The Michigan Gardening Guide

About this book

Its all here---step-by-step guidance for gardening success in Michigans varying soil types and often difficult climate. Veteran garden writer Jerry Minnich presents detailed directions and practical tips for growing vegetables herbs flowers landscaping plants and house plants as well as dependable advice on hundreds of garden operations. Minnich begins where gardening begins---in the soil---as he tells how to build a healthy and productive soil and how to solve soil problems. In subsequent chapters he reveals composting and mulching techniques and what to do when the weather is less than congenial for gardens. Minnich describes more than sixty Michigan vegetables tells how to grow them and lists recommended varieties for each. There are also chapters on growing fruits berries and nuts and on food storage. Minnich devotes a chapter to growing annuals and perennials another on lawns trees and ornamental woody plants. He tells how to deal with insect and animal pests without using harmful chemicals and he includes a major section on houseplants. Throughout Minnich approaches the subject with experience wit and style. Readers will learn how to deal with weeds in the lawn how to surf the landscape for com-posting materials and how to grow mulch at home. He explains intercropping companion planting seed saving cover cropping strip composting and other techniques. He tells how to raise unusual crops such as tomatillos and radicchio as well as the standard favorites. He explains how the science of phenology can help the gardener how to take a soil test how to use earthworms to turn household wastes in to compost and how to attract birds and toads to the garden. And he lists more than a thousand varieties of vegetables herbs fruits and ornamentals that can be trusted to grow in the Michigan climate. The Michigan Gardening Guide is the one backyard guide that Michigan gardeners can trust. It is a tool as indispensable as the hoe and the shovel. Jerry Minnich has written about gardening for more than twenty years and has been commended with a Certificate of Merit by the Garden Writers Association of America. His interest in gardening began when he joined the staff of Organic Gardening in the 1950s.