Sure, you’d love to grow your own organic vegetables. But where? Not everyone has a back yard, or even a balcony or patio to work with.

That doesn’t faze Andrea Bellamy, author of Sugar Snaps and Strawberries (Thomas Allen & Son). Her new book, subtitled Simple Solutions for Creating Your Own Small-Space Edible Garden, shows how a little creativity and some know-how can yield an edible bounty.

The Vancouver-based writer, who founded the gardening blog Heavy Petal, grows potatoes, tomatoes, and shiitake mushrooms on her balcony and more in a community garden. “Even if you don’t have a balcony or backyard, you probably have more space than you realize,” she writes in the book. “Take a look at your back alley: could you install narrow raised beds along the alley’s edge? Take a look at your sidewalk: could you grow food in the space between it and the street? Take a look at any hard outdoor surfaces: could you have a container garden on your driveway, porch, fire escape, or staircase?” Bellamy also suggests assessing your building’s rooftop and the land surrounding your abode with an eye to convincing your landlord or strata council to let you start a garden.

Once you’ve secured a space, Bellamy—who has a certificate in garden design from UBC—walks you through all the steps to build a garden. That includes chapters on assessing what will grow in your space, buying or building appropriate containers, and preparing soil. She emphasizes carefully planning the garden before you go wild buying seeds, and outlines the top 10 easiest edibles to grow (which include beans, herbs, lettuce, and radishes). Then she gives instructions on planting, feeding, and weeding to make sure your hard work pays off in produce.

If you want to eat a healthier, more plant-based diet but aren’t interested in growing it yourself, check out the following cookbooks. Nettie Cronish and Pat Crocker wrote Everyday Flexitarian: Recipes for Vegetarians and Meat Lovers Alike (Whitecap) with recipes that can be adapted for both vegetarians and meat eaters. The pair defines flexitarians as “those who have moved closer to being vegetarian but who sometimes consume meat, poultry, or fish” and “people who identify themselves as meat eaters but replace meat with meat alternatives for at least some meals.”

The book is based on vegetarian recipes, with the idea that meat can be used as a condiment for those who desire it. Each main dish comes in two versions. For example, there’s Tuscan fusilli with lentils and kale and the same recipe with the addition of ground turkey. Tempeh mole is twinned with chicken mole, and a warm vegetarian Cobb salad offers the option of adding cubed cooked meat.

The variations make menu planning for a household that includes both vegetarians and carnivores easier, with instructions on when to separate the vegetarian portions before adding the animal protein. The meat portions of the recipe are written in a different colour, so you can skip over these instructions if making the veggie version. However, the dark teal type doesn’t contrast well with the black type of the veggie instructions. It’s a good concept but not as easy to follow as it could be.

For more advanced vegan recipes, there’s The Veganopolis Cookbook: A Manual for Great Vegan Cooking (Agate). “This is not ground-level vegan cooking,” reads the back of the book by David Stowell and George Black. The authors, who started the Veganopolis Cafeteria in Portland, Oregon, characterize the dishes as “casual gourmet” or “vegan comfort food”. Recipes from the restaurant include a wide range of soups, dressings, and spreads, plus make-your-own vegan proteins such as seitan and corned-beef substitute. Dishes have a multicultural flavour, with recipes for everything from moussaka to tagines, hollandaise sauce to chimichurri sauce.

Kelly Rudnicki, author of Vegan Baking Classics: Delicious, Easy-to-Make Traditional Favorites (Agate) admits that “many vegan baking recipes don’t taste like the real thing at all” and promises that her dairy- and egg-free creations will change all that. Many of the recipes were previously published in her last book, The Food Allergy Mama’s Baking Book: Great Dairy-, Egg-, and Nut-Free Treats for the Whole Family. Treats cover the baking range from quick breads to cookies, cakes to crisps, and more.

Bal Arneson takes a health-conscious approach to Indian food—dispelling any notion that it has to be rich—with Bal’s Quick and Healthy Indian (Whitecap), a follow-up to her Everyday Indian bestseller. The Vancouver-based Food Network personality includes meat in her cooking, but emphasizes lower-fat recipes without lots of cream or butter. These include pulse- and vegetable-based soups and a good selection of salads, veggie sides, and main dishes.

The book’s recipes are quite fusion in nature, with many North American favourites given an Indian flavour. For example, there are coconut and tamarind chicken burgers, meatballs with paneer and cashews, and a mint and edamame soup seasoned with cardamom. A fair number of recipes are kid-friendly, such as masala chicken fingers with mint and mango chutney. It helps that the full-page photography in the book is so luscious. Healthy food can get the mouthwatering, too.