I bought this book because I wanted some information on gardening intensively in raised beds. The best things about the book are the plant spacing guides and the timing charts in the back that help you know when to plant what, according to your frost dates. These are absolutely essential for the first time gardener, and I've referred to them many times. Aside for that, I don't care for Mel's writing style. He somehow comes off as pompous and condescending: "If you don't do __ , you don't have a square foot garden!" I don't care if I don't have a square foot garden, as Mel has defined it. I deviated from Mel's soil mix by purchasing landscape soil from a local company. My mix is 20% topsoil, 50-60% leaf compost, and the rest is sand. I also went 12 inches deep with the soil. It's nice to plant tomatoes deeply, and put carrots wherever I feel like it. Many, many people have admired my garden. It is incredibly productive and beautiful at the same time, with pictures that rival the author's. Oh, and that's another pet peeve--I wish the book had a few more photos, especially of trellised crops like tomatoes and melons. I can understand the need to start from scratch with your soil if you live in an area with terrible soils, but here in MI, the soil is nice to begin with. There's absolutely no reason to ignore great local resources if you have them. Instead of spending a fortune on the soil mix, I put my money into great-looking composite raised bed kits.
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