Miracle-Gro Complete Guide to Vegetables, Fruits & Herbs

This is the book that got me back into gardening after I graduated college and bought my first house. We had always had a garden when I was growing up, but we mostly grew the standard fare: tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers. This guide opened my eyes to so many other wonder vegetables, fruits, and herbs that I could grow in Ohio’s USDA Zone 6a.

You will want to bring this book with you to the nursery or have it at hand you order online to help you select your seeds or plants, as it lists common varieties that you are likely to see and gives you basic information about each.

There are sections on selecting a site for your garden, improving the soil, planting, fertilizing, building compost, irrigating, harvesting, and recognizing and treating common plant diseases. Vegetables, fruit (both tree fruit and berries), and herbs receive equal treatment.

At #pages, the book punches above its weight in terms of value but takes up little space on your bookshelf. As with the Miracle-Gro Complete Guide to Trees & Shrubs, the all-color photography and diagrams are superb.

There is no reason that a beginning gardener who has this book and a gardening neighbor or online mentor can’t have a healthy and bountiful first-year garden no matter where they live.