The Complete Guide to Growing Your Own Fruits and Berries Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply (Back-To-Basics)

The description makes is sound great... then you get the book delivered. We bought it particularly for pruning of fruit trees & grapes. The grape pruning section is 1 sentence & includes kiwi. The fruit tree section is 4 paragraphs, just over 1 page.... oh, and it includes ALL types of fruit trees. The section on selection of varieties... yeah... basically says consider light, soil & climate before deciding what to grow. That about sums up that entire section!If your brand new, zero experience, with gardening of any sort, this is a decent book. The description says beginners to experts refer to this book... I’d like to know what expert refers to this book for information!If you have even basic knowledge of gardening or plant care, spend your money on a different book!

Lovely photos--often lacking captions and a lack of illustrations or photos for particular tools or processes that could use some visual explanation. Some of the tables seemed interesting and helpful but the accompanying text all but invalidated them--ex. fruit planting season table vs text saying times are opposite in "the South." Based on the overlapping explanations and classifications of several states into regions, it's difficult to know whether or not I should follow the chart or do the opposite. Coverage of larger tools/machines did not mention how their use can compact garden soil, or destroy soil texture and therefore your chances of success. Amending clay soil with sand was an impractical bit of advice for "sweetening" as it actually just makes it into an impenetrable brick. It also described clays as alkaline, which at least as far as my mid-Atlantic gardening experience goes, is the opposite. Soil texture (clay, sand, silt) cannot be permanently altered without taking years (possibly lifetimes) but all textures can be improved by adding composted organic matter. The coverage of mulches omitted key information as well--the best (in long-term university studies) is arborist chips comprised of bark, twigs, and hard and softwoods. It was also claimed that mulches are cheap which is relative and it didn't really address chemically treated mulches and how they might affect edibles. The statement of adding sawdust as an amendment that absorbs nitrogen sounded like having the most challenging to keep around macronutrient needed by plants absorbed was a bonus feature. The recommendation of drying found seaweed as a fertilizer didn't seem to address the high salt content it might bring to plants/composts that it would be applied to. There seemed to be many missed opportunities for excellent edible gardening education within this text. I was also disappointed to see so many brand references. It felt as though the author might have been offered incentives to mention certain companies and products repeatedly. Overall, it was a lovely but superficial treatment of a topic that would require volumes to be "complete." Many of the issues it tried to address would be more accurately answered with "it depends" as to where the garden is. Trying to write specifics for the whole country is rather too ambitious. Contact your local extension office for the most accurate information and personal friendly advice for growing fruits and berries.

I learned myself and applied the knowledge gained from this Well written book. Berries are growing good

Bought as present .gift reciever loved the content and ease of reading.

Great book!! Lots of knowledge, basically has everything

Haven't finished reading it yet. Has good advice.

it was what I wanted

Like the book