The Vegetable Gardener's Container Bible
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £2.50
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Vegetable Gardener's Container Bible, The for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £2.50, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
This is best-selling author Ed Smith's complete guide to growing a bounty of vegetables in small spaces and without land. This is a completely updated and expanded edition of "Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers", now including conventional containers of all sizes, from window boxes to tubs. "The Vegetable Gardener's Container Bible" provides information on growing everyone's favourite vegetables in all kinds of containers. And Ed Smith delivers his wealth of container gardening knowledge in the friendly, accessible style that his readers love. He explains how to choose the rights plants, select appropriate containers and tools, provide balanced nutrition, care for plants throughout the growing season, control pests without chemicals, and much more. He even includes plans for small-space container gardens that urban and suburban gardeners will love.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Incredible Vegetables from Self-watering Containers
I wanted to create a garden in a small space, so not having a lot of experience I read loads of books about square-foot and container gardening, to ensure better chance of sucess, and now have quite a good selection of related garden books.
I haven't bothered to review any of them except one. This book was so useful from start to finish, it stood out for a novice like me, and effected the way I planned and undertook my project. The results are quite satisfying.
The book is clearly written, usefully illustrated, it explains (simply) the scientific mechanisms of self-watering contianers and how they pertain to plants, plus gives step-by-step instructions on how to make the pots from scratch, explains how to make potting soil (which is important by the way)....and I kind of wish I hadn't bothered to buy all the other books.
Good luck with your gardening projects! Glen.
I wanted to create a garden in a small space, so not having a lot of experience I read loads of books about square-foot and container gardening, to ensure better chance of sucess, and now have quite a good selection of related garden books.
I haven't bothered to review any of them except one. This book was so useful from start to finish, it stood out for a novice like me, and effected the way I planned and undertook my project. The results are quite satisfying.
The book is clearly written, usefully illustrated, it explains (simply) the scientific mechanisms of self-watering contianers and how they pertain to plants, plus gives step-by-step instructions on how to make the pots from scratch, explains how to make potting soil (which is important by the way)....and I kind of wish I hadn't bothered to buy all the other books.
Good luck with your gardening projects! Glen.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
An inspiring book, copiously illustrated, full of convincing information from a writer who clearly practises what he preaches. I am lucky enough to have a number of "self-watering" containers bought from Lidl last year (therefore probably German), and this book is going to help me to use them more successfully.
The frustrating element is that he recommends Self-Watering Conversion Kits from a company in the USA who tell me that they cannot supply them to the UK and have no outlet here. These would convert any pots you already have into selfwatering containers, of course. So unless you can find (or laboriously make) selfwatering containers, it is difficult to put his advice into practice. Perhaps there are outlets in the UK, but I have been unable to find them. The EarthBox® is available, but costs almost ten times more than the Lidl boxes, which are no longer stocked.
Apart from this problem, the book is packed with practical advice in clear and logical layouts.
The frustrating element is that he recommends Self-Watering Conversion Kits from a company in the USA who tell me that they cannot supply them to the UK and have no outlet here. These would convert any pots you already have into selfwatering containers, of course. So unless you can find (or laboriously make) selfwatering containers, it is difficult to put his advice into practice. Perhaps there are outlets in the UK, but I have been unable to find them. The EarthBox® is available, but costs almost ten times more than the Lidl boxes, which are no longer stocked.
Apart from this problem, the book is packed with practical advice in clear and logical layouts.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
53 reviews
137 of 149 people found the following review helpful
Bountiful Pots
17 May 2006
Format:Paperback
This book is a manual for vegetable gardening from containers. Smith, an experienced vegetable gardener, noted that many would-be gardeners lack access to garden plots, or find tending such plots difficult because of physical challenges. Gardening in containers would make it possible for these people to grow some of their own food, but yields have been notoriously low for container-grown vegetables. Smith and his wife Silvia embarked on a project several years ago to see if they could develop improved growing methods that would produce produce of acceptable quality and quantity in containers. What they found through their experimentation is that virtually all garden vegetables can be grown very successfully in containers, and that some actually do better in containers than in traditional earth gardens. In this book, they describe in detail how to grow vegetables and herbs in containers, noting which crops and varieties are the best choices for container growing. The book is a joy to browse through, with its numerous high-quality color photographs, many of which were taken by Silvia Smith.
