Gardening Book Reviews

by a fellow 'green - book' worm

I have as long as I can remember been a bookworm, ( you would think with all that reading I would have better spelling and grammer right?, but no, try not to judge, I play in the dirt for a living for crying out loud, Im not an English major, I barely paid attention in English class...unless we were reading a book! )  and like all bookworms my tastes and preferences have changed as I have aged. I'm no longer the biggest fan of Calvin and Hobbes or the Harry Potter series, others like my sons have taken my place on those greatest fan lists. I have fallen in love with how to books and sci fi thrillers or fantasies that go on for thousands of pages, and been consumed with mysteries that you just cant put down, epic tales of valor by Knights of old, I've even managed to dig into old classics that somehow escaped me in my school years.

As I have cycled through different genres and interests one category has remained constant in securing my affections....Gardening. Its just in my blood, I cant shake it, and don't want to. As one of my best friends put it ( " I'm pretty sure you live for that crap! ) She's a reader, not so much with the gardening. But I like her anyway!

 Its not that I make a bee line for the gardening section every time I'm in a bookstore ( ok maybe I do...sometimes ) but that I just never leave without at least a quick glance to see if there is something I don't already own. And that quick glance doesn't end up being so quick most of the time. So sue me, I have green fingers not just green thumbs. But those thumbs didn't start out green, in fact there was a time (long, long ago) that my husband put R.I.P. signs on my flowers when I bought them. So if I had brown thumbs to begin with the natural question is how did they get so green? The answer? My love of books turned into my obsession with gardening books. I became a greenworm.

 I had a blog for a while called How to Turn a Brown Thumb Green, I was just taking all the questions I got asked about plants at the nursery and posting the pictures of the leaves and fruit and stems or branches with bugs people would bring in with the answers to the questions they asked about the problems they were experiencing in their yard. See, I've always believed there is no such thing as brown thumbs (unless of coarse they are green thumbs covered in brown dirt) just a little bit of missing familiarity or knowledge needed to activate the gardening instinct instilled deep within us all.

When it comes to 'greenbooks' not all books are created equal. When gardening in Florida you so often have to remember that gardening books are made to appeal to the majority of the people, and the majority of the people do not live in a subtropical climate! Those books may be great but not so much help with the plants that will live in Florida's heat and humidity. I hate to say it but sometimes I think well that was a waste of $20 bucks, or a trip to the library. So I decided to do this book review section of the Nursery website, a quick review of the books I have come across about Gardening that I have found helpful in dealing with gardening in Florida or just that I fell in love with anyway.  So if your looking to turn your brown thumb green or just a fellow greenworm seeing what your next meal will be check out this list of books. Hope it helps!

My Florida Green Bookworm Reviews:

How To Grow World Record Tomatoes

A Guiness Champion Reveals His ALL ORGANIC Techniques

By: Charles H. WIlbur

Acres USA

The Southern Living Garden Book

The Final Word on Southern Gardening for more than 35 years

You Bet Your Tomatoes

Fun Facts, Tall Tales, And a Handful of Gardening Tips

By: Mike McGrath

A Rodale Organic Gardening Book

Your Florida Landscape

A Complete Guide to planting and maintenance

By: Robert J Black and Kathleen C. Ruppert

University Press of Florida