5 comments about The Highbush Blueberry and Its Management.

1. A great book for starting out. Covers all aspects of growing blueberries. Just enough detail.



2. This book is loaded with information. As a novice to blueberries, I will be coming back to this book for years to come as my knowledge increases and hopefully as by bushes grow and produce.



3. The book is very informative, providing me with information I was looking for, however some of the reference material dates back several decades. I was hoping that more current methods of plant maintenance & marketing would be included, nevertheless still a wealth of information on most topics. I would recommend this to anyone interested in starting a blueberry endeavor, or even considering one, which will give you an idea of what is involved and what to expect.



4. Originally I purchased The Highbush Blueberry book because of my hubby's interest in blueberries. We are not blueberry farmers but have a variety of wild blueberries, including the highbush, growing on our property in P.E.I.,Canada. He was mostly interested in pruning and pest control which are included in the chapters.
   
   I found the book well organized and easy to understand. It contains a wealth of helpful and interesting material on blueberries but may be overwhelming for someone just starting out growing blueberries. By this, I mean the average person, such as myself, who has not done anything but go out to the backyard and pick the fruit, could not imagine all the growth problems explained in this book. My hubby always believed the blueberries grew so abundantly on this Island because of the sandy soil and, also, the moisture which is evident by the heavy dew every morning. The soil also has a lot of iron content.
   
   Burning the fields is often done in this area by commercial growers. I didn't see this mentioned in the book, but burning could be dangerous and may be prohibited in some areas. Periodically burning the bushes, by a controlled fire, would certainly help take care of pruning, some pests and diseases.;)
   
   In summary, Mr. Gough's book on blueberries certainly raised my awareness of all the aspects involved in blueberry management.



5. This is one of the three books I recommend to people who are interested in growing bluberries. This book is a well written collection of the scientific knowledge of how blueberry plants grow and their culture. Blueberries need acid soils and the author walks the reader through site selection and preparation as well as culture, pruning and pest control. This book is an excellent reference for horticulturists and commerical growers. Numerous black and white pictures, graphs and tables deliver a lot of information and even though I have read it several times, I find myself refering to this book several times a year.
   Blueberries: For Growers, Gardners and Promoters is a more recent work with multiple authors and many color photos, but Dr. Gough's book is still an excellent resource with its own strengths and the two works complement each other.

No comments about Fruit (Agile Rabbit Editions).

No comments about Complete Home Gardening: Growing Secrets and Techniques for Gardeners.

No comments about The Permaculture Garden.

5 comments about Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm.

1. It is rare to read a book where the author works miracles with his hands and his words. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys non-fiction but finds it dry, without humanity. David Mas Masumoto is anything but dry. His land may be at times, but his poetic prose is anything but. His relationship with his family, his family's farm and nature is a rare combination. I highly recommend this read.



2. I live somewhat north of the area Mr. Masumoto writes about - where the San Francisco Bay Area Suburbs collide with the San Joaquin Farmlands. The Peach and Cherry Orchards and the Sweet Corn, Tomatoes and Strawberries are currently holding their own - but like Mr. Masumoto's Peaches and Grapes, only tenuously, and with great courage. If you would like to understand not only how these people live, but who and why they are, you should read this book. It is both beautifully written and thought provoking.



3. I feel a connection with David Masumoto. Not that I've met him or anything - in fact, there's a good chance I never will (although I keep hoping that one summer day I can make it over to his farm to pick peaches). No, this feeling is based on an impression that we have both fought the same fight over different things, for the same reasons. It is also because he writes so poignantly about a landscape I grew up in. Mr. Masumoto is an organic farmer in the valley of California, and his story is becoming more and more familiar to me as I see this way of life disappearing across the country.
   
   A third generation Japanese American peach and grape farmer, David Masumoto inherited the family orchard from his father. He also had the heritage of his childhood memories of how that particular peach variety, Sun Crest, tasted and ran with juice unlike the pretty red baseballs that have passed for today's supermarket peach varieties. Mr. M wanted to show the world how delightful an old-fashioned peach could be.
   
   When he took over his father's farm, he resolved to not only continue growing his Sun Crests, but to do it organically. This would prove challenging in our day and age of cheap, quick fixes; moreover, it would test his strongly felt ideals. The land needed to heal and replenish itself after years of chemical fertilizers and toxic pest control methods. Masumoto had to take his example from research on other organic farming practices, planting wildflowers to encourage beneficial insect life and sowing "green manure" crops to act as natural mulch and compost. All this took time, patience, and faith that his hard work would eventually pay off.
   
   Epitaph for a Peach is rich in sensory descriptions, philosophy, and nostalgic flashbacks. It is a picture of the way a farmer's life is connected to the seasons, capricious weather patterns, and changing market conditions. Not incidentally, Masumoto also teaches about the obscure history of Japanese farmers in the Valley - something that even I, native to Fresno, had little idea of. Reading this book was a slow, thoughtful experience much in the same manner that one slows down to savor a rich fruit. Recommended to anybody interested in history, growing food, or the vanishing California landscape.
   -Andrea, aka Merribelle



4. wonderful. when you read this work you can actually feel the soil, smell the grass, and taste the fruit. a greeat read



5. Author David Masumoto has written an excellent vignette into the year in a life of a small-scale, family farmer. His passion for his life's work, his connection to the land, and his strong family values are so clearly evident in his writing. I think a lot of readers will be envious of the life he describes. I share many of his views on the value of small family farms and the need to focus on how food should taste. Masumoto's book will reonsate deeply with those of us who know what it means to be curious about how something grows, who look forward to the first ripe peach or melon of the year, who prefer to make things from scratch and sit down with all our kids at dinner.

1 comments about Guide to Growing Delicious Vegetables Fruits & Herbs (Miracle Gro).