Smith notes that the key to good vegetable yields is an ample and continuous supply of water. In traditional pots, this is hard to achieve, since the pots must be checked and watered several times a day during peak seasons. A further problem is that many of the nutrients are washed out of the soil each time the pot is watered. This led Smith to the new generation of "self-watering pots," which consist of a container for holding soil and roots, suspended over a large water reservoir, with a significant air gap in between, as well as a means for water to be wicked into the soil from the reservoir. Smith found that when vegetables are grown in such self-watering pots, they can go for days, or even a week without watering, yet the soil never goes dry, nor loses nutrients through watering. He found that many garden vegetables thrive in such pots (although he notes that a few herbs do better in traditional pots).
In addition to describing types of pots for bountiful vegetable gardening, Smith provides very useful information about soil mixtures to use in the pots. He enumerates garden pests that may be encountered and ways to overcome them. Throughout the book, he stresses organic methods and sustainable garden practices. A very useful section of the book is the alphabetical guide to garden vegetables, in which he takes up each common garden vegetable in turn and provides specific tips for growing the vegetable in a container, noting any varieties that are better for container-growing than others.
I first heard about Smith's container garden efforts when I saw his container-grown artichoke with a giant blue Judges' Choice ribbon at the Tunbridge Fair. That incredible display got me intrigued with the idea of trying to grow some vegetables in pots myself. As Smith notes in the book, certain heat-loving vegetables such as eggplants and artichokes are practically impossible to bring to maturity here in northern Vermont, but they can actually produce significant yields when grown in self-watering containers. Although I do most of my gardening in a large earth garden, I'm looking forward to using Smith's methods to grow eggplants in containers this summer. With some luck, I may finally be able to enjoy some homegrown eggplants, despite our cool Vermont climate.
Smith notes that the key to good vegetable yields is an ample and continuous supply of water. In traditional pots, this is hard to achieve, since the pots must be checked and watered several times a day during peak seasons. A further problem is that many of the nutrients are washed out of the soil each time the pot is watered. This led Smith to the new generation of "self-watering pots," which consist of a container for holding soil and roots, suspended over a large water reservoir, with a significant air gap in between, as well as a means for water to be wicked into the soil from the reservoir. Smith found that when vegetables are grown in such self-watering pots, they can go for days, or even a week without watering, yet the soil never goes dry, nor loses nutrients through watering. He found that many garden vegetables thrive in such pots (although he notes that a few herbs do better in traditional pots).
In addition to describing types of pots for bountiful vegetable gardening, Smith provides very useful information about soil mixtures to use in the pots. He enumerates garden pests that may be encountered and ways to overcome them. Throughout the book, he stresses organic methods and sustainable garden practices. A very useful section of the book is the alphabetical guide to garden vegetables, in which he takes up each common garden vegetable in turn and provides specific tips for growing the vegetable in a container, noting any varieties that are better for container-growing than others.
I first heard about Smith's container garden efforts when I saw his container-grown artichoke with a giant blue Judges' Choice ribbon at the Tunbridge Fair. That incredible display got me intrigued with the idea of trying to grow some vegetables in pots myself. As Smith notes in the book, certain heat-loving vegetables such as eggplants and artichokes are practically impossible to bring to maturity here in northern Vermont, but they can actually produce significant yields when grown in self-watering containers. Although I do most of my gardening in a large earth garden, I'm looking forward to using Smith's methods to grow eggplants in containers this summer. With some luck, I may finally be able to enjoy some homegrown eggplants, despite our cool Vermont climate.
113 of 123 people found the following review helpful
Very Average
19 July 2007
Format:Paperback
This book starts out good and states that it's going to tell you how to make your own self-watering containers. However, once you get through all the initial fluff, I found the details necessary to actually follow through on the author's suggestions to be extremely limited. The author discusses how to make any pot self-watering, but uses a ready made insert. Then he does not say where to get the ready made insert from. Parts of the book read more like a pat on the back to his own successes with pictures from his own garden. That's great, but I bought the book to learn how to set up my own self-watering system which I still am at a loss after reading the book. I was very disappointed.
112 of 123 people found the following review helpful
Not as good as Vegetable Gardener's Bible or Bountiful Container
15 Oct 2006
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I learned a great deal from Edward Smith's other book, The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, and I use it as a reference on germination and growing soil temperatures. So I did not hesitate to order his Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers when I decided to buy some books on container gardening. I ordered this book and McGee and Stuckey's Bountiful Container. Bountiful Container is comprehensive, thoughtful and very helpful. However, this book reads like an ad for self-watering containers, which were apparently provided free to the author with the hope that he might endorse them. Unlike the author's first book, this lavishly illustrated book is short on information, more suitable for a coffee table than a container gardener. If there were a money-back guarantee, I would request it.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
