[.ca] How To Grow More Vegetables 7th Ed (ISBN 1580087965)

Disappointed with purchase:
First, 1/3 of this book is bibliography, ie. stuff I most probably have no use for. Secondly its a very dated book, lots of line drawings (not very good ones at that) that looks old, and no photos. Also its a very hard book to read, there's like 2 chapters devoted to convincing you of their philosophy (plus loads of new age crap), and every chapter is like that. The style and language used does not make it easy to understand what it is the author is trying to say. Sometimes I have to read and re-read a paragraph a few times to understand. For a guy that reads technical specifications everyday for a living, this is BAD writing. On the plus side, there's a lot of technical information if you can filter out all the propoganda and understand what the author is saying. I really find this book hard to read, but the title really tells me the author was very good at marketing. If you need technical info, and have the patience to filter out the other stuff, and don't mind paying for lots of pages thats useless to you, get it.

This book is Great!!:
THis book I would suggest to anyone that wants to learn how to produce a productive vegetable garden. I used to plant in rows with mixed results, but once I started composting and using the rasied bed meathod along with planting in blocks instead of rows, well I have enough to can and make my own home-made condiments now. I HIGHLY reccomend this book!!

very technical:
this book contains a lot of technical information such as "the avarage number of pounds of a crop eaten by each american in a year," and "the ph soil balance of crops" it is not for casual practicionars, i would recomend it only to serious farmers, but to them, it would be eccelent.

Excellent resource for food production:
This book is an amazing, overwhelming wealth of information. I'm not sure I totally agree with all the advice - he's somewhat anti-manure and recommends transplanting everything twice. It mentions things like phase of the moon planting, but it's not dogmatic about these more offbeat ideas. The real value is the charts for the growing needs, spacing, etc. for every plant and grain and tree, with suggested layouts and rotations; and how it targets sustainably suppling real food for people, in quantities needed to live on, rather than just growing the odd vegetable for fun. They are, I believe, in Northern CA so more appropriate for me in Oregon than many of the Rodale and other east-coast authors.

Concise, Thorough Guide to Gardning for sustinance:
This book was loaned to me by a friend who has used it's techniques to produce high-yield growth in his gardens. I have always wanted to have a self sufficent garden, and land for this, but have always thought I would need a number of acres to do this. I am now planning on purchasing a home with one acre and am confident that with the techniques detailed in this book, I will be able to produce good crops for home-grown organic vegetables. There is so much information here on composting, conpanion planting, how plants and thier root systems grow and interact, how to make the garden beds, why beds and clumps are better and yield more produce than planting in rows, soil composition, garden implements and more. There are diagrams for everything you need to know presented in such a way that it's easy to understand and implement. There is so much information here, it would be usefull to a complete beginer like me or an experienced gardner. Happy Planting!