Fruits and Vegetables Books

Book does not have a lot of solid information a gardener can use. Lots of beautiful photos but not enough tips to succeed on creating a garden from seed.

The latest installment of the Martha Stewart book collection is, of course, filled with extravagant, glossy pictures, tips from insiders, and suggested retailers from whom to buy certain products which, presumably, Martha uses herself. However, this tiny book leaves something to be desired. First, several terms are introduced in the meat of the book that are never defined in the glossary or elsewhere (e.g. "deadheading"). Second, the instructions stop at the outdoor-planting phase, thus failing to inform readers on how best to prune plants and how to harvest seeds directly from plants for future use. Third, there are a number of typographical errors not usually associated with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. While the plant index toward the back of the guide is useful, as is the section on tips for eradicating garden pests, your best bet is to purchase a more thorough (and, yes, more expensive) book from Burpee or Better Homes and Gardens if you want an in-depth and all-inclusive guide to the world of gardening from seed.

Not too bad. Good for beginner as a general overview but not enough information I was expecting to find.

Gardening from Seed is a very indispensible book about gardening . It covers all aspects of gardening, from flowers to vegetables. I love this book !!!!!

I bought a house in February (my first) and was so excited to plant that I started seeds indoors ... then came: "What do I do now! " This book is helping me grow all kinds of vegetables and flowers indoors first, in anticipation of Spring, Summer, Fall .... thanks, Martha.

Most of the book gives you information on specific fruits and veggies and what ailments they are supposed to alleviate. The basis for most of the claims are based on his travels to different parts of the world and from the "folk" medicine he came across. I don't think that folk medicine is completely without merit, but I also don't think it should be the total basis of recommendations for treating certain diseases. additionally, if want recipes for juicing, you'd better have a vitamix machine because all the recipes he provides are for use in that particular machine. I bought an omega juicer and all the recipes in the book are useless to me.

This book isn't the easiest to read!! It is best used as the first line of defense when your not feeling well. The book is an excellent source of reading up on the basics of juicing. Don't know what Juicer to buy this book tells you the pluses and minus of all major juicers on the market and no not one juicer will do it all as much as you may have hoped to buy only one product. I personally recommend the book. Bria

I recently bought this book as I was interested in finding out the different healing properties of various fruits and vegetables. And I was quite pleased with the setup of the book-basically the book is organized by vegetable/fruit, with each entry including the history of the subject, it's nutritional value, the different diseases,sicknesses,and/or conditions it's known to help,and ways of preparing it properly. I quickly found different juices/veggies/fruits that targeted the conditions I wanted, and I've since incorporated their juices into my routine. I"ve been quite happy with the results in particular with including the following(not all together but seperately and combined with other juices): celery, cucumber, cabbage, carrot, beet, and radish.

One thing I would like to clarify is that Heinerman seems to really encourage blender juicing, either with your own blender, or more importantly with a Vitamix, to really maintain alot of each veggie/fruit's nutritious value by including the pulp. I was very happy with this encouragement, as I own both a Vita Mix and Juiceman, and I personally think the Vita Mix is far superior. But, I do think it's important for the reader to understand that he favors blender juicing over extracted juicing-and as a result, many of his juices call for this type of juicing.

I truly use this book as my juicing reference guide. At first I was disappointed in the structure of the book in that it was listed by vegetable and fruit names. I wanted the standard listing of recipes under the standard categories and boy am I glad this one is not like that. I have other juice books that give me enough recipes to cure anything that ails me. What this book provides is very good info about all the ingredients in a recipe and you can figure out subsitutions in an intelligent manner. This book is worth its weight in gold for that alone. I mean all of us just can't get into parsley now can we. Get this book it's worth every penny.

