Best Garden Books Reviews

 

On this page you’ll find reviews of a wide variety of the best garden books. We will be adding new books to this page frequently.

These are honest reviews of books we have read ourselves! 

 

 

 

Best Garden Books are organized into the following categories:

• Basic Gardening Skills
• Gardening Techniques
• Seed Saving
• More Garden Topics

 

The pictures of each book will take you directly to the book on Amazon. I’d also encourage you to look for these books at your local library!

 

Disclaimer: this page contains affiliate links, meaning if you make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

 

Books: Basic Gardening Skills

Most of the books in this section are great for beginning gardeners. Many of them will also be helpful to gardeners with more experience!

 

Making Vegetables – Shoshanna Easling

 

THE book for beginning gardeners!

This large book starts at the beginning to teach you how to garden in a fun, inspiring way. It is packed full of colorful pictures and solid information about growing vegetables organically.

This is by far the most fun and colorful gardening book we have found.

Making Vegetables is definitely a favorite of ours!

Highly recommended for beginning to intermediate gardeners!

 

The Vegetable Gardeners Bible – Edward C. Smith

 

This big book is just packed with information! Edward explains all the basics of gardening, planting, watering, weed control, pest control and harvesting. The last part of the book goes into detail on exactly how to grow each vegetable.

Highly recommended for beginning gardeners!

 

Vegetable Garden Soil Science Made Easy

I really enjoyed reading this one. Vegetable Garden Soil Science goes into detail about improving your soil to get the most out of your garden. It talks about how to test your soil and identify your soil’s characteristics, how to improve poor soil and how to maintain good soil year after year. There are also chapters on raised bed and container gardening, complete with affordable soil mixes you can do yourself.

 

The Encyclopedia of Country Living – Carla Emery

 

While this book also includes a wealth of information on country living, raising livestock and living off the land, it is full of great gardening advice!

Beyond the basics, you’ll find information here for growing fruit, grains, and many less common vegetables that can’t be found in other gardening books.

This is a must-have reference book for anyone who wants to garden, do-it-yourself or live off the land! 

We actually have an entire page talking about this one book, which you can find right here!

 

Books: Gardening Techniques

The books in this section go into detail about specific gardening techniques, such as wide rows, lasagna layered gardens, gardening with heavy mulch, and more!

 

Lasagna Gardening – Patricia Lanza

 

In this book Patricia Lanza shares her incredibly easy and productive system of layering different kinds of organic materials and unfinished compost.

This technique creates nutrient-dense beds that will grow more vegetables in a smaller space, and adds nutrients to your produce!

We tried it out ourselves and had great results! Lasagna gardening works exceptionally well for raised beds and smaller garden plots.

 

The Ruth Stout No Work Garden Book – Ruth Stout and Richard Clemence

 

Ruth teaches how to cover your garden in a thick layer of unsprayed hay to keep the moisture in and the weeds out.

I’ve used this method for years with great success! In fact, this is the method we now use on most of our garden areas. We can usually find old hay for free in our area and the bales are easier to work with than loose mulches.

We have an article detailing this technique. You can read more about how to use hay in your garden here: Should You Use Hay as Mulch in Your Garden 

 

Garden Way’s Joy of Gardening – Dick Raymond

 

This book was so refreshing to read!

Dick talks about making gardening less work and more fun. He uses a system of wider rows and thicker plantings to reduce weeding and maximize the harvest.

I loved the more relaxed, laid-back approach of this book.

 

Books: Seed Saving

Seed saving is probably my favorite gardening topic. I love to collect rare seeds and preserve my favorite varieties to have year after year!

 

The Seed Garden: The Art and Practice of Seed Saving – Seed Savers Exchange

 

If you are a serious reader, you will love this huge book from the Seed Savers Exchange! Packed full of accurate information, I love how many pictures are included!

The first 1/3 of the book has general seed saving information, while the remainder goes into detail with pictures of individual plants. Each plant profile has a handy reference box summarizing the most important information for seed savers, and making it a valuable reference book!

We highly recommend The Seed Garden for all seed savers!

Seed to Seed – Suzanne Ashworth

 

This is a classic, no-nonsense, reference book for saving seeds from garden vegetables. It’s been around for many years and still has accurate, well-organized information.

The book goes through all the basics of saving seeds, and has individual vegetables organized by family.

In Seed to Seed, you’ll find information such as how plants are pollinated, which vegetables can cross with each other, annuals vs biennials, specific advice for various US regions, and much more!

 

Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties – Carol Deppe

 

Plant genetics are very complex! If you are interested in breeding plants and creating your own brand new varieties, I would highly recommend the book, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, by Carol Deppe.

This book is great for anyone who likes science and wants to really get serious about plant genetics. It is not for those who are casually interested in saving seeds (if this is you, you might want to check out our online seed saving course that makes seed saving simple for beginners!)

 

The Garden Seed Saving Guide – Jill Henderson

 

This small 55 page book is a quick read for those of you who aren’t too big on reading! It covers basic seed saving techniques and goes into more detail on a handful of annual vegetables.

The Garden Seed Saving Guide doesn’t cover how to hand pollinate or any biennial vegetables.

I would recommend the book for someone who just want to casually save seeds on a small scale!

 

 

Books: More Gardening Topics

 

The Market Gardener – Jean-Martin Fortier

 

I learned so much from this book about productivity in the garden.

The author not only makes money with a garden, but makes a full-time living to support his family year round.

Jean-Martin Fortier, author of The Market Gardener, does all this organically on just 1 1/2 acres. In an era where many farmers struggle to make ends meet on hundreds, or even thousands of acres, this accomplishment is truly inspiring!

In his book, he goes into all the details of how he does it and how you can do it too!

I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to grow organic vegetables for a profit!

You can read more about market gardening and this book right here.

 

Carrots Love Tomatoes – Louise Riotte

 

The book all about companion planting!

Louise Riotte describes how different types of vegetables help each other out or compete with each other. If you plant in traditional rows, this information will help you decide which rows to put next to each other.

I’ve found companion planting to be especially helpful for wide rows and beds, where I combine different types of vegetables that help each other out and take nutrients from different soil levels.

We’ve been using these companion planting techniques for years in our own gardens!

 

 

 

Did you find this page helpful? Check out our Homesteading Book Reviews Page right here for more of our top recommended reads!