Sheri Ann Richerson.com | Content| The Complete Idiot's Guide to Year-Round Gardening

This book is so cool because it tells you, no matter what hardiness zone you are in, how to garden year round. It doesn’t matter if you have a heated or unheated greenhouse, garden indoors, use frost covers or cold frames, you can defy nature and grow many varieties of fresh produce year round.

Here in Indiana we have been successful with a variety of produce – lettuce, peas, radish, turnip, carrots, to name a few. This year, using season extending ideas like you will find in this book, I planted tomato plants on April 1.

Don’t miss your chance to own this fantastic book. Even seasoned gardeners are sure to learn something – and don’t let the name fool you, The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Year Round Gardening should be on every gardeners’ bookshelf!

Order now!

Here's what readers are saying:

Ramble On Rose: Book Review: Year-Round Gardening

"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Year-Round Gardening" covers just about everything you need to know for vegetable gardening and a good deal of what you need for strictly ornamental gardening. Soil preparation, no-till methods, and building raised beds are addressed early, followed by seed starting, covers for outdoor gardens, and extensive chapters on greenhouses. Readers will learn the types of greenhouses available, how to establish and maintain one, and even how to create an entire thriving ecosystem within one. Tidbits on garden design concepts, bulb forcing, and grow lights for indoor gardening are peppered throughout the text.

This vast amount of information is clearly presented in a casual, readable tone. It's also well-organized and includes call-outs of key tips and ideas. If you want to garden all year, regardless of your location, this book will explain exactly how to go about doing it.

The entire review can be seen here - http://rambleonrose-rr.blogspot.com/2010/02/book-review-year-round-gardening.html

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All the Dirt on Gardening: Year-Round Gardening - the Complete Idiot's Guide

Sheri Ann Richerson is a best selling author. She teamed up with Delilah Smittle to produce The Complete Idiot's Guide to Year-Round Gardening.

Richerson's website, here doesn't say much about the book so let me tell you what I've found.

It is a very upbeat presentation of the many ways to extend your growing season. For example, row covers, cold frames, bubble wrap, and tunnels.

The chapter on start with the soil, explains micro and macro nutrients such as nitrogen, the qualities of healthy soil, and how to improve what you have.

Compost is explained, fertilizers recommended, and seed starting is covered.

If you are in the market for a basic book with some unique tips, or are new to gardening, check out "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Year Round Gardening"; it's $8.50 on Amazon.

The entire review can be seen here - http://muskogeephoenixonline.com/blogs/MollyDay/2010/02/year-round-gardening-complete-idiots.html

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Sheri Ann Richerson is a mutual member of a garden writers' list serve- think of this as gardeners gossip group meeting through the internet. Recently she announced that she and a friend, Delilah Smittle, had co-authored a book called, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Year-Round Gardening. She was looking for reviewers. I thought the book was written specifically with myself in mind so I put up my hand and said, "Yes, please." And then I put my hand down, closed my mouth and typed, "Yes, please." in an e-mail. As you can tell, Gentle Reader, I really thought I qualified.

There is a danger in reviewing this type of a book and that is the perceived expertise of the reviewer who, when preparing the dissertation, also wants the reader of the review to realise how incredibly knowledgeable the reviewer is. They tend to pounce on supposedly missing information with, "If I were to have written this little tome I certainly would have included this very important fact." Fear not, GR, no such elitism will appear here, my mind is as blank and open as the computer screen at which I am staring.

The book arrived about 3 weeks ago and I've been going through it carefully, looking for the bits that say, "This section is for you, Dan." Haven't found them.

What I have found is a nice comprehensive look at gardening in general with good guidelines on how to extend both ends of the season. The language is clear, not cluttered up with unnecessary jargon. The black and white photos, Donna Chiarelli Studio, are crisp and are meant to illustrate the text. Too often photos are slapped down in the middle of a page only because it is a really cool shot. Never mind that it is not entirely appropriate to the subject matter, a few paragraphs of rationalizing seems to satisfy the photographer’s angst. This is not the case here. Even the few cartoons scattered throughout illustrate points with gentle humour.

The chapters take you through all aspects of gardening, introducing new material as it pertains to the gardening process. It is clear that a good deal of thought went into the selection of information so that the reader processes concepts in a logical, relevant manner. The newbies are encouraged as they realise they understand what is being presented and us more experienced tillers pick up little tidbits that we never knew we didn't' know. (Check out the aspirin therapy on page 245) In other words, this book is written for the readers and not as a treatise that trumpets the cleverness of the authors.

Interspersed with the main text are dialogue boxes (used in a manner very similar to the way I use parentheses) with the headings of Green Thumb, def*i*ni*tion, Garden Guide or Safety First. Little asides like how to get a hobby greenhouse for little or no money, exactly what is a complete fertilizer, how to direct light to maximize it's effectiveness and fungus in a compost can aggravate certain allergies.

The Appendices are treasure troves of concentrated information. For example, Appendix B, "Fruits, Vegetable and Herbs" is a chart of how-to and when-to plant specific, um, plants. Appendix A is the glossary, also written in a fashion to impart meaning without cluttering up definitions with polysyllabic jargon.

I admit that part of paragraph two does apply. In the soils section either a photograph or a line drawing of a soil profile with a plant's roots running through it would have been helpful. A soil triangle- a chart that shows the composition of sandy soil vs. sandy loam vs. loam etc, ditto. But these are trivialities compared to the overall purpose of the book.

I do recommend Year-Round Gardening as an excellent, reader-friendly introduction to this type of gardening. There are many other books out there, with explicit information that go well beyond this one. However, you can't work away with the more complicated facets until you have understood the basics. This book is basic, and that's a good thing.

Published by Alpha Books, an imprint of Penguin Books USA, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Year-Round Gardening, Delilah Smittle and Sheri Ann Richerson, ISBN-978-159257-970-9, can be found on the internet at Amazon books. The suggested Canadian price on the cover is $25.00; the Amazon price is $15.68. A quick check on the Chapters.Indigo site did not turn up this book although another Richerson offering was listed: Perspective Visions: Enigmatic Masterpieces.

Dan Clost's Greenscapes
The Good Earth columnist
dan.clost@sympatico.ca

You can find more of Dan Clost's articles online at http://www.icangarden.com

Published on: 2009-08-10 (428 reads)

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