gg.org's top ten recommendations for garden books...read & print

June 2009, editor of www.greatgrandmother.org, read & print

Coming from Southern California, my go-to garden resources were my aunt and uncle (mostly roses), my grandfather (tomatoes and onions), my father (basil), and Sunset Magazine. But in a warm, arid climate such as Los Angeles, with cool ocean breezes at night and scortching hot days, you'd have to be a bozo not to be a successful gardener.

Fast forward to New Hampshire. One-third the growing season as California. Not as hot, on average, during the day. Fear of frost into mid- to late-spring. Rocky, granite soil in much of the state. Hungry deer and munchy moose. You get the picture. We need all the help we can get.

I have learned to rely on our local library, our University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension Service, and a couple successful organic gardening gurus like my friend Betsy Janeway of Webster, NH. Here are my recommendations. Before you buy them, look around at your library.

1. The New Hampshire Gardener's Companion by NH Master Gardener Henry Homeyer. This is an insider's guide to gardening in the Granite State. Henry breaks down the book into three sections: firm foundations, where he explains soils and seasons; green things, where he talks about vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs, lawns, and invasive plants; and garden solutions where he speaks in clear English about coping with pests and diseases, and learning from public gardens. He's a funny, chatty author with a sense of what's right and important. Little fluff makes this book a quick-glance resource guide when your dirty hands leaf through the pages for a snappy answer.

2. The Best Plants for New Hampshire Gardens and Landscapes published by the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension and the New Hampshire Plant Growers' Association. This lean manual has sharp black and white photos for someone like me who is visual. The editors like to show off the latin names of the plants, which I tend to shy away from during my yard-working time. But I have found the biological names helpful when I head out to purchase a specific species since many areas of the U.S. have different nicknames for the plants. I especially like the first part, where the editors speak to the seven habitats of a garden--a very helpful way of providing importsnt information. A must-have resource for Granite State gardeners!

3. Grow Vegetables by Alan Buckingham. This is a picture book with some words included for good measure. Most of the book is formatted by type of vegetable: root and stem, cabbage and leaf, fruiting, perennials, herbs, peas and beans, etc. This is my first stop when I have a question. I rely on this book to ground me, slow me down, and get my first handle on the challenge. Then, if necessary, I can move on to more sophisticated resources. But I can't say enough about the great photos. Good for any climate in any part of the United States!

4. The Contrary Farmer's Invitation to Gardening by Gene Logsdon. Sure, Gene Logsdon is rooted in rural America, but this wonderful chapter book is a voice of sanity and self-reliance for anywhere in the United States. The author hails from Upper Sandusky, Ohio and has been at the forefront of provocative, often irreverent thinking about the family farm and garden. He was a former editor for Organic Gardening magazine, so his credentials are superb. This book is a collection of wonderful essays that every home gardener, small lot farmer, or large commercial cropper should read. His agroeconomic theories can be a bit to get through, but well worth the struggle. I know it's still being sold because I saw it today at my local co-op market.

5. The BackYard (sic) Orchardist by Stella Otto. This great book won the Benjamin Franklin Award from the Independent Booksellars, among many others. If you are growing cherries in the UP of Michigan or oranges in California's central valley, you'll learn something from this unintimidating book. Loaded with 95 specific visuals, this reference takes the reader from site selection to planting, and from pruning to harvest and storage, and everything in between. Whether you have an apple tree in your front yard or several hundred acres of plum trees, this will be a valuable resource to your personal library.

6. Jeff Ball's 60-Minute Vegetable Garden by Jeff Ball. I first purchased this book in 1985 because it claimed that with just one hour per week, one could have the most productive vegetable garden possible. This is a raised bed resource book by a man who helped pioneer the whole concept among the masses. Ball was for many years the gardening expert on NBC's Today and resides in suburban Philly. The slant of this book is on how to build the foundation for the garden. Specific details about type of lumber, measurements, and soil ingredients are all spelled out for the beginner. There is nothing left to chance when you read this book. Even today, with my kitchen garden growing by leaps and bounds, I refer to this excellent resource.

7. The Woodchuck's Guide to Gardening by Ron Krupp. Krupp is a certified organic gardener in Vermont, so his approach is clear, which I find refreshing. The magic of this book is that he presents each topic by season. Nicely written in approachable language, Krupp also includes poems, prayers, and insights sprinkled throughout the book. A very Zen approach to foraging wild spring plants, putting up harvested food in the fall, and gardening with children all year 'round. A thorough appendix!

8. Rodale's Ultimate Enclyclopedia of Organic Gardening, edited by Bradley, Ellis, and Phillips. This complete, practical, and authoritative resource is the one book I would keep on gardening if I had only one choice. Alphabetical by topic (even an entry on bird seed), it's easy to navigate and thorough as one would need. Not a ton of illustrations, but that's not the premise of this resource. This is not a pretty picture book. The key to its success is the details necessary to help a gardener or organic farmer get through an issue. More than 700 pages, my book is dog-eared already, with white pages smudged with garden soil and worm castings--a sign that I use it frequently.

9. Backyard Homestead, edited by Carleen Madigan. This is a Storey Publication--a publishing house with the reputation of producing excellent, well-researched information on organics, homesteading, horticultural topics, etc. I like the premise of this book: from a quarter acre, you can harvest... This rich book speaks to chickens, goats, and rabbits, as well as nuts, fruits, and vegetables. How to can, how to grow strawberries, how to save seeds, how to slaughter pigs, etc. It's all right here in a well-illustrated book. Written with smart, rather than cute, prose. A bit general for someone who is already knee deep into raising sheep, but if you are toying with the idea of expanding your independence from the uber-grocery store chains, then this is a good start.

10. Sunset Northeaster Garden Book, by the editors of Sunset Publishing. Here the western magazine editors of Sunset try their hands with plants that grow well in the northeast. The same easy-to-navigate, alpha-order paperback as its western cousin, this book is a down-and-dirty compendium of everything green...and blue and lavendar and orange...that grows in soil. The best part of each entry for me is that it's like reading the plant tags that come with the new plants from the nursery. Soil type, zone, hardiness factor, required sun, what to feed, etc. If you can't find it here, then you can't find it.