What is the one book that you use the most for gardening? For example, The Complete Garden Guide: A Comprehensive Reference for All Your Garden Needs by Time-Life Books.

Thank you!
Jeanne

it really depends on where you live. for me, i have the southern living complete gardening book.

for those on the west coast, it would be the sunset western gardening book. i don't know what would be best for your zone

Yep, I agree that the Sunset Western Gardening book is awesome. But I do not ever use it anymore since I came here. Now I just post a message and get better answers than I could get looking things up in the book.

I am in the Midwest. Chicagoland to be exact. I am in zone 5.

Thanks,
Jeanne

AngelsGardener, we're not too far apart, and someone lent me two books that I thought were quite useful, including some medicinal properties.

Carrots Love Tomatoes (Secrets of Companion Planting for Succesful Gardening)
by Louise Riott
Garden Way 1975

Let's Get Growing- A dirt under the nails primer on raising vegetable, fruits and flowers organically.
by Crow Miller
A Rodale Gardening Book 1995.

These are older, and might be found cheap at a second-hand bookstore.

Any of the series of field guides published by The Audubon Society. They are packed with info and the flowers are listed in color groups for easier identification. They have them for Wildflowers and garden varieties. And of course, all the great birds, butterflies, wildlife of all sorts.

One volume costs about $20 but you can luck into cheaper books at used book stores, e-bay, Amazon, etc.

Anything that says Rodale on it, is great reading info.. I have a whole series of them, from veggie gardening, to pruning to companion planting..
I spent a few dollars but I really liked them..

and anything that says Louise Riott on it, is good too, I do love the one mentioned above, *I dont' have it, but I have snuck peaks at it*

For me, I am a raised bed gardener, and love the concept Mel Bartholomew in Square Foot Gardening has to offer... it's a good concept, and I don't care if you have a big garden or a small garden, you can apply something.

Eliot Coleman and his wife Barbara Damrosch are one of my top favorite gardeners...
***If anything happened to the world, and grocery stores, and one had to depend on themselves for food, I WOULD LIKE TO BE THEIR NEIGHBORS ***
They live in Maine now, and garden almost year round *if not year round* they are awesome gardeners and growers and cooks and storers...
I love the one book, *which I don't have but have snuck peaks at is "The Four Season Harvest",
and has a "Winter Harvest Manual" out too.
I think with your growing climate, that would one of the first places I'd send you...

*alot of my answers/replies depend on the type of gardener you are, or would like to be someday..
~~~>I would just give about anything to be like those two.... but some how with the lifestlye I have now, I don't think I will ever get there
but it's nice to dream...

What kind of gardening do you do, like to do, hope to do???

I have two other books I like for building projects too, but they're a bit older publications, I'll dig up the names and who wrote them, one is the "Backyard Builder"

Square foot gardening is my favorite gardening book. It is the method that I use. I absolutely love this method. I have his old version, and the new one that just came out this year.

I like the books by Ruth Stout myself. By using her techniques I restored old eroded clay and limestone land back into lush fertile fields. I still use many of her techniques.

I've got a lot of gardening books that are pretty good; however, my preference would always be the Horticulture textbooks because they are more in depth, but they can get very pricey!

If you are into just tomatoes there is one called 100 Heirloom tomatoes for the American Garden by Carolyn J. Male its a wonderful book on Heirloom tomatoes it covers alot like the origin of heirloom tomato the fermenting and saving seed and she doesn't hide a thing in it . You know most of the time you look up a tomato on the web and you get the most prettiest looking tomato but in her book she shows the real thing some have catfaces, splits, brown leaves she just shows how they just might look.

This post is awesome!! I've been searching at my library for "companion plants" (and all I ever got was 1 book called "Plant Combinations" which was just about color-coordinating flowers). Anyway, come to find out there is a whole section of "companion crops." technicalities Anyway, I've just started the book Carrots love Tomatoes and am loving it already--thanks for the great suggestion!! (I got Roses love Garlic too--one can never possess too much knowledge!)

i have the rodales books!

The one I use most is "Illustrated Guide to Gardening"..by Readers Digest. I have tons of gardening books, I have Carrots love Tomatoes & Roses love Garlic which are both good for companion planting. There are so many good gardening books out there, it is hard to just chose one. I always buy books at yard sales, book sales & junk shops that pertain to gardening. Another one listed by daylilydude "100 Heirloom tomatoes for the American Garden by Carolyn J. Male" I also have that one and it is a really good book if you are into tomatoes.

Look for a series of garden books done by state on the topics of annuals, perennials, trees/shrubs, and best garden plants. Published by Lone Pine Publishing. Example: Perennials for Minnesota or Trees and Shrubs for Michigan. Books are often available in the spring at membership warehouses. Best feature in most of the books is a section at the front of the book called "flowers at a glance" which contains thumbnail color photos of each flower in the book with the common name and the page number that contains full plant description.

I have Carrots Love Tomatoes and have found it to be very useful.