What do you think?
Rate this book
Grow Great Vegetables Michigan
"The ultimate guide to growing food in the Great Lakes State! This must-have guide to growing vegetables, fruits, and herbs provides you with insider advice on climate zones, average frost dates, and growing season details. Information includes details on sun, soil, fertilizer, mulch, water, and the best varieties for your region. A garden planning section helps with design and crop rotation, and monthly lists explain what to do from January through December. In-depth profiles of the state's best edibles help ensure a can't-miss harvest"--
- GenresGardening
212 pages, Paperback
Published April 4, 2023
7 people are currently reading
26 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 18, 2022
Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.
Grow Great Vegetables in Michigan is a regionally tailored home gardening guide for producing vegetables for taste and nutrition and to increase self-reliance and food security. This is one of a series of regionally/state specific guides released & reformatted by Timber press. Edited by Bevin Cohen, it's due out in May 2023, runs 212 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats. It's based on an earlier release Vegetable Gardening in the Midwest by Michael VanderBrug, reformatted and edited for MI gardeners. All of the guides in this series follow the same format.
This guide is arranged by seasons with a chapter for each month. The introductory chapter (~13% of the page content) covers garden planning, climates and subzones in MN & WI, as well as very general gardening advice. Worth noting that a majority of the content of the books in this series based on/edited from the same volume (in this case Vegetable Gardening in the Midwest) contain overlapping information and there are only slight differences in content and recommendations.
The monthly sections include tasks for each month, potential problems and troubleshooting, planning and placement of the garden plot, harvesting and more.
The third section of the book is a regional guide to choosing vegetables and specific varieties which will thrive in the area.
There's a resource list (slanted to readers in the Midwest), a bibliography and further reading list, USDA based hardiness zonal map, and an index. The photography is crisp, clear, and abundant. This is a well crafted book which will provide gardeners with hours of blissful dreaming as well as serving as a valuable troubleshooting guide. For readers who have the aforementioned Gardening in the Midwest, much of the content is verbatim here. For readers unfamiliar with the earlier title, there's a lot of worthwhile info here.
Four stars. Very well done.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
Grow Great Vegetables in Michigan is a regionally tailored home gardening guide for producing vegetables for taste and nutrition and to increase self-reliance and food security. This is one of a series of regionally/state specific guides released & reformatted by Timber press. Edited by Bevin Cohen, it's due out in May 2023, runs 212 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats. It's based on an earlier release Vegetable Gardening in the Midwest by Michael VanderBrug, reformatted and edited for MI gardeners. All of the guides in this series follow the same format.
This guide is arranged by seasons with a chapter for each month. The introductory chapter (~13% of the page content) covers garden planning, climates and subzones in MN & WI, as well as very general gardening advice. Worth noting that a majority of the content of the books in this series based on/edited from the same volume (in this case Vegetable Gardening in the Midwest) contain overlapping information and there are only slight differences in content and recommendations.
The monthly sections include tasks for each month, potential problems and troubleshooting, planning and placement of the garden plot, harvesting and more.
The third section of the book is a regional guide to choosing vegetables and specific varieties which will thrive in the area.
There's a resource list (slanted to readers in the Midwest), a bibliography and further reading list, USDA based hardiness zonal map, and an index. The photography is crisp, clear, and abundant. This is a well crafted book which will provide gardeners with hours of blissful dreaming as well as serving as a valuable troubleshooting guide. For readers who have the aforementioned Gardening in the Midwest, much of the content is verbatim here. For readers unfamiliar with the earlier title, there's a lot of worthwhile info here.
Four stars. Very well done.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
September 9, 2022
This series is cut and pasted for all the midwest states, with just a handful of pages changed. I have read this one and the Minnesota one cover to cover and almost all of it is absolutely identical -- the intro about what it's like to live in the state (literally, it's a whole page about how great the state is and they just change the state name and leave all the same descriptions in), photos, monthly guide, etc. I am in MN and can't speak to how accurate it is for MI but I suspect it's fairly accurate. It is not entirely accurate for MN. For instance, it says to harvest asparagus in March. That had me literally laughing out loud. We're buried in snow in March. We harvest our asparagus in May, every single year. Maybe in MI you harvest your asparagus in March and maybe it will be more accurate for your state.
This series really should have been one book, Grow Great Vegetables in the Midwest, and then added the few pages showing the maps with zones and the list of a handful of cities average frost dates that are shoehorned in. I have no idea what state the author really lives in, since it's kept deliberately very vague. All that said, it has good basic growing information.
I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.
This series really should have been one book, Grow Great Vegetables in the Midwest, and then added the few pages showing the maps with zones and the list of a handful of cities average frost dates that are shoehorned in. I have no idea what state the author really lives in, since it's kept deliberately very vague. All that said, it has good basic growing information.
I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.
April 4, 2023
Thank you to the author, Timber Press and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This gardening guide is specifically tailored to the state of Michigan, and offers a lot of good solid advice - particularly for the beginning gardener who is unsure where to start. After a very generalized introduction which could apply to any number of states in the Midwest, with slight variations, there are chapters organized by month which include tasks for each month, tips and potential problems. This is followed by an alphabetical guide of vegetables, giving planting, care and harvesting guidelines. The photographs are well-done, and after reading this almost anyone should not only be motivated to go out and get their hands dirty, but also equipped to know how to plan and what to do when gardening.
This gardening guide is specifically tailored to the state of Michigan, and offers a lot of good solid advice - particularly for the beginning gardener who is unsure where to start. After a very generalized introduction which could apply to any number of states in the Midwest, with slight variations, there are chapters organized by month which include tasks for each month, tips and potential problems. This is followed by an alphabetical guide of vegetables, giving planting, care and harvesting guidelines. The photographs are well-done, and after reading this almost anyone should not only be motivated to go out and get their hands dirty, but also equipped to know how to plan and what to do when gardening.
May 2, 2023
I previewed an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley, and this is quite possibly the most useful book in my gardening book collection! The second section provides a month-to-month guide for my state... why hasn't anyone thought of that before? The way it's laid out is genius, and the A-Z guide to vegetables is clearly laid out, with valuable information. It packs a lot of information, but is very concise, and gets right to the point. No long winded stories, waxing poetic... this is the guide to get if you're time is limited, and you want to get to the how-to's and need-to-know information immediately. I'm hoping the author plans to do this with flowers and other plants as well.
June 25, 2023
This is an incredibly helpful book! From the month-to-month guide to the pages in the back dedicated to each type of food, this book is packed full of practical and helpful tips for your garden. I borrowed this book from my library but definitely plan to purchase my own copy to have on hand for years to come!
December 13, 2022
Where has this book been all my life?! Step by step monthly directions with modifications for our ever-changing weather and things like our beautiful Michigan deer eating anything they can in our yards. Thanks to Timber Press for the advanced copy - I’m going to wear it out!
May 25, 2023
I'm reading this because I'm thinking about planting a garden in the near future. This book is a great primer for how to garden in Michigan, broken up into every month.
March 10, 2024
Has a lot of helpful info. The vegetable appendix is the best reference material. I do think the author goes into somewhat unnecessary detail about his own planning and organizing habits etc.
June 29, 2024
Great guide for beginners or someone looking to get back into gardening!!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews