, soil, the growing year and what a sick leaf is telling you, written for someone starting out at sixty with a sunny corner and a bad knee. One page each. A dead plant is not a verdict on you.

The manual $9.99, or with the 2027 calendar $19.99 · 7-day refund

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The opening page of Chapter 1, Where the Sun Falls

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The 2027 Garden Calendar, a month page
The Garden Year Manual, the book
The 30-Day Fall Garden Challenge, the workbook
Fig. 1. The manual, the 2027 Garden Calendar and the 30-Day Fall Garden Challenge.
The manual and the 2027 calendar$10 more than the manual alone buys the calendar. The fall challenge comes in the same email · PDF and EPUB · 7-day refund
$19.99
Get all three · $19.99 The manual alone · $9.99

The fall challenge is free.

Chapter I

Where the sun falls.

Before soil, before seeds, before a single thing gets bought, there is light. You cannot out-water a shady bed. Pick the spot first.

Watch your yard for one day.

Everyone guesses about their own light, and almost everyone guesses wrong. The fix takes one day and nothing else. Here it is on a sample yard, drawn for this page.

7:00

Pick a clear day. Choose three places you might put a bed: by the back door, by the maple, the open lawn.

9:00

Walk out and take one photo of the same spot, from the same place.

Noon

Again. Same spot, same place. The shade is shortest now, which is why the yard looks sunnier than it is.

3:00

Again. Watch what the house does to the back door.

6:00

One more. Then look at the four photos side by side.

The spot in sun in three of the four is your garden.

This is the highest value hour you will spend all season. It is page one of the book, and the whole of Chapter 1 is free.

Read Chapter 1 free

A sample yard, drawn for this page. The shadows are worked out from the sun's height and direction through the day, the way they fall on a real one. Yours will be different, which is the point.

Chapter II

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

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

  1. The bed goes in the tidiest spot, not the sunniest one.It costs the whole season.Reading your own yard before you build anythingChapter 1 · 15 entries
  2. A little water, every single day.Shallow roots, gone in one hot week.Deep and less often, and the finger testChapters 2 and 6
  3. Planting out on the warm week in April.One cold night takes the lot.Counting back from your own frost datesChapter 4 · 15 entries
  4. Crowding, because seedlings look small.Mildew and a smaller harvest.Spacing, airflow and what to sow in the gapsChapter 5 · 15 entries
  5. A yellow leaf read as bad luck.The same loss again next year.Fifteen signs and what each one meansChapter 11 · 15 entries
  6. Kneeling on the ground for an hour.Quitting by June, and blaming yourself.Building the garden to fit your bodyChapter 3 · 15 entries

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

Sasha beside a raised bed, the photograph from the finger test entry
The finger test, Chapter 6. Never water on the strength of a wilted midday leaf. Check the soil at two inches.

Chapter III

12 chapters, 180 entries, 198 pages.

Every entry takes one page and is built the same way: why it matters, in plain words; exactly what to do, with real numbers; one line worth remembering; and a photograph. You do not read it in order. It opens in March, because the garden does. Do the three things on that page and shut it again until April. Tap a chapter to see its entries.

  • 1 · Where the Sun Falls15 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
  • 2 · Soil You Can Trust15 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
  • 3 · A Garden That Fits Your Body15 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
  • 4 · Early Spring15 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
  • 5 · Late Spring and Early Summer15 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
  • 6 · High Summer15 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
  • 7 · Autumn and Putting the Garden to Bed15 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
  • 8 · Fifteen Vegetables That Forgive Beginners15 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
  • 9 · Fifteen Herbs and Windowsill Crops15 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 Garden15 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 Leaf15 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 Fixes15 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
May, from The 2027 Garden Calendar: a photograph, the date grid and five jobs for the month
May, from the 2027 Garden Calendar. Five jobs worth doing that month, each naming the chapter that explains it.

Chapter IV

The manual says what. The calendar says when.

When is the part beginners actually get wrong. It runs January to December 2027, and ordering seed is on January's list, so it wants to be on the wall by New Year.

  • 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 all three · $19.99

The calendar comes in the $19.99 set with the manual and the fall challenge. The manual on its own is $9.99, so the calendar is the extra $10.

The garden looks finished in October. It isn't.

This is the month next spring gets made. The 30-Day Fall Garden Challenge is thirty small jobs, one each evening, with a box to tick and room to write down what you found.

  • Week one: look and clear, the careful way
  • Week two: garlic, bulbs and perennials, planted now for spring
  • Week three: pots, hoses, mulch and the cold frame
  • Week four: a windowsill harvest, and next year planned
Send me the free challenge All three · $19.99

On its own it is free. It also comes in the $19.99 set with the manual and the calendar.

The 30-Day Fall Garden Challenge, coverDay 1 of the challenge: the walk before the work
Day 1: the walk before the work. Fall cleanup does not start with a rake. It starts with a notebook.

Watch how the challenge works

Sasha Merritt in her garden in a straw hat
Sasha Merritt, Grow with Sasha

"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. 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.

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.
The plant that is quietly not edibleSweet peas get their own warning page, because the pods look like the ones you eat.
The advice that assumes a young backFifteen entries on bed height, reach, tool handles, watering without carrying, and working in fifteen minute pieces.

Read it once through. Then start with one bed. Sasha

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.

With the 2027 calendar
The Garden Year ManualThe 2027 Garden CalendarThe 30-Day Fall Garden Challenge

Manual + calendar + challenge

$19.99$10 more than the manual, for the calendar. All three in the same email
  • The Garden Year Manual: 198 pages, 180 entries, a photograph on every page
  • The 2027 Garden Calendar: five jobs a month, dated
  • The 30-Day Fall Garden Challenge: thirty evenings, one job each
  • PDF and EPUB, yours forever
Get all three · $19.99
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Thirty evenings that put this garden to bed and plant next spring.

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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?

Three files, emailed the moment you buy: a 198-page PDF for reading, an EPUB for Kindle and e-readers so you can set your own type size, and a full-quality PDF laid out to print at home. The calendar PDF comes too if you take that option. 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 $9.99 instead of what a 198-page illustrated hardback would cost.

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

Colophon

The Garden Year Manual, by Sasha Merritt of Grow with Sasha. Twelve chapters on light, soil, a garden that fits your body, the growing year, the plants themselves, and what a sick leaf is telling you. 180 entries on 198 pages, a photograph on every one. First edition, 2026. $9.99 on its own, or $19.99 with the 2027 Garden Calendar and the 30-Day Fall Garden Challenge.

Get all three · $19.99 The manual · $9.99

Not sure yet? Read Chapter 1 free. 7-day refund · emailed instantly · PDF and EPUB