The Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in Southern California

by Geri Miller

Grow your own food in the Golden State!

There is nothing more regionally specific than vegetable gardening—what to plant, when to plant it, and when to harvest are decisions based on climate, weather, and first frost.  The Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in Southern California , by regional expert Geri Miller, focuses on the unique eccentricities of California’s gardening calendar, which include extreme temperatures and low rainfall. The month-by-month format makes it perfect for beginners and accessible to everyone—gardeners can start gardening the month they pick it up.

Genres: Gardening

200 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2015

Reviews

[thefourthvine]

This is probably a useful book for someone new to this region, or entirely new to growing plants here, but it didn't do much for me. I've lived here for a while and grown vegetables here for five years, and while I still feel like a novice, this really didn't contain much that was new to me.

In addition, it was kind of depressing to read. A lot of the climate information (and there is a ton of climate information) is somewhat inaccurate -- yes, we do have June Gloom in my area, and I surely did not need to learn about it from this book, but we also are having it in March now -- simply because of the unpredictability climate change has brought to our weather.

All in all, this is not the gardening book I was looking for.

[Rita Marie]

I didn't find this book to be terribly useful, possibly because coastal and valley climates in California are so dramatically different. Instructions to do something before or after the first frost are not helpful. We don't get frost. Not ever. Also the pages for the individual veggies are much alike. "Plant in well-drained, fertile/loamy soil" is a given. So, overall too basic and too general.

On the plus side, the book has some interesting sections on composting, raised beds, drying herbs, and other related topics.