Burpee : The Complete Vegetable & Herb Gardener : A Guide to Growing Your Garden Organically

I am a fresh rookie at trying out a garden. So while figuring out how to prevent and control pests and insects were somewhat of a challange. Some of the prevention options did not offer clear instructions. So I had to guess and the amount and where I needed to spray specificlly. The pest ID in the book didnt seem to cover all of what I saw in my garden so I had to look online and go from there. Besides my ranting, I do love how the book tells you how you should prepare and plan everying on paper and ahead of time. Majority of cutivars are covered in this book. Some of the cultivars I bought just at a walmart before I bought the book so not all of my selection was in the book. The one thing I didn't like was there were no glossary. Other than that, it sure does a great job to helping you get started. But like I said I have no clue what I'm doing so doing all the research you can is a must. This book gives you that. :)

This is a great book, it has so much info from beginning to end of gardening. A most valuable book!

Produced 12 years ago, this book is still an excellent reference for beginning and experienced vegetable and herb growers. With more people growing their own food, this source is very helpful in answering questions. Newer varieties, available since the book was published, are not described, but many of those mentioned are still available and excellent for the home garden. The plant portraits (descriptions and growing instructions) of over 100 vegetables and herbs, covering 292 pages of the 438 page book, are a manual on how to grow them. A table on freeze dates and freeze-free periods for several cities in each state and province is useful for beginners and interesting for any reader.

The high quality of photos, lists, graphs and paper quality are enticing. The book is well worth the price.

Norman Pellett, author of Gardener's Quiz Book

I've learned so much from this book so far. Lots of nice photos and detailed descriptions of each type of vegetable. I've learned a lot that I didn't already know. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is serious about vegetable gardening.

Very detailed information about just about any vegetable imaginable. Goes a little overboard in information for my purposes, however. For example looking up watermelon tells you about growing every variety of watermelon when all i wanted was watermelon basics - I'm not growing any exotic varieties. And for one vegetable gave some historical info including a poem. I'm trying to focus on basics so is a little deep for me. Also would be nice to include a "tips" section for each vegetable. For example I had heard about using black plastic to speed watermelon growth - however not mentioned in book yet pretty common knowledge out there in google land. Book is VERY heavy with hard cover so not the easiest thing to pick up and read. For my needs 4 stars, however if you do want all that much detail you might give it 5.