Vegetable Growing Month-by-month: The Down-to-earth Guide That Takes You Through the Vegetable Year

I bought this book while i was starting out with my veggie plot and veggie gardening in general.The book was very cheap, and has a great wealth of information. There are not too many vain or wasted sentences here, every paragraph is full of information (and or authors opinion) on what to grow and when. The author is very experienced and knowledgable.The author also runs his own website, but hey, you cant always read a blog on a smartphone while you sit on your allotment.Its an easy read, but im increasingly using it as a reference guide as well. Its not the sort of book you read and sell on - it can be used as reference material.If you are starting out, the first approx 1/3 of the book covers the main elementary considerations, including tool choices, how to test soils, soil preparation etc for the beginner. I found the soil preparation diagrams confusing, but the rest of the diagrams were mostly sketches of vegetables for aesthetics, or weed sketches to try show weed structures.It doesnt necessarily cover every conceivable veg you can grow, ive spotted a few missing that i felt were fairly common. Naturally there are no fruit mentioned at all, this being a book on vegetables!!The book is very text heavy, there are not very many diagrams and there are no photographs inside - I wish the author would add a few colour photographs to show common weeds and pests though, come on guys, sketch drawings in the 21st century!If you are from the USA i wouldnt purchase as it mainly covers UK conditions, flora and fauna.There is more balanced material out there, particularly from the RHS in the UK, which is also written by a lot more people and is therefore based on a broader knowledge base, but i find this book more accessible and readable, and some of my RHS books dont necessarily cover all veggie garden subjects well either!Buy it, its a great book for the amateur veggie gardener, but it wont be your only book on veg growing.

Good for the experienced gardener as well as newbies.Written in easy to understand way. Will be hanging on to this for a long time. Highly recommended

I like this book. The author clearly writes from experience and is not at all afraid to say what he thinks even if it means sounding a bit old fashioned. For example he has tried the much touted "three sisters" practice of growing squash, beans and sweetcorn together and found it not suited to the typical British summer. He doesn't simply repeat what he has read in other books, but instead records his own findings.With this book you don't get glossy pictures at the expense of substance and good sense. What you get instead is a pretty good section on "how to" followed by the "when" in the month by month. I actually particularly liked the month by month section and found it very readable.I am not a complete beginner at growing vegetables and have given this four stars rather than five as I am not sure it is all that a beginner would need, but I think it would be a good start at a sensible price and not money wasted on colourful pictures and trendy ideas. Money well spent.

Brilliant book, I already had this but bought it for a freind.All in all – Great Book

The author freely admits that this isn't really a month by month guide; due to the many factors of gardening, (i.e. some jobs need to be done earlier, some later depending upon a number of factors.) So if you are looking for a 'paint by numbers' guide to veg growing, look elsewhere. Also unless you are Midas, there are large bits of this book which are aimed at the big growers or people with lots of cash who can afford heated greenhouses, grow rooms etc.. Those issues aside this is a gem of a book written by a gardener who knows his stuff and can teach many an old dog a new trick. The language is simple enough for the layman and in depth enough for those more experienced. An almanack it isn't, a good gardening book it is, a need for editing focus would have helped, but still a veg grower book worth the money .

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Masses of very useful tips and ideas for all kinds of veg including dealing with pests and what to plant with what

Thank you

Based on English growing season but some good all around ideas.

Much useful information about gardening even on the balcony. It encouraged me to plant strawberries and tomatoes on my balcony this year. Do not know yet what it gives. In any case it's very important to make a proper choice of variety. It should be noticed that the names and the varieties differ from country to country.