You won't need a juicer to appreciate this readable reference on juicing (and using) a variety of fruits and vegetables. A medical anthropologist and author of other books on the healing properties of foods, Dr. Heinerman now focuses on juicing. After you choose an ailment (or a fruit or a vegetable), you will respect Dr. Heinerman's scholarship in compiling the beneficial uses of juices. Each chapter on a juice (for instance, "Lettuce Juice") documents its botanical history, description, usage and nutritive values. The anecdotes and testimonials provide strong evidence for the therapeutic qualities of fruits and vegetables -- and their juices. Any juicer you buy will get you started with some good recipes, and this text will augment your choices and combinations of juice. You'll soon be juicing every day, and on into the 21st century. Appendices include helpful information on picking a juicer, uses for the pulp by-product, supplemental commercial products, and recipes

This book is a rip off. I bought this book for the recipes and was extremely disappointed. Entire pages are dedicated to common sense recipes such as Apple Juice (2-3 apples), Orange Juice (2-3 oranges), Pineapple Juice, Carrot Juice, Cantaloupe Juice, etc., etc. If that wasn't bad enough they waste paper by printing one recipe per page, when they could easily fit 4 recipes per page. I suggest saving your money and searching the internet for better tasting and more expansive recipes.

This book has totally helped me in learning all the ins and outs to juicing. Continually I find something new in this book. Of all the books I have seen I love this one!

This has some great recipes. That is the core of what is in this book and it will do the trick if you are looking for a list of great tasting juice recipes.

This is a nice, straight forward juicing book that offers some "extras." It's simple, but it has an extensive array of recipes and leaves no stone unturned.

There's a section on produce that tells the reader what each item is good for (which vitamins and minerals it contains) and how to buy and store them.

The "Juiceman" also includes a crash course in all the nutrients we need to be healthy, WHAT we need them for, and in which juices we can find them in.

At the end of the book, the author includes a Q&A section and tips and points on how to make juicing an integral part of your life and what to eat to compliment a diet chock full of fresh juices.

All in all, this is a great book. It may not appeal to some who are in search of something a little more fancy, with a more complex layout. But, everything considered, it's a sure bet.

This book is well written. It includes many juice recipies and various health issues and what fruit or veggies will help those issues. This book has quite a bit of information and is laid out for easy reading.

This book has been incredibly useful to me. The information is well organized, if a little incomplete, and the pictures are inspiring. An excellent resource for any organic gardener.

Organic Gardening for the 21st Century is a must-have book for the organic gardener. It's well-written, enjoyable to read, very interesting, and full of realistic "how to" tips. Mr. Fedor explains different perspectives and he says why certain things are important, rather than just telling readers what to do. I like to understand why, so I can consider all the options and consequences. He does a great job of describing pests and how to deal with them. It would have helped me immensely to see photos of each pest by the description. There's enough technical information to make it specific (i.e. plant names), but not so much that it's like reading a Latin textbook. The photos and illustrations are terrific. It's just a beautiful AND useful book. Not only did I read it cover to cover, but I continue to use it as a reference book. It's well worth the purchase price!

I enjoy books that talk to me. John Fedor writes this book in the first person using his grandparents and then his own gardening experiences. He communicates in a style that makes you feel as if you are right there beside him in his gardens. I was hooked immediately. The book is a treasure chest of practical information (as a Reader's Digest book always is) without the overload of information that can cause you to give up your garden before you have begun. He assures you with wit and wonderful drawings that you can accomplish an organic garden in even the most humble of spaces with the most humble of budgets. The photographs are worthy of being published in a DK book. They are always practical though and relate to Fedor's text. They are realistic of what you can and can't expect. I call it practical eye candy. For those gardeners who already have a basic knowledge of gardening...this book won't disappoint you. There is a wealth of intermediate level information that will help you too. Enjoy!

This Reader's Digest published book covers a lot of material (from compost to saving seed, from pest control to crop rotation, from companion planting to heritage varieties, from herbs to even landscaping and tools) in only 288 pages, yet manages to answer most common gardening questions. There is even a directory in the back of the book covering vegetables, fruits & herbs that commonly grow in the U.S. and Canada, giving varieties & growing instructions. The photos in the book are beautiful and inspiring for the aspiring gardener.

I've looked at quite a few gardening books, yet this guide is the one I keep going back to.

This book just doesn't cut it when compared to other similar text like Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening

There is nothing particularly wrong with the book. It has the requisite parts such as a discussion of organic gardening, the reasons for it, and why you should use it. It also has a fairly good chapter on various vegetables and how to grow them. It's just not my first choice for a reference book. I was highly disappointed with having picked this book first and then finding the Rodale book later.

