The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, 2nd Edition [Paperback]

Wouldn't it be lovely to have a patch of corn, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, and beans just steps from your kitchen door? Would you like to learn how to control your zucchini plant? Ed Smith, an experienced vegetable gardener from Vermont, has put together this amazingly comprehensive and commonsensical manual, The Vegetable Gardener's Bible. Basically, Ed and his family have been growing a wide variety of vegetables for years and he's figured out what works. This book, filled with step-by-step info and color photos, breaks it all down for you.

Ed's system is based on W-O-R-D: Wide rows, Organic methods, Raised beds, Deep soil. With deep, raised beds, vegetable roots have more room to grow and expand. In traditional narrow-row beds, over half the soil is compacted into walkways while a garden with wide, deep, raised beds, plants get to use most of the soil. In Ed's plan, growing space gets about three-quarters of the garden plot and only about a quarter is used for the walkway. Ed teaches you how to create raised beds both in a larger garden or in separate planked beds. One of the most important--and most often overlooked--aspects of successful vegetable gardening is crop rotation. Leaving a crop in the same place for years can deplete nutrients in that area and makes the crop more likely to be attacked by insects. Rotate at least every two years and your vegetables will be healthier and bug-free. There's also a good section on insect and blight control.

Before choosing what to grow, go through the last third of the book, where Ed takes a look at the individual growing, harvesting, and best varieties of a large number of both common and more exotic vegetables and herbs. Whether you are a putterer or a serious gardener, The Vegetable Gardener's Bible is an excellent resource to have handy. --Dana Van Nest --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A committed organic gardener, Smith is a proponent of staggered planting in raised, wide and deep beds that provide conductive root systems and produce abundant harvests. He explains his system, from optimum siting and soil preparation (he prefers broad-forking over rototilling or double-digging) to companion planting and compost ("The path to the garden of your dreams leads right through the middle of a compost pile"). For beginners, he takes the mystery out of such subjects as hardening off ("like a little boot camp for vegetables") and deciphering the shorthand used in seed catalogues. An abundance of photographs (most of Smith's own garden) visually bolster the techniques described, while frequent subheads, sidebars and information-packed photo captions make the layout user-friendly. The book concludes with an alphabetically arranged listing of vegetables and herbs in which Smith offers advice on every aspect of cultivation, as well as a selection of the most flavorful varieties. Smith doesn't necessarily break new ground here, but his book is thorough and infused with practical wisdom and a dry Vermont humor that should endear him to readers. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Smith, caretaker of a 1500-square-foot garden containing almost 100 varieties of vegetables, clearly explains everything novice and experienced gardeners need to know to grow vegetables and herbs using his system of wide, deep, raised beds. He gives detailed instructions on siting, preparing, and planning a vegetable garden, then goes on to cover choosing plant varieties, starting seed, and growing plants. Smith discusses how to create compost and ecologically friendly methods of dealing with plant diseases and pests. Detailed explanations of companion planting, crop rotation, and succession planting add to his book's value. The final third of the book gives specific cultural information (covering all regions of North America), as well as recommended varieties for many vegetables and selected herbs. Recommended for all libraries for its thorough, easy-to-follow instructions and information on companion plants and crop rotation.
-Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove P.L. IL
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Smith, who raises nearly 100 varieties of vegetables in his Vermont garden, recommends a method of gardening that calls for wide, raised, deep beds, resulting in more vegetables with less work. In part 1 Smith explains how this is achieved, giving instructions on selecting a site, acquiring the correct tools, laying out the beds, interpreting the information in seed catalogs, and starting seeds indoors. He also offers instructions on crop rotation, sowing seeds outdoors, installing a trellis, weeding, mulching, fertilizing, watering, harvesting, and growing plants in cold frames and greenhouses. Part 2 deals with soil requirements, making and using compost, and pest and disease control. Part 3 is an A-to-Z listing of vegetables and herbs, with details on growing, harvesting, and storing. Each entry has a list of the plant's best varieties. There are 550 color photographs that complement the informative text. George Cohen --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"The book by my bed is one of the most American gardening tomes ever published, Edward C. Smith s The Vegetable Gardener s Bible. The New York Times Book Review "Smith...clearly explains everything novice and experienced gardeners need to know to grow vegetables and herbs using his system of wide, deep, raised beds." Library Journal "An abundance of photographs...visually bolster the techniques described, while frequent subheads, sidebars and information-packed photo captions make the layout user-friendly...[Smith's] book is thorough and infused with practical wisdom and a dry Vermont humor that should endear him to readers." Publishers Weekly "There are 550 color photographs that complement the informative text." Booklist "Smith gives insight into the gardening world through pictures, sidebars and a thick easy-to-use section on nurturing vegetables with names A-Z...with pictures of Smith's garden to illustrate the conversational text." Today's Librarian "[Smith's] advice, hints, illustrations and charts will benefit any gardener." ForeWord --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The invaluable resource for home food gardeners! Ed Smith's W-O-R-D system has helped countless gardeners grow an abundance of vegetables and herbs. And those tomatoes and zucchini and basil and cucumbers have nourished countless families, neighbors, and friends with delicious, fresh produce. The Vegetable Gardener's Bible is essential reading for locavores in every corner of North America! EVERYTHING YOU LOVED about the first edition of The Vegetable Gardener's Bible is still here: friendly, accessible language; full-color photography; comprehensive vegetable specific information in the A-to-Z section; ahead-of-its-time commitment to organic methods; and much more. Now, Ed Smith is back with a 10th Anniversary Edition for the next generation of vegetable gardeners. New to this edition is coverage of 15 additional vegetables, including an expanded section on salad greens and more European and Asian vegetables. Readers will also find growing information on more fruits and herbs, new cultivar photographs in many vegetable entries, and a much-requested section on extending the season into the winter months. No matter how cold the climate, growers can bring herbs indoors and keep hardy greens alive in cold frames or hoop houses. The impulse to grow vegetables is even stronger in 2009 than it was in 2000, when Storey published The Vegetable Gardener s Bible. The financial and environmental costs of fossil fuels raise urgent questions: How far should we be shipping food? What are the health costs of petroleum-based pesticides and herbicides? Do we have to rely on megafarms that use gasoline-powered machinery to grow and harvest crops? With every difficult question, more people think, "Maybe I should grow a few vegetables of my own." This book will continue to answer all their vegetable gardening questions. Praise for the First Edition: "In every small town, there is a vegetable garden that people go out of the way to walk past. Smith is the guy who grew that garden." Verlyn Klinkenborg, The New York Times Book Review "An abundance of photographs . . . visually bolster the techniques described, while frequent subheads, sidebars, and information-packed photo captions make the layout user-friendly . . . [Smith's] book is thorough and infused with practical wisdom and a dry Vermont humor that should endear him to readers." Publisher s Weekly "Smith . . . clearly explains everything novice and experienced gardeners need to know to grow vegetables and herbs. . . . " Library Journal "this book will answer all your questions as well as put you on the path to an abundant harvest. As a bonus, anecdotes and stories make this informative book fun to read." - NewYork Newsday

