All New Square Foot Gardening

The title caught my interest because I have a very small garden space at my condo. I followed the directions exactly and had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year. The soil mixture was great. My overall rating was low because the author really does not indicate, for those of us who are inexperienced vegetable gardeners, just how large vegetables can get and how completely inadequate the space is for squash, cucumbers and so forth. I will not use this method again, though there is some good information in the book.

Excellent book. Easy to understand, concise, and a perfect solution for successful vegetable gardening. Technique that any age can understand and do in any location. I am giving the book to all my friends for Christmas.

Square foot gardening just makes sense for urban growers. Work a plot a day and your garden will stay in control.

Do you want a healthy, bountiful vegetable garden? Then just follow these simple, straight-forward instructions:
* Prepare the garden using plenty of soil building compost.
* Plant in wide beds or rows but not so wide that you can't reach your arm to the middle of the bed.
* Plant so that plants just touch each other at maturity blanketing the growing bed and using every inch of space.
* Choose high-yield vegetable varieties; select compact, heavy cropping varieties.
* Grow up and not out: train tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and other climbers on trellises, fences, and poles.
* Take care of your crops; visit the garden often to catch pests and diseases before they get started.
* When a crop is harvested replace it with another that will just fill the space vacated and reach harvest before the end of the growing season.
* Extend the season: use cold frames, plastic tunnels, and cloches to get more time out of your season--in both spring and autumn.
* When the final harvest is in, add more compost to the garden and you'll be ready for next year.

These are the fundamental, time-tested practices of intensive vegetable gardening: sometimes called oriental bed gardening, sometimes called French intensive market gardening, sometimes called bio-dynamic gardening, and by Mel Bartholomew called ALL NEW SQUARE FOOT GARDENING.

ALL NEW SQUARE FOOT GARDENING delivers the intensive gardening message loud and clear with easy to follow instructions and simple how-to photographs. If you are new to gardening or new to intensive gardening, this is a must-have introduction. Follow this manual and you'll reap big yields from small spaces. To take the next step with detailed growing directions for more than 80 vegetables and herbs check out The Kitchen Garden Grower's Guide: A practical vegetable and herb garden encyclopedia.

The book is has good info for the very beginner gardener. If you are more advanced, look to another book. This very basically explains raised bed planting with compost, vermiculite and peat and then heavily over planted on a grid. Not much info on companion planting or plating in general. Great book for beginners though!