THE COMPLETE BOOK OF FLOWERPOT ECOLOGY

Intended primarily for teachers, camp counselors, parents and others who work with small children, this, like The After Dinner Gardening Book, is a guide to 'growing green things out of your kitchen -- beginning with the avocado pit, the grapefruit seed, carrot, sweet potato, lentil, etc. Step-by-step instructions for sprouting seedlings, taking cuttings, transplanting, etc., along with the basics on soil requirements, drainage and watering. The authors are big on improvising with the materials at hand: egg and milk cartons, plastic storage dishes and old bottles are put to imaginative use as planters. Generally an adequate introduction to the fun of gardening but -- and this may be a big but -- the authors are much too optimistic as to what will and won't grow in the dry, radiator-heated air and indifferent lighting conditions of a city apartment. There is no guarrantee that herbs, oranges, nuts, cucumbers, melons and such can make it under these adverse conditions and children could be disappointed.