Barbara W. EllisCritiques

I couldn't finish this one. The author's voice is so pompous and belittling that it makes even the useful parts (which were very few for me) almost unreadable. Most of this book relates specifically to newspaper editing, which is not really helpful for the type of editing I do. That's okay, though; I read many editing books and usually gain knowledge and insight from editors of all kinds. That was not the case with this book. The information and techniques described are very outdated. The few useful nuggets I could have gotten out of this book were covered in convoluted prose and sprinkled with sour self-righteousness. It's great that the author has had a long career as a copy editor, but her dinosaur perspectives do nothing for people editing in the real world today.

Small format, looked quite promising.

Pictures & descriptions

Your healthy garden, insects, diseases, organic controls

Unexpected ideas for landscaping with colorful, low-Maintenance Ground covers

I have tried growing vegetables and fruit before, without luck. I've tried growing plants in the summer as they recommend. I've tried growing from seed in little peat pots and starting mix, only to have the little seedlings die after a couple of weeks.

Well, I think I've figured out part of the trouble. I was following general instructions, which talk about the ideal growing season being the summer. Trouble is...I live in Florida. I've come to realize that it's just too stinkin' hot down here to grow anything in the summer! Our ideal growing times are fall and spring, with a lot of our growing happening in the winter as well.

So I decided to try my hand once again, this time with the help of Starting Seeds by Barbara Ellis. It is chock full of good information for beginners wanting to learn about growing from seed. One tip: don't include garden soil with potting soil when growing from seed.

I also learned about self-watering seed starters, which would probably have saved me last time I tried growing herbs from seed. I simply could not keep the peat pots properly moist, and my seedlings didn't survive.

There are lots of great lists included, like "Easy Vegetables for Starting Indoors", "Easy Annuals for Starting Indoors", and "Easy Vegetables to Direct Sow".

I learned about "special-needs seeds" that may need things like "scarification" in order to have success in germinating them.

You also learn how to test seeds for viability, and how to pregerminate, which are both basically the same processes.

I have some old seeds I won back in 2008 and never used (due to my poor success in trying to grow something from seed), and I didn't know whether they'd still be any good. So I decided to test some of them. I followed the instructions in this book for germinating the seeds in damp paper towels to look for signs of sprouting.

And after about 10 days, I had a great success rate with my beans and peas, as well as some tomato sprouts.

So I had to ask myself: what now? What do I do with all of these sprouted seeds? I hated to just throw them away. So, although it was a little early down here for beans and peas, and a little late for tomatoes, I decided to go ahead and try potting them.

I stuck two bean sprouts on the sides of a window box, and I put bean seeds across the back and pea seeds across the front.

I was curious to see how the sprouts would compare to the seeds directly sowed. They are only slightly bigger. (I know I probably have too many plants in too small a space, but this is all an experiment for me at this point. However the plants in the windowbox are all "dwarf" plants.)

I also put some various bean and pea sprouts across the back of one of my deck planters, along with some Brandywine Tomato sprouts that I stuck around the outside of my tomato cage. Everything is doing well, and the tomato sprouts are now several inches tall.

So I picked up a lot of great tips from this book, and so far I'm having success. I have some lettuce seeds pregerminating right now, although it is the end of our lettuce growing season, so I don't know what kind of luck I will have. But at least I am learning which of my old seeds seem to still be viable. Today I will try potting radishes, sunberry and my lettuce sprouts.

This book also has some great resource links in the back, including a website which shows pictures of common weeds, to help you figure out what are veggie and flower seedlings, and what are weeds.

My final word:

Looking to learn more about growing from seed? Pick this book up today!

Very comprehensive book that tells you most everything you need to know about vegetable gardening. I particularly liked the crop by crop section, which addresses common problems with each crop. After reading this book, I felt like I knew a lot more about what was going on in my vegetable patch.

didn't have info re: all year ground covers. Lovely pictures

Super useful book.
My husband and I love growing vegetables, but we're not very knowledgeable on the "how-to". This book gives you information about how to grow just about any kind of vegetables. Definitely going into our reference library.½

This book suffers from trying to be all things to every gardener. It is a great starting point for techniques, but I often find myself wishing for more detail.