The Vegetable & Herb Expert (Expert Series)

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: I'm not an expert gardener, so I found this book to be a great quick reference to problems that my vegetable plants were having.

Rating:
Summary: Not what I was looking for
Review: Lots of information, but none of the information I wanted. This book is a good reference for Great Britian but for the US it is kind of obsolete.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent guide.
Review: This beautifully illustrated and photographed book is a very informative and easy to use reference for anyone who wants authentic expert advice on how to grow and maintain a vegetable and/or herb garden. This practically organized book is divided into ten readily accessible sections:
* Getting Started: serves as an introduction to the book and gives some advice on buying seeds, rotating crops, digging and preparing the seed bed, and sowing the seeds.
* Where to Grow Vegetables: discusses the pros and cons of growing vegetables in different environments, including the greenhouse, the border, the potager, beds, containers, traditional plots and windowsills.
* Looking After Vegetables: presents invaluable advice on thinning, transplanting, weeding, feeding, watering, mulching, spraying, harvesting and storing vegetables, as well as clear instructions on how to deal with protected cropping and how to get the most from your plot.
* Home-Grown Vegetables, Unusual Vegetables, Baby Vegetables and Herbs: these four sections are presented as alphabetized guides in which each vegetable's or herb's entry includes its image and/or picture, a description of its common varieties, details on how to sow, keep, harvest and eat it, and a list of the ordinary problems that affect it.
* Vegetable Trouble: explains how to speedily and correctly prevent each specific trouble before it starts and how to deal with it after it appears.
* Shop-Bought Vegetables: is an illustrated listing intended to help you recognize a selected group of vegetables available at the market, and includes many tips on how to buy, preserve, ripen and eat them.
* An Index.
The information given in this book for the herbs and vegetables that are listed is very thorough. However, this book was oriented towards a British public and only lists temperate climate vegetables and herbs, ignoring many varieties of tropical ones. Still, I recommend buying this book to those interested in knowing how to make and maintain a comprehensive and convenient vegetable and/or herb garden.