Discover Ed Smith's Total Gardening System. It's the Last W-O-R-D in Vegetable Gardening! WIDE ROWS are easier to tend and provide a bigger yield per square foot. You'll get up to four times more delicious vegetables! ORGANIC METHODS are better for you, your garden, and the earth. They really work, so you'll have fewer pests and diseases! RAISED BEDS mean soil that drains better and warms up faster in the spring. The result is bigger, healthier, and better vegetables! DEEP SOIL provides a reservoir of nutrients and moisture that encourages root growth while producing the best harvest ever! "The Vegetable Gardener's Bible is an impressive accomplishment by a seasoned expert. It is destined to end up dog-eared in the potting shed." --James A. Baggett, Executive Editor, Country Living Gardener --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Edward C. Smith is the best-selling author of The Vegetable Gardener's Bible. For the last 31 years, he and his wife Sylvia, have lived off the grid in Vermont, in a house they built on land they cleared by hand. Together, the grow more than 100 varieties of vegetables, fruits, and herbs in their 2,000 square feet of gardens and containers.

Some Thoughts about Vegetable Gardening Once in a long time, a truly fresh gardening personality emerges. Over the past 30 years, I've had the privilege of working wit a few of these--Jim Crockett in the 1960s, Dick Raymond and Bob Thomson in the '707s, Louise Riotte in the '80s, Lewis and Nancy Hill in the '90s. Ed Smith, vegetable gardener, Cabot, Vermont, is the latest of these amazing personalities. He and his family tend a richly fertile garden of over 1,500 square feet filled with raspberries, blueberries, flowers, herbs, and nearly 100 varieties of vegetables, including some Vermont heirlooms. His garden looks like what I envision as the "vegetable garden of Eden." I never would have learned of, nor met, Ed but for his brother Charly, a Storey staff editor and horticultural expert in his own right. When we were looking for someone who was doing new and exciting things in the vegetable garden, he suggested that we meet his brother Ed. When we learned that Ed lived in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont (where gardening is only slightly easier than in Siberia!), we were skeptical. That is, until we saw his vegetable gardens. They are beautiful, the result of a high-yield system of gardening that Ed has been refining for over three decades. "If I can do it here in northern Vermont, it can be done just about anywhere," said Ed. The proof was before our eyes, and as we talked, we realized how logical and easy his approach was. To underscore a point, he took us to the richest compost pile I've ever seen. With mock seriousness he instructed, "The path to a high-yield garden leads straight through the middle of a compost pile." Clearly, Ed's no stick-in-the-mud when it comes to gardening. Wherever we walked, Ed had gardening wisdom to share. At the corn patch he said, "Corn has the highest sugar content early in the morning. So pick it then, before it's warmed by the sun, and refrigerate it in the husk until dinnertime. You'll get the best-tasting corn with the morning harvest." It's true. When we saw him dusting his seed potatoes with sulfur, he explained that sulfur is a fungicide, but that wasn't the reason he did it. "Treat seed potatoes with sulfur, and Colorado potato beetles will be much less of a problem." I followed his advice, and my new red potatoes were the best I've ever had. In the pages that follow, you'll see the results of his gardening system with your own eyes. We've come to refer to this system as the "W-O-R-D," to remind us of the wide rows, organic methods, raised beds, and deeply dug soil that underlie everything that Ed does. You'll discover these, along with the trellises that allow beans to grow to the sky, knowledgeable companion planting, and basic crop rotation, all leading to remarkable harvests--a vegetable gardening paradise. We spent the past year with Ed in Vermont, photographing his gardens from the first day of soil preparation to the last days of putting the garden to bed. These year-round photos --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.