I'm so excited about this book! I'm a beginner gardener, and this book has made it seem possible, in fact, even easy and FUN, to start a vegetable garden! It's totally inspiring and a great guide to figuring out how to garden! Recommended!

I tag this book as "currently reading" because, even though I've read it through, it's becoming a daily reference point for me. I have a square foot gardening system in my yard and I love it! I have four 4x4 beds and I'm amazed by the yield that I get in the summer and fall from such a little space. Who knew that you can get 16 carrots from ONE sq. foot of soil? His soil recipe (from the original book, not the updated one) is brilliant. My veg are so healthy and happy. This book makes me wish I knew Mel Bartholomew in real life so I could shake his hand! ( )

Mel's second look at square foot gardening brings many new enhancements that should make SFG much much easier. Unfortunately, Mel has also become more commercialized, and the book has the tone of an infomercial. The step by step construction guides are much needed, but I feel the first book gave much better detail on actual growing. Both also come with invaluable appendix material with plant charts and tips. I'm definitely glad I read the first SFG book first, but this one is a great sequel too. ( )

Not as in depth or intrigueing as the original Square Foot Gardening. It does have good information for container gardening (since in this volume Mel essentially turns all gardening into container gardening). Still well written, but aimed at a popular/beginner market. ( )

An excellent resource for starting a garden. The best part of the book is part 3 which contains an A-Z guide for herbs and vegetables. The information in this reference area is practically the same as all the other books, however the layout is far superior. I have several reference books but I find myself using this one because the layout is easy to understand and has everything I want to know in the right locations on the page. No hunting through paragraphs to find what I want.

Even if you are not into SFG this book is worth the price simply for the reference section. ( )