As much masters' manual as beginners' guide, this book can transform your seasonal summer hobby into a year-round and productive occupation feeding the spirit as well as family and friends. If you have space for a garden of any size from window box to yard you should have this book.

This book would be an asset to any gardener's collection. I like how the book is divided into months so you know what to do in which month and then it tells you how to do those things in that specific month. It's very organized and easy to understand. The pictures were very vibrant and helped with what things should look like as you attempt them. It's also helpful that they told how the different parts of the State do things at different times of the year because not every place is the same. If I had this book in my home library, I would be taking it out all the time as a reference to help me with my gardens.

The Beginner’s Guide to Growing Great Vegetables by Lorene Edwards Forkner is an excellent guide for starting that garden you’ve been dreaming about! This is the perfect guide for the novice veggie gardener but also the perfect refresher coarse and scheduler for those with more experience. I learned so much from this book that I’m itching to get out there in my garden!

Forkner does an amazing job of organizing all the garden basics and tips in this books so they are easy to find and enjoyable to read. You are covered with a glossary, soul basics, watering, weather, tools and getting your planting areas organized.

After the introductory basics you will find a month by month guide of what to do in your garden. My favorite parts were the DIY guides for raised beds and also Lasagna beds. You will learn how to prep for the season and also how to prepare your garden beds for winter. Learn all about seeds from reading the packet on how to collect. Composting and worm bins. There is also so much information on what you may be planting from fruit, vegetables, herbs, cover crops and more. The last portion of the book is an edibles guide with beautiful photographs.

What is so lovely about Forkner’s writing is that this is an enjoyable read! Not a stuffy text book in anyway. A fresh guide to vegetable garden with all the science and know how still there. This really is have a must have guide or gift for the vegetable gardeners in your life.

Great book for beginners. I showed my daughter several of the pages (who is in the beginning stages of setting up her garden) and she can hardly wait till publication to get her own copy!
We loved the step by step & month by month planner. Well written - easy to follow.

Beautiful photos and month-to-month guide to keep you on track to produce a fabulous, productive vegetable garden!

A good guide for beginners interested in growing vegetables. Practical and easy to use. Would be great for beginners or seasoned gardeners looking for the basics.

This is one of the better beginning gardening books I've read this year (and I've read a lot!). It's got great information to get you started, lots of lovely stock photos, good charts, and detailed information on growing lots of kinds of veggies and understanding issues like soil, sun and fertilizer. I tend to garden a little more organically, lazily and sustainably but this one was one of the closest I've found to working for my kind of gardening. It will be a great guide for anyone starting out with veggies.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

I’m not a beginning gardener but I still found this book informative. It’s very well laid out with information on everything from soil amendments to a crop rotation strategy. I particularly like the monthly to do lists which are broken down by region.

I really loved the tips that the author has learned through lived experience. The language used is easily understood, and flows nicely in order to understand the point being made. Diagrams and pics are great! However, being Canadian, I always have issue with just a map of the U.S. for growing zones. Even though I am an experienced gardener, it is always a delight to learn a new tip, or two! Thank you for that!

Wow... what a cornucopia of information and a delight to get a peek at. Loved the pictures and illustrations not to mention the ideas.

What did I like? It’s interesting when you find a book that encompasses all the ideas you have for your garden. From the seasons, to rain barrels, to pests and companion planting this book holds a ton of info. This is my first year planting and I’m already overwhelmed with what should go where and when. This book does a lot of the work for you.

Would I recommend or buy? I would love a paperback copy! On my wish list! I’d recommend to a beginner planter as it’s a book to help you get your bearings. A book I badly need!

I received a complimentary copy to read and voluntarily left a review! I feel very lucky to have gotten a peek and kudos to the author for a great book!

I am by far not a beginner gardener but in this book, I found some handy tips and tricks that I can use. A good book for not only beginners but for seasoned pros too.

Great photos that were inspiring. The information is solid and clearly presented. It's difficult to balance specificity with advice for all of the growing zones of the USA but Forkner managed it adroitly.

My husband and I have been gardening for 25 years, but you know what they say? “You’re never too old to learn!” That is so truly right! Not only did we learn how to make our garden better, but we actually found out why some of our garden hasn’t been producing! Can’t wait to try what we have learned this Spring!

This was a really well done and thought out book. Lots of good tips, I liked the end of chapter skill sets. Great pictures and great depth of gardening knowledge was clear. I think this would be even better if there was a way to do it separately for each growing area. Would love this info for my home in Manitoba, which was not included in the charts at all, though some other parts of Canada were.

So many great tips for those just beginning, as well as those who have been working on mastering the art of gardening!

The Beginner’s Guide to Growing Great Vegetables, by Lorene Edwards Forkner, is an excellent resource for anyone looking to start a garden. It is so well written and easy to understand. I like that she breaks it down by months and regions of the country so you know exactly what you should be doing. Highly recommended this for any gardener!

Thank you to NetGalley and Timber Press for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review.

What a nice beginner garden book! Lots of pictures. Really goes over all the basics and then expands on the themes as each chapter comes up. I thoroughly enjoyed perusing this book and would purchase it as a reference guide.

A very fun and informative book that will help me do more than just grow some tomatoes. You will learn how and when to start planting, how to help your soil, and the monthly actions you should take to make sure your garden will prosper. A lot of great photos.

Ok, you might be wondering why exactly I'm reading about vegetables.

I can't grow things. I'm not exaggerating. I really, really can't grow things. I adopt plants and they die. It's a fact that I know to be true yet refuse to accept. The problem is I'm really enthusiastic and would love nothing more than to grow things. I dream about having a small space outside where I can grow vegetables and other plants, but I don't have any of the knowledge needed to get started.

That's where this book comes in.

The downside of all of this is that the book is written for a North American audience, and I'm based in the UK. But considering how much the climate varies in the US, I figure some of the rules must apply. Surely. Either that or I'll just continue murdering plants. Either way, I opened this book deciding that whether I could apply the rules to England or not, I'd learn something. And I did!

What I love:

This book is written to be understood by people who do not know about gardening. This is very important if, like me, you are clueless and have absolutely no idea in which season you're supposed to plant carrots and what conditions are required for tomatoes to grow. You can read the book as a complete beginner and not want to cry.

It's not just the planting that's explained in detail. Various climates and also sun conditions are noted for you to refer to as needed. Want to know what full sun means? No problem, it's right there.

Imagine my delight to find a glossary, explaining all of those terms that many books include, assuming I know what they mean. Surprise! I don't know. But now I do. Or at least, I know where to find out what exactly they mean.

The book offers tips for people living in areas with complicated climates. This could be for geographical reasons, or because we're slowly destroying the planet. Either way, the author discusses techniques such as harvesting the rain, so that you don't burden an already strained system. Considering \I live in England; I don't think rain shortage will be a problem. But when you consider the intended audience of the book this is really valuable. It helps the reader know how to make their resources stretch further, but also offers a more environmentally conscious solution.

The structure of the book is perfect, particularly for the clueless gardener. Not only does it offer up many helpful tips, but it’s also divided into clear, useful sections, including a monthly calendar that you can use to help you figure out what to grow when.

All in all this is a very helpful book that I will refer to often, especially once I start working on my own little space outside. I'm going to have to do more research specific to the country I live in, but many of the terms used in the book will carry across, as will the general gardening tips.

I highly recommend for a beginner like myself. It doesn't go into huge amounts of detail so once you've grasped the initial concepts, you'll probably need to look elsewhere.

An excellent reference for first time and seasoned gardeners. The graphics are nicely descriptive and the text is well written. I would purchase this book for my personal use and keep it handy throughout the year for planning and growing.