Our friend Debbie Oakley started off this collection for us when we told her about the garden and our plans for self-sufficiency. There are lots of books in this series and they give in depth information for each subject. For instance the Fruit Expert covers growing the main types of fruits, different varieties and their strengths and weaknesses, rootstocks, pruning and propagation. We've steadily collected more of these only excluding the things we've definitely no interest in at the moment such as lawns.
So far The Vegetable Expert has been really well used. The alphabetical listing and clear instructions make it a really useful reference when it comes to deciding how far apart and how deep to plant everything and when to start things off. The preparation has not been per Dr Hessayon's instructions though as we are starting things off in the planting season.
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The Gardeners A to Z Guide to Growing Organic Food - Tanya L.K. Denckla
My only issue with the Expert Series is that they are not written from an organic gardening perspective. So for information on improving the soil and dealing with pests it's the A to Z. Again it is an alphabetical listing of plants which includes vegetables, fruit, nuts and herbs.
For each it gives planting instructions and a useful table for seed starting based on the first and last frost date which makes it useful wherever you are. The varieties and suppliers are American so at least for us that is not too useful but it does deal with a more varied selection of plants than the "Expert" books.
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