How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons is the first and favorite book that I purchased.

http://www.bountifulgardens.org/products.asp?dept=150

It covers everything on your wish list as far as I'm concerned, except pest ID. Healthy plants do not attract bugs and the book has the fundamentals on that covered.

Terran

Here is a link that might be useful: How to Grow More Vegetables

Healthy plants in fact do attract bugs, but are more able to withstand attack. You might want to look at the new Sunset book of edibles if you need that much information. We like it.

Dan

My two favorite books. [1]THE SELF-SUFFICIENT GARDENER by John Semour. [2]THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ORGANIC GARDENING by Rodale Press. I think both are on Amazon.com.

I have a shelf full of gardening books, Eliot Coleman, Ed Smith, and others. I'm sorry to say that although all these books have useful information, they also all contain erroneous information. I have not found one source of information that is authoritative and current.

I suppose it's the currency of the information that's the issue. You'd think that after how-many thousands of years of farming and gardening, we'd have learned something. But they are still finding out some very important lessons that have not yet made it into consumer-level print.

For example, the information about mycorrhizal relationships, and how to nurture them is still mostly found on-line.

If I had to pick one, I'd go with one of Eliot Coleman's latest books. But this forum is one of the best sources of information and ideas. Check out posts by loid (pt03), borderbarb, dan_staley, cyrus_gardener, digdirt.

I'll have to check John Jeavon's book from the library.

Yes,yes on Ed Smith's Vegetable Gardener's Bible. If you're new (or mentoring a new gardener) Barbara Pleasant's Starter Vegetable Gardens cuts down on some guesswork, makes it look like fun.

Here is a link that might be useful: vegetable gardening book

Thank you all so much for your recommendations. I have put in requests for all but a couple of these books from my local library (they didn't have the new Sunset Book of Edibles). I will check all of them out and see which ones would be more beneficial for my needs.

Dan - are you referring to the new Sunset Western Garden Book of Edibles, or the older one? I couldn't find on the web if the new one also was applicable to Midwest gardens.

I will also definitely be hanging around the forums here and have already learned a lot.

The new one Bari. It just came out a couple months ago. The parent book is 'the bible' in the western states (esp in CA) and you can usu see a person attached to the book when you visit a nursery.

The new one is the same, focuses on The West but not limited to western states in its impact. Has excellent beginner-level garden design, containers, compost, practical guides, organic methods, zones and growing seasons, all with ample clear pictures, charts, diagrams, drawings. Both the BH and myself teach MG classes and this has been added to the References page.

Dan

bari: try "Rodale's Garden Problem Solver". For pests try "Rodale's Insect Identification Guide". Regards, Peter.

"Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholmew or about any of the books by Elliot Coleman and/or Barbara Damrosch.

bari

You'll probably find that you need more than one book to cover all you want to know, though of course your first book should cover as much as possible.

One thing you might consider is making a file for internet links to information you want to keep.

You might also make a list of people who've written books you may be interested in for any internet updates on their information they may have issued since they wrote the book. I have a couple of old Ruth Stout books, and yet there is more information about her on the internet that I find fascinating.

My beloved gardening mentor, Thalassa Cruso, and an obscure author named Peter Tonge.