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I recently started cultivating a 20'x25' vegetable garden, which is to say, I signed up for a community garden plot and have a few containers for tomatoes on my porch. I don't have any experience gardening, save for what I learned in an agroecology course back in undergrad (mostly scientific concepts rather than agricultural practices). I'm looking for a resource to guide me through this process, but the sheer number has become overwhelming to the point of being anxiety inducing. So, if there were one or two books you had to recommend for a neophite such as myself, what would they be? I'm hoping for something comprehensive rather than several that delve into particular aspects of production, but many of these focus on homesteading and are more involved than I'm looking for at this point. I generally prefer the "Mother Gaia loving" approaches (e.g., permaculture, agroecology, etc.), but am an engineer at heart when it comes to how I learn (i.e., I love spreadsheets). I checked out some of Carol Deppe's books and wasn't too crazy about them. I like the Will Bonsall and Ben Falk books from Chelsea Green, but find that a bit bigger scale than what I'm attempting to do. Thanks for the help!

PS. Even though I said that I'm not interested primarily in homesteading, I am interested in some books looking at integrated system design because I'd like to add chickens and maybe bees at some point in the indefinite future.

elduderino260
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    The problem I find with gardening books is that they are never written for your micro climate. Why not ask the other gardeners in the community? Answers for your question can easily get into unsupported opinion that don't make for a good answer – kevinskio Apr 06 '20 at 00:36
  • Something about how to grow in your local area would be best. – Polypipe Wrangler Apr 06 '20 at 11:20
  • When I hear "community plot", I think annuals. When I hear "permaculture", I think perennials (or self seeding annuals). (Is my understanding of a plot wrong?) Which is your preferred direction? – Rick Apr 06 '20 at 15:21

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If you are in the US , your state university likely has a number of publications focused on various topics. They were free when I got them from U o IL, but that was long ago , i expect there is a charge today. No pretty color photos as I expect are in the books you mentioned. Not much for entertainment but they can't be beat for information. Well- some entertainment; The one on fruit trees said,"prune when the shears are sharp"; I thought that was entertaining. I want to add, they gave recommendations for varieties of fruit and vegetables .They would give unbiased information such as peach variety "X" is commonly grown because it is hard and ships well , But for a home orchard peach "Z" is much more flavorful.

blacksmith37
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My favorite small-scale permacuture book is Toby Hemenway’s “Gaia’s Garden - A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture”. A lot of the book centers around building guilds where often there is a fruit tree at the center of the guild and lots of supporting plants at different layers to perform different functions in the mini ecosystem.

Rick
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