Midwest Fruit & Vegetable Gardening: Plant, Grow, and Harvest the Best Edibles - Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, ...

by Katie Elzer-Peters

If you’re interested in growing your own fruits and vegetables, you’ve joined the ranks of a blossoming group of DIY gardeners who place a premium on the idea of self-reliance. But like any other kind of gardening, growing edibles is not a one-size-fits-all in order to be successful, you’ll need to know not only which plants grow well in your state or region, but also how to grow them with careful methods and a schedule that caters specifically to your local microclimate. Fortunately for you, Midwest Fruit & Vegetable Gardening is written exclusively for gardeners who want to grow edibles in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, or Wisconsin. Author Katie Elzer-Peters, the master gardener responsible for our bestselling Beginner’s Illustrated Guide to Gardening (2012), equips you with all the information you need to design your edible garden, tend the soil, maintain your plants throughout their life cycles, and—most importantly—harvest the delicious foods they produce. So whether you live in the Badlands, the Dells, the Quad Cities, or anywhere else in the Midwestern United States, you’ll discover the best fruit and vegetable plants for your garden in this beautiful step-by-step how-to guide . . . and they’ll be on your table before you know it.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published December 13, 2013

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be quite helpful in planning my garden. Lots of useful resources on what each plant requires in terms of temperature, soil, fertilizer, water, sun, etc. I appreciated the format being laid out with a solid introduction to all the terms and followed up by each vegetable/herb grouped by cold vs warm growing seasons.

I do wish the book had been more specific about dates/timelines for planting or starting seeds indoors. There are not hard and fast dates for planting, of course, but the broadness of the date ranges was a bit frustrating. The author uses terms like “upper Great Lakes” and “lower Great Lakes” regions, each of which contain multiple USDA zones, so it seems a bit broad.

When I picked up this book, I hoped it would have a seed starting calendar based on zone. This is at no time promised by the author, but it seemed something they might include given the subject. It helped me build one myself, but I certainly had to do quite a bit of note taking to get there.

[Catherine Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really appreciated the way the book was organized. And the many ways it helped me recognize my own gardening foibles and mistakes in a way that never seemed condescending to my read. As a very inexperienced gardener, I found it exceptionally helpful in deciding how to plan effectively and in determining which plants to try over the next several growing seasons.

[Joe Lyons · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good tool for me to use in my gardening tool kit, but I really didn't like the tone it was written in. I like the information in the book, but not the delivery.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

February 25th, 2022
Lot's of good information in this book, though some of the recommendations differ from what I read elsewhere. Good for referring to again.