Customer Reviews

Four Season Harvest: How to Harvest Fresh Organic Vegetables from Your Home Gardens All Year Long

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It is probably not easy writing a second book on a similar subject.I read and reviewed Eliot Coleman's first book on Organic Gardening.And as you can read in that first review,I just loved that book.The second book,I would have called "Cold Hardy Winter Vegetables",rather than the Four-Season Harvest.
Of course there is a list for growing vegetables all year round.But apart from the list what one can grow during the colder season,it is just pretty much a recapitulation of the first work Coleman put on paper.
So I still give this book 4 Stars.Because if you have not read his first one,then of course it would be a great book.

After seeing the book here on Amazon I thought I wanted it. While looking for another book at the local library I found this book in it's revised and updated edition. I was sadly disappointed. It is more a travellog than a how-to on gardening. I read several other similar books and the best one I found was "Solar Gardening" by Leandre Poisson from Chelsea Green.

This book is really wonderful. I've owned it for several years and have also had reliable winter harvests in Maine (where I used to live). It has also really expanded my awareness of good things to eat fresh from my garden.

Coleman presents his ideas clearly and with plenty of pictures. This is really critical. Using the diagrams in the book, I was easily able to build a cold frame from scrap board. No mean feat, as I am not the most accomplished builder.

The only drawback to the book, which is pretty minor, is the size of the hardiness zone map in the back. I would have much preferred it to be larger and in color.

Eliot Coleman's fine book has given rise to a gentle whisper deep in my thoughts. That whisper says, "Fresh veggies - in the winter! And it's not even difficult..." I find myself daydreaming about winter gardening, planting winter crops in my imagination, planning beds and trellises and cold frames full to bursting with delicious greens. I entertain the radical notion of a four-season independence from boring, tasteless supermarket vegetables for the price of a very small effort.

This wonderful book tells you everything you need to know about four-season harvesting, provides planting dates for a broad variety of garden delicacies, and shares tried and true labor-saving methods. It will inspire you and inform you! An excellent reference, a good choice for a beginnner, and a perfect gift for the avid gardener.

Eat fresh, home-grown vegetables year round? Eliminate canning and freezing? Do this all at low cost? Eliot Coleman does, you can, too, and here is the how. Coleman is a market gardener in Maine who may eat better than Bill Gates. He shows that sunlight and wind protection are more important that temperature--and, by the way, most of the U.S. gets more winter sunlight than Coleman's place. Inexpensive, unheated greenhouses that he calls tall tunnel houses--some say hoop houses--and cold frames protect from wind and keep snow off the veggies. Greenhouse comfort is more to benefit the gardener. The key is what and when to plant. Full info given for planting dates, construction details, sources of seeds, tools, greenhouses. Well illustrated. An essential guide for organic gourmands.