One of the first gardening books I had as a kid was some monster Q&A book of gardening from about the 1940s. I didn’t read the whole book as a kid, but kept it. Later I went back to it when I had my first garden and the soil section wasn’t all that helpful. In fact, one of the questions was, “What kind of soil is most adaptable for general gardening?” And the answer, “Any well-conditioned soil that would grow a crop of corn.”
Um? This advice is all good and fine if you know how to grow corn. Since I …read more

I recently heard about Container Gardening for Health: The 12 Most Important Fruits and Vegetables for Your Organic Garden, a book that covers the most important crops to grow organically based on the “Dirty Dozen” list. This is a list created by The Environmental Working Group that tells consumers which fruits and veggies are best and least important to buy organic. The EPA just updated the list in spring of 2009, so this book which came out also in the spring contains the most current Dirty Dozen info.

I like the idea, because not only are the Dirty Dozen list items …read more