Save a couple bucks and go with the Rodale book instead.

Full of confusing ideas, all scattered information, guides to nowhere. The auther tries to be witty and funny, but his jokes are nothing but disgusting.

I thought this book was terrific! It opened up a whole new world to me. Sprouting makes me feel like I can take part in growing my own food and can control the quality of the food I eat.

Yes, as one person noted, the humor is sort of out of place. Bad puns throughout. I'm still giving it a 5 because it's the most helpful sprout book I've seen.

Friends of mine recommended it to me - they have an attractive set-up of baskets of sprouts growing in little seed-germinator covered plastic trays. They are thrilled with the book, and we are excited about starting to sprout. We did sprouts years ago in jars, but this system is better.

Though the book could be more condensed, it's still an easy read in a few hours. And where else is this vital information available in such thorough detail? If you are considering sprouting, you will find the information valuable.

This is a great book for a person who is interested in sprouting; it is very detailed and is truly full of very interesting and useful information. The book also helps to nullify a lot of the myth about toxins and hidden dangers in sprouts. The real dangers, in actuality, exist in cooked, processed, adulterated, toyed-with, sprayed, chemicalized, distorted foods (which our grocery shelves are full of). I am now 50 years old. Back in my youthful college days, I used to sprout a great deal, eating living foods exclusively. Though I stayed being a vegetarian, I got back into the cooked food craze... eating food like it was a drug for "taste" only. I work with the multiply handicapped and even though I am a teacher I have to do a lot of lifting (of adults who are not at all feather-weight). My arthritis (which runs in the family) was killing me, despite taking all kinds of natural and man made supplements. Getting back to live food was the answer I needed. Steve's book was inspirational and very helpful. I should have never deviated from what was truly the most nutritious way to eat!
There are many ways of sprouting. I happen to like the sproutpeople.com sprouters best of all. Steve's book is a priceless tool for anyone interested in sprouting... it has all kinds of neat tips and suggestions.
Also, one suggests doing a web search on Dr. Budwig's Diet... as most people are seriously deficient in essential fatty acids of the proper type. I take my oil with a little bit of live yogurt.
Anyway... I would not want Steve's book, including his Kitchen Garden book... missing from my shelves!
As Hippocrates said: "Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food."

Steve Meyerowitz, a.k.a. Sproutman has been sprouting since the 1970s, and owns a company selling sprouting equipment and seeds. I've read several of his books and chatted with him in person about sprouting. Sproutman knows his stuff, and IMO, anything he writes about sprouting is worth reading. I have grown magnificent sunflower sprouts by using a Sproutman Sprouthouse (a bamboo basket in a plastic house) and following Sproutman's instructions. If you have good sprouting seeds and follow the instructions in this book, I suspect you too will grow awesome sprouts.

Unfortunately, the book is not that well organized and the instructions for sprouting, a fairly simple process, are unnecessarily confusing. There are many methods of growing sprouts, such as baskets, sprouting bags, glass jars, open-ended glass tubes with screens on both ends, trays, etc. This book gives instructions for only 3 methods: baskets, bags, and trays. Sproutman doesn't explain that upfront, however. If you want to use one of those 3 methods, the instructions are knowledgeable and detailed. BUT: I suggest that when you choose one of these methods, you read through the entire chapter first, because if you try to follow along step-by-step, it's easy to mess up.

For example, in the chapter titled, "The Technique", Sproutman launches into instructions for using a sprouting basket, without first explaining that this technique just ONE of many sprouting methods. For this technique he says to soak 5 rounded tablespoons of seeds. He doesn't explain until 7 pages later that you use 5 tablespoons of seed for an 8 inch basket, 6 to 7 tablespoons of seed for a 9 inch basket, and 2 to 3 tablespoons of seed for a 6 inch basket. A beginning basket sprouter who tries to follow his instructions without reading the entire chapter first, could easily make the mistake of using the wrong amount of seeds for the basket size.

In the next chapter, Sproutman gives instructions for how to use a sprout bag, a different technique. The first thing I would want to know about this is, what are the best seeds for growing in a sprout bag? That information is there, along with days 'til maturity-in the middle of the chapter.

