Last year, Sarah and I were proud to take over publishing the Toronto Gardener’s Journal, the brainchild and annual masterwork of Margaret Bennet-Alder since 1993. It all happened late in the year and, with the rush to publication, the only personal stamps we were able to add were a new cover and a few interior tweaks.
We had great plans for 2019
A few of them have actually materialized! Again, we’ll have a brand new cover image, which we’ll reveal soon. This year we’re also using our own photographs for the die-cut tabs – one is our covergirl, and the other four are sprinkled through this post. Overall, we’re leaning further towards our own and other emerging garden interests, things like pollinators, native plants, and vegetable gardening.
We’ve reordered the sections slightly
The daily Journal is now followed by what we call “Month-by-Month”, a monthly wrap-up that lets you record Likes, Dislikes and Ideas. Dislikes, for example, might be an observation on climate, or a bad bug infestation. Ideas can be about seeds to try next year, or where to build a rain garden.
We’ll be adding new-moon dates to the Journal section (they’ve always appeared in the full-year calendar on the inside covers).
But the biggest changes are in the Source Book
Starting with Margaret’s 1,400 entries, we checked every one. Had the company moved? Were they still in business? Had they changed their offering? Had they launched a website? All these are reflected in the 2019 Source Book, which has also been significantly reorganized to make this wealth of content easier to navigate. Our plan is to offer the Source Book as a separate digital document with clickable links. Stay tuned for news on that.
Like loading up our plates at Thanksgiving, though, our eyes really can be too big for our, um, schedule. So some of our big plans will have to wait for 2020. It’s a work in progress, but we hope our progress so far will make you happy.
We’re beavering towards getting our book website torontogardenbook.com live for pre-orders soon [Ed: our site us up and ready to go for book orders – and they’re already selling well]. In the meantime [Ed: or anytime, really], email us at orders@torontogardens.com to add yourself to our mailing list.
4 comments
I am so proud of what you are doing and your plans. My book, now yours couldn’t be in better hands.
Margaret, it will always be your book. We’re just the new gardeners.
Hi Helen, does the price include shipping? I am not in Toronto.
Hi, Emma, For one book Canada Post charges $5.25 for delivery anywhere in Canada – probably less than it would cost to take out the car or grab public transit to pick it up at a store. And, because it’s a book, in Ontario at least the tax is only 5%, no matter where you buy it. You’d only pay the sales tax for the ebook, which includes many, many garden resources outside Toronto.