Vegetable Gardening: From Planting to Picking--The Complete Guide

Nothing beats the taste of vegetables from a home garden, and with Vegetable Gardening it's never been easier. With over 80 varieties of vegetables to choose from, eating delicious, just-picked produce is a snap. Learn every step of creating and maintaining a cornucopia of garden-fresh vegetables: from choosing and planning your plot, preparing the soil, selecting seeds or cultivating seedlings, proper watering, harvesting, and storing.

From composting and mulching to caring for and harvesting vegetables, it's clear that most gardeners want to use organic methods and avoid chemical fertilizers and pesticides. But what happens when things go wrong and organic solutions don't seem to be working? The two authors of this book have different answers to this question.

Jane Courtier takes the view that organic methods are the "first, best choice," but she occasionally uses chemical fertilizer and will resort to chemical pesticides if a serious problem arises. Fern Marshall Bradley writes from the viewpoint of a longtime organic gardener who's chosen to never use any chemicals in her garden. Together they've created a book that looks at vegetable gardening from both points of view. There are substantive issues on both sides-and in the end, it's an individual choice. Let them help you make up your own mind!

Special-feature sidebars provide problem-solver tips, including:

• Planting Guides with problem-solver tips on what and how much to plant, site preparation, and when to plant
• Temperature alerts for the best growing temperatures
• Quick Tips that give additional tidbits of information such as health tips, how to mark the crops, how deep to plant certain seeds, and more
• Best of the Bunch provides information about the varieties available, how they produce, growing time, annual or perennial, and more
• Guide to Vegetable Yields, Sowing to Harvest Times, A Guide to Seeds, and many more graphs and charts