The Complete Guide to Growing Berries and Grapes

Rating:
Summary: Thorough, accessible guide to berry growing
Review: The late Louise Riotte is a legend in the organic growing community, and she delivers again with this guide to growing berries and grapes. Very often gardening guides can come off sounding rather dry, but her writing style is easy and conversational, and I feel sad after finishing one of her books that our time together has ended. Her expertise is deep from years and years of experience and study, and she shares this knowledge openly with her readers, initiating the novice into all her tricks and traditions. She explains the basic principles of gardening for each plant first, and then goes into specifics regarding different varieties, as well as little tips and shortcuts that most of us only stumble into after many seasons of troubleshooting. What amazes me is how much information she can pack into so few pages, without skimping on important little details that can make a big difference for beginners.

The book includes excellent chapters on grapes, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, gooseberries and currants, and dewberries and their cousins. There is also a chapter including a variety of lesser-known berries, although there is not nearly as much coverage for them (most of what applies to the major berries can be directly applied to these lesser-known varieties). Nonetheless, the major chapters cover everything from preparing the ground, planting (in a variety of different configurations), trellising when necessary, cultivating, protecting from pests and disease, harvesting, wintering, and recipes for enjoying the berries once they're picked. The strawberry chapter includes easy instructions for doing a barrel or jar, and many of the other fruits have container instructions, as well. She also includes an Appendix of suppliers, although I'm not sure how useful it is after 30 years. There is also some dated information regarding pesticides in the book. For instance, Japanese Beetles are a big problem for berry growers in many parts of the country, and here Riotte recommends using malathion and/or Milky Spore for their control. The latter is still a good idea, but recent research on malathion has determined it to be dangerously toxic even in previously "safe" doses. A better alternative might be rotenone-pyrethrin, which is commonly used by organic growers to protect against JB's. When I only had a half dozen small rose bushes, I controlled the JB's by removing them by hand, and then killing them or drowning them, but now that I've expanded to several rose hedges, as well as 50 strawberries, 9 blackberries, 3 blueberries, and 3 raspberries, I've found a spray to be far more manageable. Growers without so many JB's in their neighborhood, or with more plants that JB's don't like, might not have as much of a problem. Of course, before using any sort of pesticide it is important to look into the chemical yourself and be aware of the dangers involved, and to use it responsibly according to the instructions if you decide the risk is small enough. Riotte points this out, and I suspect her later books on organic gardening will have some updated advice on this problem. Also in the Appendix is a chart containing gardening information, and another containing nutritive information, for all the fruits in the book. I found this useful enough to photocopy it before returning the book to the library.

If you have difficulty finding a copy of the book, Riotte's publisher, Storey Books, also publishes Country Wisdom Bulletins on growing berries that are excellent, and they only cost a few dollars each. Riotte wrote the Bulletin on strawberries, and another one on raspberries and blackberries. There are others on blueberries, grapes, etc., by different authors. The strawberry chapter is by far the highlight of this book, so if nothing else get Riotte's Country Wisdom Bulletin on the subject.

Happy Digging!