The Michigan Gardening Guide

Front Cover
University of Michigan Press, 1998 - 318 pages

It's all here---step-by-step guidance for gardening success in Michigan's varying soil types and often difficult climate. Veteran garden writer Jerry Minnich presents detailed directions and practical tips for growing vegetables, herbs, flowers, landscaping plants, and house plants, as well as dependable advice on hundreds of garden operations.

Minnich begins where gardening begins---in the soil---as he tells how to build a healthy and productive soil, and how to solve soil problems. In subsequent chapters he reveals composting and mulching techniques, and what to do when the weather is less than congenial for gardens. Minnich describes more than sixty Michigan vegetables, tells how to grow them, and lists recommended varieties for each. There are also chapters on growing fruits, berries, and nuts, and on food storage. Minnich devotes a chapter to growing annuals and perennials, another on lawns, trees, and ornamental woody plants. He tells how to deal with insect and animal pests without using harmful chemicals, and he includes a major section on houseplants.

Throughout, Minnich approaches the subject with experience, wit, and style. Readers will learn how to deal with weeds in the lawn, how to surf the landscape for com-posting materials, and how to grow mulch at home. He explains intercropping, companion planting, seed saving, cover cropping, strip composting and other techniques. He tells how to raise unusual crops such as tomatillos and radicchio, as well as the standard favorites. He explains how the science of phenology can help the gardener, how to take a soil test, how to use earthworms to turn household wastes in to compost, and how to attract birds and toads to the garden. And he lists more than a thousand varieties of vegetables, herbs, fruits, and ornamentals that can be trusted to grow in the Michigan climate.

The Michigan Gardening Guide is the one backyard guide that Michigan gardeners can trust. It is a tool as indispensable as the hoe and the shovel.

Jerry Minnich has written about gardening for more than twenty years and has been commended with a Certificate of Merit by the Garden Writers Association of America. His interest in gardening began when he joined the staff of Organic Gardening in the 1950s.

From inside the book

Contents

It All Begins in the Soil
1
Composting and Mulching
16
What to Do about the Weather
33
Vegetable GrowingBounty for the Table
54
Fruits Berries and NutsPerennial Providers
136
Storing Fruits and Vegetables
169
Flowers for MichiganNine Months of Glory
176
Lawns Trees and Ornamental Plantings
214
Insects Pests DiseasesControl without Poison
235
Indoor Gardening
251
Tools and Sources
297
Index
309
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

About the author (1998)

Jerry Minnich has written about gardening for more than twenty years and has been commended with a Certificate of Merit by the Garden Writers Association of America. His interest in gardening began when he joined the staff of Organic Gardening in the 1950s.

Bibliographic information