Another thing that's important to a good sprout book is information about seeds. What are the varities, the days until harvest, the uses and tastes, etc? There's chart near the end of the book which gives this information, but the seed varities are not in alphabetical order. I can't figure out any logic to the way the chart is sorted, so if you want to look up a seed variety, you have to read down the entire list. Also, there are some types of fairly popular sprouting seeds missing from the chart, for example, broccoli sprouts.

Although I think most of Sproutman's information is excellent, albeit a bit disorganized, one thing I take issue with are his frequent sermons about why sprouting jars should not be used. I first used a sprouting jar in 1984, and my jar sprouts have always turned out just fine, without all those immature yellow sprouts Sproutman warns of. If you are careful not to use too many seeds and to shake your sprouts back and forth so they drain well and lay the jar on its side, your jar-sprouted sprouts will turn out just fine. Also Sproutman says a jar requires cheesecloth, screens and rubberbands. Back in 1984, a decade prior to the book's publication, I used a lid which was a plastic screen and have never had to hassle with cheesecloth, screens and rubberbands. In addition, he says automatic sprouters sell in the range of $450 to $1000. It's somewhat possible that information was accurate in the 1990s, but in the 2000s, one can find new automatic sprouters for a lot less than $450.

Some of the book's strengths include the chapter discussing which type of water to use on sprouts, the nutritional information scattered throughout the books, and the presence of an index. I personally think the book's dumb puns are a strength, but I'm sure the majority of readers will not. :-)

Despite my qualms with this book, Sproutman is outstanding in his field, and I still recommend it to anyone who wants to sprout via vertical sprouter (basket), bag, or tray, or learn about sprouting in general. If you're using either a vertical sprouter or a bag, I suggest first reading the succinct review of instructions on page 173 for the vertical sprouter and p. 175 for the sproutbag.

Vegetable gardening and recipes seldom blend so seamlessly as in Homegrown Pure And Simple: Great Healthy Food From Garden To Table. Here's a compendium of dishes spiced with color photos by Susie Cushner throughout which celebrate both gardening and cooking. This isn't your usual vegetable cookbook, either: Grilled Lamb Chops with Home-Dried Tomatoes and Citrus Yogurt and Pistachio Pork Loin with Pumpkin Sauce are dishes not to be found in any cookbook. That's because author Michel Nischan has served up healthful haute cooking at a range of upscale restaurants: so these are largely his own inventions.

If I had had one minute with this book in a bookstore I would have known the title was a terrible misnomer, but I ordered it online. The book has nothing to offer on the subject of raising your own food for the table. It is a cookbook by someone who had a vegetable garden for ONE YEAR before writing it. There are no strategies for gardening and no insider knowledge of what it actually takes to raise produce consistently enough to eat. He just likes the idea. Well, I do too. As a longtime gardener and cook, I was hoping to learn something new. I didn't.

I really like this pure and simple cookbook. The recipes are so beautiful!!

Delicious, appetizing recipes fill this book, all of which were made from the freshest organic ingredients, giving a pure simple taste. An excellent second book by Michel Nischan, winner of a James Beard cookbook award in 2004 for his book, Taste Pure and Simple.

Michel Nischan grew up in Illinois where his mother grew most of their fruits and vegetables. His love of food coninued as an adult where he became the executive chef of Heartbeat in the W Hotel (NY-1997). Nischan is a contributor to numerous magazines including: Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Cooking Light, and much more. He has also appeared on various television programs. He is the founding member of New American Farming Initiative. He currently lives in Connecticut with his wife and five children.

Mary Goodbody is a food writer who has worked on over 45 cookbooks.

Susie Cushner is a photographer whose work has appeared in Real Simple, Gourmet, Martha Stewart Living and more. She has worked on numerous books: The New England Table, The Cape Cod Table, The Pleasures of Slow Food and The Bride & Groom First and Forever Cookbook.

Michel Nischan yearned for the days where his mother grew all their vegetables in their garden when he was a child. With the tragic findings that two of his five children were diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes (at ages five and two), his focus on his cooking changed. He decided that not only should he and his family eat healthier, but also his restaurant customers. This book has been inspired by his children and his desire for fresh pure ingredients without the use of cream, butter, processed starches or processed sugars. Michel has made it his mission to educate people on eating and cooking healthier.

