Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers: ... (ISBN 1580175562)

Very Basic Container Vegetable Gardening:
Edward C. Smith is an accomplished vegetable gardener: read his first book The Vegetable Gardener's Bible: Discover Ed's High-Yield W-O-R-D System for All North American Gardening Regions and you will have all of the basics to get started vegetable gardening. INCREDIBLE VEGETABLES FROM SELF-WATERING CONTAINERS is Smith's followup book for container vegetable gardeners. It does not break new ground and is over-shadowed by more definitive container gardening guides, most notably McGee & Stuckey's Bountiful Container: Create Container Gardens of Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Edible Flowers. Read the next seven * paragraphs and you will be on your way to container vegetable gardening: * Growing vegetables in containers is an easy and pleasurable way to garden if you live in an apartment, town house, or condominium. A sunny balcony, patio, courtyard, porch, doorway, or windowsill is all you need to get your small garden growing. Most vegetables and herbs will succeed in containers. In fact, your ability to move a container from shade to sun and from a chilly location to a warm location almost assures success. * Containers may be almost anything that suits your fancy: plastic or clay pots, plastic or wooden window boxes (redwood or cedar is durable and slow to deteriorate), tubs, bushel or wire baskets, or barrels. I've even seen vegetables growing in old watering cans and garden boots. You can improvise with all sorts of containers depending upon which vegetables you want to grow. * Your best choice is to choose as large a container as possible. Beans, cucumbers, green peppers, and tomatoes require five-gallon containers (dwarf varieties will get by in two-gallon pots). Radishes, lettuce, scallions, cress, parsley, carrots, and chives, and other herbs flourish in a container six inches deep and about six inches wide. * Buying pre-mixed potting soil is the easiest way to fill your container. Bagged potting mixes comes in several sizes. Garden centers and most hardware stores sell potting mixes--which is usually a multi-purpose soil or compost. If you have good growing soil in your garden, you can use it: add half garden soil and half multipurpose compost or sphagnum peat moss to make your own mix. * Container plants almost never need weeding, but you will need to water more frequently. Container soil should be moist to the touch, but never soggy: too much water rots roots. * Choose compact, dwarf, or fast maturing vegetables for your container garden. Leafy vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, chard, green onions, and cabbage can thrive with just five hours of sun each day. Root vegetables such as radishes, carrots, and beets need an hour or two more. Fruiting vegetables require the most sun and warmth; cucumber, eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes insist on at least 8 hours of full sun each day. * Look for vegetables specifically recommended for container gardening--these are compact or dwarf vegetable varieties such as Little Ball beets, Short 'n Sweet and Little Finger carrots, Tom Thumb and Salad Bowl lettuce, and Tiny Tim or Pixie tomatoes. Choose INCREDIBLE VEGETABLES FROM SELF-WATERING CONTAINERS if you want a quick, not thorough starter's guide. Choose Smith's THE VEGETABLE GARDENER'S BIBLE for more depth or if you are an advanced beginner to expert read The Kitchen Garden Grower's Guide: A practical vegetable and herb garden encyclopedia.

Incredible Vegetables - Self-Watering Containers:
This book was very helpful. I am just starting a 'balconey' garden. The containers are helpful....the veggies are growing happily! D.O.

The proof is in the container!:
This is a great little book to get you started using self-watering container systems. It is well organized and provided me with sufficient information to, for the first time, successfully grow a bounty of tomatoes and lettuce and to start my little dwarf meyer lemon tree to begin blooming again. There is a great section at the end of the book for resources for purchasing some of the materials, and the section that covers the specifics about various types of plants, which do well with containers and which don't really need them, was also a great help toward getting started. I've already loaned this book to several friends who are looking forward to trying the method. For me, I wanted a sure-fire way to get maximally healthly and productive plants with a minimum of effort. Setting up the pots takes about 45-60 minutes, and after that your plants just take off! I love going out my kitchen door and picking fresh lettuce every day for my salads, and to not have to worry about watering every day, which in the heat of San Jose summers is fantastic! Easy, fun and rewarding - what more could you ask from a gardening book?

Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers: Using Ed's Amazing POTS System:
Looks like it will help me in my patio gardening next year. I am new at gardening in pots so I am anxious to put this book to good use. Great on describing the steps. I have always been a ground gardener, but rules have changed in our neighborhood and so far my pot gardening has not done well. I need this book to give me the knowledge to make my pot gardens tremendously abundant.

Good Resource!:
As a veteran gardener I found this book very informative. I had tried container gardening in the past, but was frustrated with the inconsistent results and the fact that the pots needed constant watering attention. Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers is a great resource as it shows the reader what can be accomplished when plants are grown in containers with a constant water source. Edward Smith uses organic methods (a departure from most container gardening books) and his recommendations on plant and seed varieties has been well researched. Coupled with exquisite photography, the book is good reading for both novice and well-seasoned gardeners. I gave the book 4 stars because I found his instructions on how to actually create a self-watering container a bit lacking, although after reading the book I realized that his focus wasn't primarily on how to create self-watering containers, but rather how to use them to raise exceptional flowers, ornamentals, fruits and vegetables. With that said, there are plenty of instructions on the web for someone who wants to use everyday materials and create their own. I really like Edward Smith's approach and look forward to doing some serious gardening in 2009.