Fall Garden Update (Square Foot Gardening)

I just realized that it's been two months since I last wrote an update about my fall garden.

I still have not purchased Barbara Ellis's The Veggie Gardener’s Answer Book and I'm still a fan of Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening (click here to view all my posts on that book).

The fall garden has been as productive as the summer fruit and vegetable garden (with yellow pear and grape tomatoes, full size tomatoes, summer squash plants, eggplant, and more) and I've gotten used to eaten salad from greens freshly harvested, making stir-fry with bok choy or mibuna asian mustard greens straight from the garden, crispy roasted homegrown kale, delicious baby ox heart carrots, spicy hot scarlet globe radishes, and I'm looking forward to lots of winter squash.

I highly recommend Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, and Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening to anyone considering gardening.

The Veggie Gardener's Answer Book by Barbara W. Ellis

I just got back from my local grocery store where I found a fantastic resource for fruit and vegetable gardening: The Veggie Gardener's Answer Book: Solutions to Every Problem You'll Ever Face Answers to Every Question You'll Ever Ask by Barbara W. Ellis.

It's a small book - just over 4" x 6" and about 1.25" thick -- but the cover is sturdy and its full of useful tips for organic gardening.

Part 1 of this book applies organic methods to planning and planting a vegetable garden, improving soil, and controlling pests and diseases.

Part 2 is a crop-by-crop guide to starting, growing, and harvesting the most popular vegetables (with some, like brassicas, e.g., cabbages and broccoli, grouped together). Entries begin with a list of tips for success and include answers about general care and harvesting. The "Problem Patrol" section of each entry provides easy answers to fix typical problems through both prevention and treatment.

My favorite part is the table of fruits and veggies that tells you how many plants per person you should plant and whether you should do succession planting.

As much as I like Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening (click here to view all my posts on that book), I do feel like it leaves many questions unanswered. Got to add The Veggie Gardener's Answer Book to my list of books to purchase.