This is more than a cookbook, but also a book filled with cooking and gardening tips, planting seeds, storing produce, sterilizing jars, choosing knives, and handling food. There is an excellent glossary in the back of the book, as well as a list of sources if some items are hard-to-find in your area. And I must comment on the gorgeous photographs throughout this book.

This book has even received kudos from the American Heart Association and Alice Waters.

The book is broken down by the following chapters: My Garden and How It Grew; Salads; Soups; Main Courses; Side Dishes; Extending the Harvest; Breakfast and Breads; Desserts. The recipes are wonderful. They are simple to make and extremely tasty. In fact, I never even noticed, initially, that the book had no recipes laden with fat and sugar! Some of my favorites in this book were: Osaka Mustard Greens Salad; Pumpkin Soup with Crispy Sage Garnish; Baked Fresh Ham with Roasted Apple and Almond Salad; Skillet-Browned Broccoli and Cauliflower with Pan-Toasted Garlic; Homemade Applesauce; Butternut Squash Muffins; and Sweet Corn and Toasted Almond Rice Pudding.

In our society, where everything runs at such a fast pace, I think it is time to slow down, and appreciate life and family. Eat healthier. Buy this book!

An oversized volume that is well organized and has beautiful pictures; unfortunately, what it has for visual impact it sorely lacks in useful detail. The primary purpose for my purchasing the book were harvesting and storage options of vegatables. However for each plant covered, at best a sentence or two is offered. Best example of where it failed me - for carrots it offers 2 choices; refrigeration or long term storage buried in sand. No comment on canning, freezing, drying, etc -- and who in suburbia is going to have a box o' sand?

Other topics, garden design, tools, mulching are all treated on the same "high level" aspect. Its like reading a collection of highlights to chapters that somehow never made it to the printers.

While it might be useful for someone whose never worked in a garden before, or perhaps a child who is interested in learning about gardening, on the whole its little more than a well organized collection of interesting tidbits of knowledge. Its not worth the $45.00 cover charge in either case.

This book gets the end spot in my kitchen cookbook shelf, just to show off the great cover photograph. For a veggie like me, it's a taste of heaven. I love the photographs, not just because the vegetables are all so wonderfully ripe and luscious looking, but because Smith has shot them in such an inventive way. I wish I could visit his produce market! The text is a bit lite, but that's not what I bought the book for. This is a coffee table book that will hold its own with any collection of dazzling images.

As a home gardener and artist, I am delighted and inspired by Kitchen Garden A to Z, which is filled with easy to access "how-to" information and beautiful illustrations. Having heard Mike McGrath on public radio, I find his down-to-earth enthusiasm and knowledge about organic gardening as welcoming as ever. He's written a great reference book that's clear, practical and to-the-point. He doesn't read like an encyclopedia or a scientific journal, but rather, he sounds like the gardener next door who's been there, done that, and wants you to succeed. The wisdom of his experience shows. Of course, the vegetables in the beautiful photographs are a feast for the eyes - something to see now, and (hopefully) grow later.

I think there is certainly something in the book for gardeners of every age and skill level. My sister, who has a lot of vegetable-loving animals in her yard, found an answer to her prayers in the section on container gardening. The information on how to prevent "damping off" and leggy seedlings has given me the courage to start planting from seed again. And when I showed the book to my 87-year old mother, who knows her way around the kitchen, she wanted a copy of the "Storage Basics at a Glance" summery page for her very own.

The book has been wonderful gift. You may discover, as I have, that Kitchen Garden A to Z works beautifully both on the coffee table and the back porch.

There is a place in my home for a coffee table book about gardening. It's on the coffee table, where it can be admired and browsed by family and visitors, or maybe just by me when I am in the mood to look at gorgeous pictures of garden produce and dream about next year's crop.

