You don't always have to listen to Mel! | All New Square Foot Gardening

Excellent guide! | All New Square Foot Gardening | Mel Bartholomew

books:


	• All New Square Foot Gardening Mel Bartholomew Cool Springs Press, 2006 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 109 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

All New Square Foot Gardening

All New Square Foot Gardening
Great! Very helpful in saving time, space, and water. Very productive way of gardening.

You don't always have to listen to Mel!

I bought this book because I wanted some information on gardening intensively in raised beds. The best things about the book are the plant spacing guides and the timing charts in the back that help you know when to plant what, according to your frost dates. These are absolutely essential for the first time gardener, and I've referred to them many times. Aside for that, I don't care for Mel's writing style. He somehow comes off as pompous and condescending: "If you don't do __ , you don't have a square foot garden!" I don't care if I don't have a square foot garden, as Mel has defined it. I deviated from Mel's soil mix by purchasing landscape soil from a local company. My mix is 20% topsoil, 50-60% leaf compost, and the rest is sand. I also went 12 inches deep with the soil. It's nice to plant tomatoes deeply, and put carrots wherever I feel like it. Many, many people have admired my garden. It is incredibly productive and beautiful at the same time, with pictures that rival the author's. Oh, and that's another pet peeve--I wish the book had a few more photos, especially of trellised crops like tomatoes and melons. I can understand the need to start from scratch with your soil if you live in an area with terrible soils, but here in MI, the soil is nice to begin with. There's absolutely no reason to ignore great local resources if you have them. Instead of spending a fortune on the soil mix, I put my money into great-looking composite raised bed kits.

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Excellent guide!

This book is an excellent reference for the beginning gardener. Instructions are easy to follow, and the reference tables at the end of the book are wonderful.

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What an ego!

There are some very useful ideas here if you can stomach the author tooting his own horn on nearly every page while knocking other styles of gardening. I read a review before buying the book that said something similar and wish I'd just checked it out from the library. The system is workable, simple, and surely a nice gardening solution for many people, but it's not a book I'd need to keep on the shelf as a ready reference.

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Excellent Update to Favorite Gardening Method

I have been using Mel's original SFG method since my mother first gave me the book over 20 years ago. Bought this updated version as a gift for a friend but snuck a peek at it first. The new method sounds even easier and more productive, so I will be purchasing another copy for myself!

reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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