Monday, April 16, 2012

Herb Gardening For Dummies By Karan Davis Cutler, Kathleen Fisher, Suzanne DeJohn, National Gardening Association

Herb Gardening For Dummies

Herb Gardening For Dummies By Karan Davis Cutler, Kathleen Fisher, Suzanne DeJohn, National Gardening Association

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(19 customer reviews)

Product Description

A plain-English guide to the world of herb gardening

Starting an herb garden isn't free, but it certainly outweighs the growing costs of buying retail herbs. Plus, adding homegrown ingredients to your meals is a healthy and tasty way to improve upon any dish you whip up at home.

This friendly, hands-on guide is an excellent introduction to the world of herb gardening. It gives you tips and advice to grow a thriving herb garden that will add depth and flavor to home-cooked meals-as well as boost your health.

  • How to choose, plant, and care for herbs
  • Covers ready-made versus homemade soil mixes, starting plants from seeds, and other fundamentals
  • How to prevent insects, pests, and diseases from invading your containers
  • Over 30 herb recipes for everyday uses, including rubs, marinades, beauty products, and more

Whether you're interested in getting step-by-step instructions for starting on your first herb garden or already have one and want to learn new tips and techniques, Herb Gardening For Dummies, 2nd Edition has you covered!

Product Details
  • Amazon Sales Rank: #38345 in Books
  • Published on: 2010-11-23
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: 9.30" h x .70" w x 7.40" l, 1.30 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 392 pages
Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
A decent starting place for those new to the fascinating world of herbs, Herb Gardening for Dummies covers everything from garden design (traditional knots to a simple window box) to proper care, feeding, and usage of these versatile plants. The plant encyclopedia is cleverly written, informative, and gives ideas on how to use these little critters once you've harvested them--the authors are considerably more cautious than herbal guides written by professional naturopaths, which can be a good thing for newcomers to the field. Organic methods of pest control and fertilization are emphasized, as these plants are often grown for human consumption. Choosing the right plants for your growing conditions and interest level is important, and there's lots of helpful advice on these topics.

The downside to this book is its lack of pictures. There are lots of line drawings, but they tend to show particular stages of a process, rather than each step. Color photos are limited to one section, and since the photos are separate from the descriptions, they don't add much value to the book. With bullet-point lists, icons for highlighting categories like "ecofriendly" or "time-saving," and simple tables and charts, how-to photos aren't essential. For folks who learn best with straightforward reading, the presentation won't be an issue, but if pictorial aids are what you need for learning, look elsewhere. --Jill Lightner

From the Publisher

Features color photos and an encyclopedia of herbs!

Discover how to:

Understand the different types of herbs

Landscape with herbs

Cultivate herbs indoors and in containers

Harvest and preserve your herbs

Use herbs for cooking, potpourris, and healthful teas!

From the Back Cover
Grow, care for, preserve, and use healthful herbs

Starting an herb garden outweighs the costs of buying retail herbs. Plus, adding homegrown ingredients to your meals is a healthy and tasty way to improve any dish you make at home. This friendly, hands-on guide gives you tips and advice on how to grow a thriving herb garden that will add depth and flavor to home-cooked meals — as well as boost your health.

  • Herbs 101 — get the 4-1-1 on the basics of growing herbs and the botany principles that'll help them thrive

  • Know before you grow — make a garden plan based on your unique growing conditions and herb preferences

  • Get down to the nitty-gritty — discover how to plant your seeds indoors, when to move them outdoors, and how to care for and maintain them as they grow

  • Reap what you sow — find out how to harvest and preserve your herbs and get yummy recipes to use them in your culinary concoctions

Open the book and find:

  • How to grow herbs in gardens, containers, and on windowsills

  • Culinary herbs, medicinal herbs, and herbs for health and beauty

  • Experts tips on what to grow

  • Design basics for herb gardens

  • The lowdown on soil

  • Guidance on how to choose seeds

  • How to cut and dry herbs

  • Delicious recipes

  • An encyclopedia of herbs

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
4Really Good....But Better Alternative For Container Gardens
By Ambergris
I will admit up front that I am a self confessed Dummie book fan. I own perhaps a dozen of them ranging from bird feeding to weather. I not only find them extremely comprehensive in their particular subject matter, but also they always seem to present their material with a humorous touch thrown in. They are interesting and educational, but also amusing and entertaining as well. This latest of the series that I picked up is no exception. Herb gardening is something of an idea that I have been batting around for some time now. I'm as much into the idea of it for fun and something to do as I am the potential bounty I hopefully will receive. Which I feel I have a lot in common with other folks in that respect as to liking gardening as a hobby. My only problem when it comes to any gardening with me personally is that I have little actual acreage to deal with that can be cultivated. That, and that I also have to admit that I am lazy, and have a nice big deck just begging for a contained herb garden. Although this dummie book devotes an entire chapter to container gardening, it still falls very much short of another book I have that deals specifically with growing herbs in pots. Magee and Stuckeys book which I have enclosed a link too. The dummie book would be my first choice if your intention is to dig and maintain a full fledged ground based herb garden. It's chock full of hints, info, illustrations, step by step guides, you name it as beginning and maintaining your own. And like all dummie books I have read in the past, it begins with their assuming you have never even heard of a herb garden. If you're a little more experienced than that, you can skip a couple of the opening chapters. But I would suggest you read them anyway. Their very informative and entertaining. But if like me you are interested in keeping your herb garden of the clean, lower maintenance variety container type, I would highly suggest you check out the Magee/Stucky book which in my opinion is the quintessential guide to all forms of container gardening. The dummie book unfortunately covers it all, and just falls a little short in that area. Happy gardening!... PS: By the way, the dummie series also has a book out on container gardening as well, but I have not picked it up or read any of it yet. I have no doubt that it is probably as good as the others in the series, and I would recommend checking out the reviews on it as well. McGee & Stuckey's Bountiful Container: Create Container Gardens of Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Edible Flowers

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
5Excellent Book!
By Ann L. Mackenzie
This is a great book for someone planning an herb garden. There are descriptions of herbs, help in planning a garden, soil needs, plant diseases, ways to preserve herbs, info on medicinal herbs and more. I love the Dummies books because they're always well-written and informative and this book is no exception. A lot of fun to read and very helpful.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
3I learned a lot!
By Keith A. Preble
Generally not a fan of the "...for Dummies" books because I think that they simplify things too much, but I have to admit that I learned a lot from this book. Every summer I try to grow my own herbs, and sometimes I have success and sometimes I do not. Herbs can be very nutritious when combined in dishes, and for someone like me who likes to cook, I found this book will surely be a good reference when it starts to warm up! This book really helped me to understand why some things that I grow don't succeed while others do. I also really liked the section about where the various herbs come from (didn't know that aloe was part of the onion family). Always love a book that can teach me something new. Pretty decent publication!

http://astore.amazon.com/amazon-book-books-20/detail/0470617780

 
 

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