This book is obviously geared to the rank novice gardener (And where, I ask you, does it claim otherwise?). I am unlikely to use Kitchen Garden A to Z as a reference because I am an intermediate level home gardener who has managed to grow every category of vegetable and herb mentioned in this book. If I were a beginner, however, I would find this book to be indispensable for my starting information and pure inspiration to get going. It would be easy to find whatever I was looking for with the oversized page titles laid out A to Z, on the side edge, graphic-stylish. I would also be awed at the lovely diversity of tomatoes, melons, squash, etc. which I almost never see in my grocery store. The pictures are impeccable and artistically shot, and they feature several varieties and stages of growth for each crop being examined on the spread. The information is short and useful, but doesn't go into much detail; for instance, in the Pumpkin spread under "harvest" it simply says to leave the handle on, cut when the fruit is mature and let cure in the sun for a week. Nothing about thumbnail testing the shell first or whether it should cure on the ground or somewhere else, and if it can be left on the vine for awhile or not. Oh well, most people will do okay with this so I suppose one shouldn't get too picky about short text.

I am grateful that in the first section (which takes up nearly half the book) there is more explanation about how to garden generally and an emphasis on how to do it organically. A first-timer would have been thoroughly primed on how to lay out their garden depending on available sun and how much they could realistically handle. It also shows superb examples of beautiful and clever vegetable gardens above and beyond typical row-style. Beginners will be able to start out right after reading this book and they will have every chance of productive and satisfying crops.

But I still like it mainly for the pictures:).
-Andrea, aka Merribelle

I bought this with anticipation that it would be fantastic for the $70 price tag. When I purchased the book $70 was my only choice. This book brand new was only $29.95 so to pay more than that for a used copy is ridiculous. The seller told me to contact them first before giving them a bad review. Their service was good but it wasn't worth $70.

A few pictures in there is what the price is all about. Recipes are okay. Several different versions of the same thing changing a couple of ingredients and giving it a new name doesn't constitute a new recipe only a variation on the main recipe. I don't think this was worth the price. It's worth probably about $15.00 not much more. I wouldn't purchase another book by this author and I'd definetly would not buy it used from someone else. Alissa Cohen's book and DVD is worh the price and a ton more recipes.

This is one of the very first books that I ever bought on the subject of raw foods, and my very first raw recipe book. Frederic provides his insight into why we should consume a raw, high water content, plant-based diet, and he also gives us a rundown on many common foods and their dietary benefits.

The recipes do not require any fancy equipment to prepare, so for the newbie that hasn't outfitted their kitchen with all the expensive gadgetry yet (or doesn't intend to), this is perfect.

This is a book that I lend to my friends!

I have been very disappointed in many raw foods recipe books over the years. Too many of them are obsessed with dehydrators and complex recipes that make me want to avoid raw food diets.

Sunfood Cuisine is a great book that not only gives great recipes but gives excellent formulas for how to quickly develop your own.

There are some recipes that require dehydration which is annoying, but for the most part, the recipes are fabulous, creative and delicious.

The breakdown is (generally speaking)
Part 1: Sunfood Diet
Part 2: The ingredients
Part 3 The Recipes
Salads
Dressings
Soups
Green Drinks
Fruit Juices & Other Drinks
Nut Milks
Smoothies
Desserts
Raw Pies
Pates
Dips & Sauces
Gourmet Sunfood Cuisine
Sunfood Snacks

APPENDICES
How to transition
Hybrid vs wild food
Organic vs commercial food
Resources

The most interesting result of my purchasing and using this book and RECIPES FOR LIFE by Rhonda Malkmus is my dear husband's refusal to eat that stupid raw stuff that it was not good and it did not fill him up, etc.

After one week of making entirely raw food meals, he told me with a thrill that he loves eating this way (the kids are becoming fond of it as well) and that he really is not enjoying cooked food as much anymore.

That, is nothing short of a miracle!

We are on our third week using these books and the family is still happy and looking forward to mealtime. The raw pie that I made was what I did in response to the demand for pancakes and syrup (whole grain and maple syrup) this past weekend.

I was not sure if they would mutiny or not, but I was shocked when my family who usually polishes off a full bunch of pancakes was very full and satisfied just from one raw pie as I made using the formula given in SUNFOOD CUISINE.

Clean up is a lot easier too.

So far I am thrilled with this book and it truly has opened up the world of raw foods in a way that I finally am able to use it in our family more than just a few days and then want to give up again.

I have been waiting for this book for nearly two years. I now have the book and have been trying out some of the recipes. It's great to have someone talk about how to make the best raw soups, salads and others. Fred includes guides to create your own recipes. A very good book, well worth the price.

Being new to gardening it has been a chore finding books I can understand about gardening. Many make promises but don't deliver information in a senible manner and I end up more frustrated than satisfied. This one delivers. The thing I love about this book is its simple easily understandable format. The book is loaded with color photographs that help me distinguish the different kinds of problems plants suffer from, making it a simple process in learning how to care for my plants and exactly what may be the problem.

I like the way he layed out the charts in the back of the book. One section for cold crops and one section for winter crops. He even has a section for herbs! It takes the work out of thumbing through page after page, book after book, of when, what and where I can grow things. Thanks, Mr. Stephens, for taking the mystery out of vegetable gardening and making my life a little easier and a lot simplier.

I was not impressed with this book, especially as a beginner gardener. It is pretty poorly written. I found myself having to look up many terms as they aren't defined in the book. Little context or explanation is given to seemingly major aspects of gardening. For instance, when talking about fertilizing in containers, the author says, "the nutrient solution must be added and drained in the container once or twice a day." What nutrient solution? For what plants? What ratios? It never says.

I hoped the book would give special attention to vegetables grown in Florida such as peppers. The only special attention peppers get are 4 paragraphs in the back of the book that talk about how many peppers will feed a family; that they should be transplanted "with care"; and that they are still edible after turning red (ya thanks!) Note that earlier in the book on pg 43, there is a chart about how easily veggies transplant. Peppers are in the "easily survive transplanting" category as opposed to "require care." Since the back of the book says to transplant the peppers "with care," I see this as a basic contradiction in the book.

I'm not really sure this book will help anyone, novice or expert. It's not detailed enough to help an expert and it's not clear enough to help a beginner. With the author's poor grammar and lack of context, you spend more time scratching your head about what he means than you do learning anything.

I usually prefer to buy a good book to learn how to do any new thing but so far with gardening I find the internet to be a better source of information.

This beautifully illustrated book steers clear from all the "professional jargon" and actually allows you to get outside and garden!

In a nicely uncluttered way, it shows you through the use of simple illustrated tables WHEN to plant each type of vegetable and WHERE. It makes gardening fun again.

Hooray! No longer does one have to spend days reading about soils, biological make-up, beneficial bugs and the other things that make vegetable gardening seem like some mysterious technological feat.

As a new gardener, I was happy to read this easy to follow guide. It answers the basic questions, and gives great timelines to follow. It has full color pictures, that really help you to visualize what they are talking about in the text. It is not a fancy garden book, with all the scientific "mumbo jumbo". Just easy directions to follow for success. So far my garden looks great and I have had no problems thanks to this book.

This is a lovely book about greens and growing them. If you're interested in learning about them this may be the book for you. Charming and informative. There are some good recipes included. However, if you're looking for more recipes... then there are other choices that will be better.

This book is a garden-picture book for salad lovers. It has 3 main parts: the art of salad gardening, which discusses different approaches to gardening with greens, an encyclopedia of salad greens, which includes information about growing individual greens, and favorite salad recipes. At the back of the book are appendices covering basics of planting and maintenance, pests and diseases, and resources. The book is filled with colorful photographs of greens in gardens and on the dining table.

Planting and care information in this book is very basic. If you're just getting started with gardening, you may need to check with other sources for more detailed information. In contrast, if you're already an accomplished gardener, you probably won't need much planting information anyway, but some of the descriptions of the lesser known individual greens may prove useful. The gardening advice takes an organic approach rather than using chemicals. The recipes, which all call for cooking from basic ingredients rather than mixes or cans, look tasty and vary from being something you can throw together in a few minutes to very fancy dishes for special occasions. In general though, the book seems intended to be firstly a visual treat and only secondarily a gardening guide.

I loved this book. It inspired me to make my own personal garden a salad garden. I love the recipes and though I once found salads dull, I have changed my ways!