5 Must Have Gardening Resources

Today I wanted to share with you some of my absolute favorite gardening resources of all time!  They are my go-to books, and I still refer to them all the time!

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1. The Vegetable Gardeners Bible

By: Edward C. Smith

This is my absolute favorite gardening resource – I even give it as gifts I love it so much!  It not only has great information for starting a garden and preparing the soil, but I love (and refer to often) the detail pages for vegetables and herbs that tells you all the specifics for growing each kind!

This book is marked, dogeared, and has dirt all over it!  I highly recommend it!

 

2. Vertical Vegetables and Fruit

By: Rhonda Massingham Hart

This was a great book to start getting me to think vertically!  Gardening in a small space can sometimes be challenging to fit things in, but growing up is a great strategy.  Before this book, I had never really even considered growing things like watermelons on a trellis, or how to do it!  It makes for better shaped, and more easily accessible fruits, and you get less pest issues too!  This book gives lots of ways to “grow up” and the different fruits and veggies best suited for this.

3. The Vegetable Gardener’s Container Bible

By: Edward C. Smith

Just like the original Vegetable Gardener’s Bible, this one is a fabulous resource, particularly if you are doing some (or all!) of your gardening in containers.  It tells you the types and sizes of containers to use, the best types of soil and amendments to use, and what plants and combinations of plants do best in containers, and detailed growing information for lots of fruits, veggies, and herbs specific to container growing. I started growing watermelons in a large container this year and they grew really well!

4. Your Backyard Herb Garden

By: Miranda Smith

This is my favorite resource for growing some of the most common herbs.  It gives you lots of growing information and even how best to propagate the herbs (by seeds, cuttings, etc.).  Along with growing information, it gives common uses for each herb and some projects and recipes as well!  A must have for growing herbs.

5. The Family Garden Plan

By: Melissa K. Norris

This is my newest gardening book, but I think it deserves mention because it’s one of the only ones I have seen that helps you to plan out amounts to plant to provide enough for your family.  I don’t have quite the space to provide enough tomatoes for my family for the year, but it has been really helpful in helping me estimate the number of plants I do have space for (I don’t really need 25 kale plants…unless all we want to eat is kale! Which wouldn’t be all bad, but still!)  It has valuable growing information as well, but I mostly love it for the planning aspect.  A great resource if you are wanting to be more self-sufficient!

A Couple More Because I Couldn’t Keep It to Just Five!

 

6. Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden

By: Erin Benzakein

I love this book!  If you want to grow more gorgeous flowers, this book has amazing tips for many popular varieties.  I starting growing dahlias this year using this book as a reference, and they are my new favorite flower!  The information in this book is great, and the pictures are just beautiful!  I would love to have a farm with flowers like that one day!

Here are some of the dahlias I grew this year!

7. Year Round Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers for Metro Houston

By:  Bob Randall

If you are in the Gulf Coast area of Texas, this is an amazing resource!  It has very specific gardening advice for this region, which is so nice to have, because even though we are in a similar zone to other places in the country, we have very specific issues with heat, humidity, and pests other places don’t have!  The author has gardened here for many years and has trialed so many different things and has so many suggestions! A fantastic resource that not a lot of people  know about!

This book can be found for sale in a lot of local Houston area nurseries!

 

So those are my picks for Best Gardening Resources EVER!!! So it’s time to get growing! 🙂 

Happy Gardening!!!

   -Jamie