1. I usually look in the library to see what books I would like to own. Miracle-Gro Guide to Growing Delicious Vegetables Fruits and Herbs is a book I am going to buy. The pictures are large enough to see what a product will look like. The advice is correct as well. I live in Arizona and these authors are aware that most products in Arizona can get badly sunburned in the summer months without shading. I am glad a publcation has finally come that can give good advice.

2 comments about Blueberryland: Taming the Maine Wild Lowbush Blueberry.

1. As someone who has periodically travelled through downeast Maine, passing through miles of seemingly tractless spruce forests and barrens, I have wondered who lives there, and why. This book captures the answer to that question in a way which edifies the reader about the history and quaint charm of the region. Moreover, the book also suggests how people in similar circumstances find livelihoods, community, and even survival in the most unexpected places. A wonderfully educational and insightful read that makes the reader long to visit the region...those who do will find an austere beauty, hardy people, and newfound respect for the spirit of human enterprise... and they are likely to return to the area, as did the author.



2. This book is a personal history of lowbush blueberry farming in Washington County, Maine. The author, Walter Staples, was a frequent visitor to the region as a young child, when he accompanied his father on hunting, fishing, and blueberrying trips. He later purchased some land in Wesley, Maine to use as a base camp for hunting and fishing. When he made this purchase, much of the acreage was being used for commercial blueberry harvesting, and he deeded the rights to the commercial harvest to the previous owner, Shirley Guptill, for as long as Guptill was able to rake the berries. When Guptill became too old to rake blueberries, Staples began learning the trade himself.
   
   In this book, Staples relates a number of hunting and berry picking stories, as well as some of his adventures and misadventures as a commercial blueberry harvester. He provides some interesting anecdotes about the local history of Wesley and the development of the commercial blueberry industry in Maine. The book also includes some statistics and press releases from industry publications, some poems on blueberrying and some old family recipes.
   
   What is most attention-grabbing is Staples' personal account of the transformation of blueberrying from family enterprises to agri-industry. At the beginning of his tenure in the fields (1980), berries were raked by hand and fields were maintained with the addition of hay and regular burning. Expenses were minimal, and profits from a few works' work were significant ($3582.79). But by the 1990s, production protocols had come to require application of herbicides, fertilizers and mechanical raking. All of these additional inputs came at significant expense, while the resulting glut in the blueberry market meant that the returns did not keep pace with expenses. By 1990, Staples was losing money through maintaining and harvesting his fields, rather than gaining a respectable bonus to his yearly income. By then, the only way to make money in blueberries was to lease the fields at a minimal price to commercial growers, or consider organic alternatives. What becomes clear is that the term "wild blueberry" when referring to the Maine agri-industry product is no more accurate than the term "red delicious" apple. In this case, "wild" is simply used as a synonym for low-bush, to make the product sound natural, which it clearly is not, from Staples' description.
   
   Staples includes a number of interesting anecdotes of blueberry country in the book, and some fascinating details about the development of the blueberry industry, but the presentation of the stories, poems, can be a bit disjointed at times. However, interested readers can piece together a remarkable personal story of a family industry being subsumed by big business. Others may simply enjoy the tales of rural Maine and the delicious blueberry recipes.

1 comments about Growing Fruits & Vegetables Organically: The Complete Guide to a Great-Tasting, More Bountiful, Problem-Free Harvest.

1. I Love this book! It's the best gardening book I own! Lots of into about growing a garden Vegetables of all kinds.

4 comments about Rodale's Garden Answers- Vegetables, fruits, and Herbs: At-a-Glance Solutions for Every Gardening Problem.

1. Spend less time reading and more time gardening with this quick-reference guide. The book is broken into five sections: Getting Started, Growing Vegetables, Growing Fruits, Growing Herbs, and Controlling Pest and Diseases. Each section is loaded with tips. In the Getting started section, you will learn about preparing a site, buying the right plants, and how to making Compost Tea. The Vegetable section, not only gives you a detailed write-up on over 30 different vegetables, but tells how to get 100 pounds of tomatoes from one plant. For the do-it-yourself group, there are instructions on how to build a homemade tomato cage.

   The book devotes 100 pages to growing fruits. Learn how to make an aphid trap out of a milk jug or how to propagate berry plants and fruit trees. There are detailed care and maintenance write-ups on 12 of the most common fruits & berries.

   The Herb section talks about controlling invasive herbs, companion planting, and how to perform a technique called layering.

   The Controlling Pest and Diseases section points out beneficial insects and plants. The book also explains organic tricks for solving insect, plant deficiency, and disease problems. I love the way the book uses home products to solve common gardening problems in an easy to read format. This is my favorite gardening book.




2. I really loved this book because it focused on organic methods first. Also, it goes though plant by plant and lists growth conditions, problems and many options for cures. It also goes through soil and garden development.



3. I love this book, it has become my gardening bible! If I have a question, it has the answer. It has made gardening organically much easier.
   Last year was my first year to try to garden organically, and it didn't work out too well. But this year I actually know what I'm doing! I would definatly recommend it!



4. This book is GREAT for any type of gardner, from begginner to "farmer"
   We use it every year and it has really helped our garden just grow bigger and bigger each time.

1 comments about Japanese Flowering Cherries.

1. "Japanese Flowering Cherries" is a fabulous book. Wybe Kuitert has done an excellent job of producing a book with a vast amount of information. The book is very informative about the wide variety of wild and garden varieties. It also discusses the history and appreciation of cherry trees. It also contains some very excellent photography, as well as art work relating to Japan's homage to the cherry tree. Overall, this book is an excellent resource if you want to start your own cherry tree garden, or you just want to become more knowledgeable about this beautiful tree.