The Berry Grower's Companion

I had the pleasure of knowing the author when she was a professor of horticulture at Penn State. She is a remarkable person, combining genuine love for berries with an encyclopedic knowledge of their biology and growing requirements. This book distills that enthusiasm and expertise in a very usable and enjoyable form. If you are interested in growing strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, grapes, or other berry crops in your garden, this is the book to have. It is engaging, authoritative, supremely practical, educational, and downright fun to read. Some garden publications are thick on pretty pictures but thin on substance, or may actually propagate horticultural myths not founded in scientific fact. This book is different. Reading it, you will learn a lot about how these plants work, and how to grow them successfully, including delightful sidebar "digressions" about the history and biology of berry species. Although packed with important information needed specifically by berry growers, the book is written in plain language, with clear drawings, color photos, and zest that makes it a delight to read. This is bound to be the best book on the subject for some time, that is, until she writes a second edition!

I dove right into the book as soon as I got it and was impressed with the information it provided. I have also found out that I have to move my raspberry plants for best production. The vender that I bought my plants from didn't give me enough "how to's" when I planted. With just a bit of time reading I have found out where to improve and to better take care of the plants to enjoy my crop. Not only does it cover raspberry plants but numerous other berries and might just try a planting of others. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to learn more about berries and the planting there of. I tell anyone to buy the book first and read the part on the berries first and then to buy and plant according to the book. Not like me I have a spring project already to replant mine. Good luck and enjoy your berry crop. Jerry S.

I am delighted with this book. The information is far more in-depth than I expected. Better yet, this mass of information is written in easy to read and understand language, which is great for home growers like me. I wanted help with my blueberries, strawberries, and grapes and I got that--and much more. Indeed, I feel confident in my berry-growing knowledge--and my family and friends tell me they are impressed with my knowledge! Another plus is that the book is organized with all the information about the given berry in one section, so you don't have to roam around to find different types of information.I highly recommend The Berry Growers Companion to professional growers, farmers, and plain old home folks like me.

The book was helpful and contained great information. I found the index unhelpful, though. I like a book that I can flip to the back index and find exactly what I am looking for and this book did not provide that detail. I rarely have the time to read through a book cover to cover.All in all, it was a good book to get me started on berry and grape growing..

As a Master Gardener Volunteer and organic gardener, I receive many questions about growing berries and grapes and decided I needed a good reference book that answered all the basic questions asked by the small time, backyard grower. After reviewing a few books I returned all but this one. Barbara covers everything from basic growing to variety recommendations, pruning, training, diseases affecting, and propagation. She also presents the history of pesticide use, IPM-integrated pest management, and urges each of us to review current scientific research so we can make our own informed decision about the use of pesticides and herbicides. This book also provides nursery resources for plant purchases.

Checked this out of the Library so many times ...was time to just buy it!!!! Has everything I have ever needed for my berry growing. Raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and strawberries and all are different varieties... get's confusing. Great guide ...this is explained everything from soil to pruning and there's pictures !!!! Offers more info to understanding the whole process breaking it down for each variety.

Ltos of good information here. The book is divided into chapters of different types of berries. It gives extensive information on varieties, cultural requirements, pruning, etc. It is probably not the only book you'll need on some of these fruits - but it's an excellent overall resource. It even includes some more unusual berries, like currants and lingonberries.

Does it contain lots of useful information? Yes. Would I have bought it had I read pages 38-41? Absolutely not. "The era of optimism came to an abrupt and crashing halt with the publication of...Rachel Carson's Silent Spring...the book was not a scientifically sound publication... We could not produce enough food to feed the people of the world without these chemicals." And so on. (Of course, people were not producing food before the chemical companies developed their left over chemical weapons into 'fertilizers'.) As any one can guess, I use organic methods. I have many non-organic gardening books among more than 100 titles but until this one I had not read such nonsense. By the way, before I moved to my current home, I grew raspberries in the shade and got tons of fruits.

If you want to grow strawberries, raspberries , blackberries, blueberries or grapes, and are a complete beginner to growing berries, then this book will probably be useful. One entire chapter is devoted to each of the above (blackberries and raspberries share a chapter). Bear in mind however that this book is written for a United States audience.My disappointment relates mainly to the fact the author barely mentions any other berries: gooseberries and currants (of which there are many dozens if not hundreds of varieties in North America alone) are allocated just a couple of pages each; the cranberry - a massive crop in the US - astonishingly gets only a passing mention (one short paragraph in which it is dismissed as 'minor in terms of its use in the landscape), although a thing called a 'highbush cranberry' (a form of guelder rose unrelated to the true cranberry, and only very rarely cultivated) gets slightly more attention.The fruit the author does cover in detail are covered well.

Buen libro para conocer algo mas sobre el cultivo de las berrys. El dato negativo es que me han enviado la edición anterior en vez de la última.El idioma es ingles, pero no utiliza unas expresiones demasiado coloquiales o muy rebuscadas y se entiende bastante bien.

Good guide