reviews by Bob Walch

Tips for Container Gardening (Taunton Press, 208 pages, $19.95), by the Editors and Contributors of Fine Gardening

For those limited to deck or patio gardening, Tips for Container Gardening offers 300 great ideas for growing flowers, vegetables and herbs in just about any container.

Besides learning how to match the pot to the plant or place, you’ll also find help on selecting plants and tips on how to handle the watering chores. There are design tips on using color, foliage and drought-tolerant plants as well as choosing the right “edibles” for container propagation.

Whether it is a hanging basket, window box, regular clay pot or something much fancier, you’ll discover plenty of suggestions on how to make them add color and warmth to any area. Also, pay close attention to the information on watering your containers since they dry out fairly quickly and if the moisture is not maintained properly, you can lose your plants.

Taunton’s Complete Guide to Growing Vegetables & Herbs (Taunton Press, 304 pages, $24.95), edited by Ruth Lively

Even if you have not had much luck in the past, you may wish to try growing your own veggies and herbs again this year. If you aren’t sure you want to take the plunge, get a copy of Growing Vegetables & Herbs and read a few chapters.

Lively walks the novice through the growing process: designing a garden, planting it, and maintaining the vegetables until harvest time arrives. You’ll also find an extensive gallery of vegetables and herbs that offers information on planting essentials, pest concerns and harvesting — as well as the varieties of a given veggie. For example, the varieties of carrots range from Minicor — a small, stub-nosed, sweet carrot — to Nantes and Chantenay, two types that produce flavorful, medium-size roots, 6-8 inches in length.

Since garden pests can often ravage a healthy garden, you’ll find information on dealing with the pesky little critters very useful. Pay close attention to the advice proffered here and you won’t have to “donate” half your crop to the creepies and crawlies that might invade your yard.

Completely illustrated with plenty of photos, design plans, graphs and informative sidebars, this is a very easy book to use. The author provides all the material you need to make this year’s garden a smashing success.