The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener: How to Grow Your Own Food 365 Days a Year, No Matter Where You Live

A wonderful book for anyone who loves to grow their own food. Easy to read, great tips. Thanks!

This book has been incredibly helpful. It offers really detailed information, not just peripheral philosophy or ideology. It gives actual materials used for mini hoop tunnel construction, breaks down the differences between various row covers, and goes through common vegetables one by one to let the grower know specifics about each (including when to plant based on frost dates, how to manage and thin as the plant grows, and how to harvest). It also has great layout that is colorful with a good balance of word and photography. It is also really upbeat and doesn't make the reader feel discouraged for not knowing certain aspects of gardening. This has really been a gem of a book for me. I am new to the gardening scene, and although I've purchased 10s of books to get to know everything I can, I keep coming back to this book over and over again as I implement my garden plans. I should note that at first read, this book really encouraged, empowered, and provided me with the tools I needed to start a garden. But, I've found that the more I've actually done in the garden and the more questions I've developed, the more value the book has had as I've come back to it as a reference. I'd like to thank Niki for this treasure.

This book is the best gardening book I've read to help you grow food all year long. Ms. Jabbour starts off describing 3 growing seasons (cool, warm, cold) and how to know what vegetables to grow in each season. She shares info about building your soil, intensive planting, creating inexpensive greenhouses and polytunnels, and many more tips and tricks to get the most out of your garden space. Later she shares different garden plans for both small and large gardens. Finally, she discusses many of the vegetables you can grow and when you should plant each. Ms. Jabbour also gives several of her favorite varieties in case you need help choosing what variety to grow. This is a very well written book to help you get the most from your garden, no matter how large or small it may be. I consider it a must-have on any gardener's bookshelf.

Wow, this was inspirational as well as very informative. Specific vegetables are detailed, with suggested varieties and planting calendars. My favorite part, however are the charts detailing interplanting and succession planting. I refer frequently to these handy charts. There are also great suggestions for extending your garden seasons, such as an inexpensive cold frame, for which there are detailed instructions. I can't wait to implement some of these ideas this fall and winter. If you enjoy gardening, you owe it to yourself to get as much enjoyment out of it as you can. This book will help you do just that.

As we're planning a permaculture yard, I've been reading a lot of books on gardening: year-round gardening, composting, winter gardening, soil prep, and more. This is one of the best. After tons of reading, this book is to the point, informative without taking pages and pages, has lots of pictures (always good!) and directions for particularly the cold frames she shows on the book cover, and explains everything I need very succinctly. We can build 4-5 cold frames just based on her instructions, very easily. Her index is very good (having a good index is necessary and some books don't do well on this), her vegetable list is pretty detailed and complete with information we can really use during planting. While it may not be as detailed as, say, Gaia's Garden, that's exactly what I need. I also have Gaia's Garden and was looking for a different type of instruction as we will be doing intensive food growing. This book fit that bill perfectly. I would definitely recommend this to add to your library, or as a starter book--depending on your needs, other books may not be that necessary.

My gardening bible. There is so much great information, I’m constantly referring to it for planting guidelines and variety recommendations.

I am a book nut, and I have bookcases of books--together with so many titles on my Kindle, it's hard to find what I'm looking for. Of my bookcases of books, gardening books are among my favorites and I have some very well written/illustrated garden books. But The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener is always near the top of my pile of "active" books. For the beginner/intermediate gardener, or those for whom 4-season gardening is new, this is such a well conceived, well written, and beautifully illustrated garden book and if I could have only one garden book, this one would do nicely for me as a 4-season home gardener. Among the features I most appreciate is the sequential, seasonal layout of the book, in which the author discusses the many seasonally specific aspects of gardening, and how to deal with them in a way that will maximize the year-round viability and productivity of a garden. Notable are such nice touches as "A year in the life of my grow-lights" in which the author shares the details of how she maximizes the limited under-light area she has available so as to ensure that she always has adequate seedlings available for planting at the appropriate times. Too, I like her lists of favorite varieties of vegetables/fruits that are appropriate for the different seasons at her location (and which can be adjusted for the reader's location. Her discussion of the many options of season extenders--row covers, clouchs, tunnels/hoop houses, cold frames, etc. Also appreciated is her treatments of composting and other soil-enrichment routines required to maintain maximum soil fertility in garden spaces that are intensively planted and in all seasons. I could go on and on gushing about this book, but do yourself a favor: order your own copy. When it arrives, get comfortable, curl up with it, and just enjoy a very well conceived, written, and illustrated book. Even though I've been gardening for several years with a focus on organic, all-season gardening, I've learned a lot from this book. Plus it's such a beautiful book, it's just fun to sit and spend time engaged with it. The photography alone makes the book very inspirational and well worth it's modest price. Five stars, all the way.

We've grown a few tomatoes and peppers in our small urban backyard for years, but just bought a few acres in the country and are ready to expand our garden and gardening abilities. Borrowed this book from the library and it has been indispensable for planning and starting our new, larger, year-round garden so just ordered my own copy. It may not be detailed enough for someone who's never gardened and the experienced gardener probably doesn't need it; but it is perfect for someone who has done a little gardening and is ready for the next level. I especially like her use of everyday items that keep costs down and her sensible tips that make gardening easier. Great charts for succession and interplanting, good explanations of necessary ideas, and enough how-to instruction to get your own creative ideas flowing without bogging you down with too many details. Anyone with a little wood-working experience can easily build the cold frame from the instructions in the book or design their own, as we did.