Mel Bartholomew (1931–2016)

As a gardening method, Square Foot Gardening is pretty great. This book, though -- this book is not great.

Mel is a big fan of science and math, so let me break down this book by the (estimated) numbers:

20% Discussion of how amazing Square Foot Gardening is, or how amazing Mel Bartholomew is
20% Actual gardening content
10% Weird and/or culturally insensitive stuff
10% Charts that don't render correctly in the ebook version
40% Repetition of all of the above

The book starts with a full chapter show more on the History of Mel and Square Foot Gardening. I will be honest: I don't care. I am glad Mel came up with this method, and I'm glad he's got all this experience teaching it and proselytizing (word used advisedly), but I'm here to read about gardening, not Mel or what was going on with Square Foot Gardening in the 1970s. But you can't just skip the chapter and skip this content -- like everything else, it repeats over and over, throughout every chapter of the book. (He even includes, in the text, quotes from random satisfied gardeners. They all look like this: "Such a great technique! I am definitely happy to be engaging in Square Foot Gardening." -- Jane, Texas. These do not add anything and get seriously old after a while.)

Then you start in on the actual gardening content. It's -- look, this part is kind of a victim of its own successs. When I started getting into gardening, this method is pretty much how everyone said to do it. This information is all over the internet. There are a few nuances you learn in this book, but honestly, you can find virtually of this, for free, online. And you get to read it without hearing about the greatness of what you're reading about. Additionally, this doesn't really go into enough detail -- you're going to need another source of information for your local area anyway.

Then comes the unfortunate viewpoints. Mel, uh, diverges a lot into things like "remember, we rest on Sundays" (I don't; I'm Jewish, and my sabbath day isn't Sunday), and he talks about how ladies are super bad at building stuff, and about how all poor people really need is a SFG, not a government handout. I don't really enjoy sexism along with my gardening tips.

I can't say much about the charts. I read this in ebook form, so I couldn't read them.

But the biggest problem with the book, for me, was how incredibly repetitious it is. Everything you read will be repeated dozens of times, in every section of the book. If you've been paying even moderate attention, this rapidly goes from annoying to boring to frustrating as hell. If all the repetition had been cut, there'd have been enough room to go into detail on climates and crop choices, and other stuff that's more important than being reminded yet again how much space SFG saves.

I love this gardening technique. It's the one I use (with modifications). But I do not at all love this book. If you're just starting out, google raised bed gardening and go with it. If you aren't just starting out, this book will be useless to you. Get an area-specific book and read that. But if you're mostly interested in the greatness and history of Mel Bartholomew, this is definitely the book for you. show less

Okay, so, I read this because it was available in Overdrive through my local library, and -- this isn't a book. It's an overgrown blog post. The concept here is that you get a list of the stuff you can grow in your garden (not just vegetables) that has the highest return on investment. The first chapter is how they calculated ROI for home-grown vegetables, the second chapter is their top ten and bottom ten list, and the third chapter is quick and mostly useless summaries about how to grow show more the stuff on their lists, plus some other stuff not on their lists.

Honestly, this is pretty pointless. If you're actually growing to sell, you're going to grow based on your local market, not per-square-foot ROI calculations. (And you're also a farmer, not a gardener, but whatever.) If you're growing to save money, you'll grow what *you* spend the most on -- the stuff your family eats, the stuff that costs the most in your area. Also, a lot of these plants can't be planted in all areas or at all times, so even if you do plant out your garden based on this book, you'll need another book to help you do it.

The one piece of advice that is useful here is basically the thing they say in every single intro to gardening book ever: start with herbs. They're easy to grow, they're very useful to have continually available, and you save a lot of money and/or add a lot of flavor to your food. Beyond that, it's hard to imagine what use this book could possibly be. show less

Excellent resource for small plot gardening. I never understood why a packet of seeds has the instructions to pour the whole packet into your row and then thin later. It seemed so wasteful! Square foot gardening is EXACTLY the kind of gardening I want to do. The book is loaded with information and diagrams and tables on plants and spacing and growing. I borrowed this from the library; but I will be buying a copy for my permanent library!

Best gardening book ever: I do not come by gardening naturally, but after my daughter read this book in Africa, she convinced me that even I could make things grow. She was right. I live in a rural area and only get sun on my deck and this system is perfect. The soil mix is the best I have ever used. It is low maintence. The book is easy to read with some great reference tables. There are lots of great photos and diagrams for the visual learner. Throughout the book you will even find tips show more for including your children. I have since purchased 2 more books as gifts. show less