The Practical Gardener: A Guide to Breaking New Ground

Discusses sunlight, pruning, soil acidity, fertilizers, water, seed catalogs, garden planning, cloches, weeds, mulch, pests, lawn care, and vegetable storage

Swain's unabashedly opinionated style and emphasis on his own gardening experience make for a zestful read: "I am no hunter. It doesn't really matter how many legs are involved--two, four, six, eight. I don't even like to kill slugs, and they have no legs at all." A host on PBS's The Victory Garden , he is also science editor of Horticulture magazine, where most of this book first appeared in his column, "20 Columbus Street." Although Swain's subtitle is slightly misleading--this is not, strictly speaking, a how-to on starting a new garden--there is much valuable information here for veteran and neophyte alike. Swain gives clear-cut advice on topics including plotting a solar map of one's property to find the optimum garden location, ordering the correct amount of vegetable seed and constructing a garden bench. Chapters are short, with little continuity and some repetition (spun-bonded row covers, for example, are explained in "Cloches" and again in "Cucumber Cover-up"), but this makes it easy for the reader to skip around and refer to the chapter pertinent to the task at hand--spacing strawberry plants, or pruning an overgrown grapevine.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Common sense and experience combine in this book of advice on growing vegetables, flowers, a few herbs, and fruits. Swain, science editor of Horticulture magazine and TV host of PBS's Victory Garden , takes a fairly relaxed approach to gardening. He offers reasonable methods of soil preparation, fertilization, seed sowing indoors and out, use of mulch, making compost, and dealing with weeds and pest problems. Practical gardener Swain concedes that not all gardeners will get the totally successful garden they may want. Although written with humor and a light touch, this is not a collection of essays as were Swain's Field Days : Journal of an Itinerant Biologist ( LJ 11/1/83) or Earthly Pleasures ( LJ 1/1/81). A good choice for most public libraries.
- Louise B. Hodges, Amherst Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.