Free Downloads The Mix & Match Guide To Companion Planting: An Easy, Organic Way To Deter Pests, Prevent Disease, Improve Flavor, And Increase Yields In Your Vegetable Garden

                
              
Free Downloads 
The Mix & Match Guide To Companion Planting: An Easy, Organic Way To Deter Pests, Prevent Disease, Improve Flavor, And Increase Yields In Your Vegetable Garden
With its unique split-page mix-and match system, The Mix & Match Guide to Companion Planting is a colorful visual gardening guide to which vegetables, fruits, and herbs grow best with one another, and which do not.The age-old practice of companion planting is an effective way to create healthier, happier, more productive gardens simply by placing the right plants next to each other. It is an ingenious, all-natural method to control pests, disease, and weeds without the need for chemicals. With its unique split-page mix-and-match system, this colorful, visual guide makes it fast and easy for you to choose which vegetables, fruits, and herbs grow best with one another, and which do not. All you have to do is select your desired crop from the extensive plant directory, flip the strips, match the dots, and get ready for your vegetable garden to flourish!
Hardcover-spiral: 104 pages
Publisher: Ten Speed Press; Spi edition (March 11, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1607746336
ISBN-13: 978-1607746331
Product Dimensions:  6.6 x 1 x 9.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:  4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #421,574 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)   #150 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Fruit   #311 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > By Technique > Organic   #345 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Vegetables
So, I have just begun to put plants in the ground and this book could not have come at a better time! The Mix and Match Guide to Companion Planting is an awesome and unique way to find companion plants for your garden crops.This book does not just tell you that tomatoes grow well with peppers and so on and so forth. The unique design of the book allows you to find a variety of crops that will help your main crop in the areas that you choose. First of all, this book explains the benefits of companion plants and why you may want to choose to grow some plants with others. There are nutritional requirements, beneficial insects, soil improvers, and weed deterrents, just to name a few.Secondly, I love the way that this book is set up. The companion plant pages of the book are split into thirds, so you have three rows of flip cards on a page. The middle cards are central crops you would like to plant. To use the book, you flip the middle card to your main crop you would like to plant, along the top and bottom of that card are coded dots with benefits. You then flip the top and bottom cards to match the dots up with the benefits you would like to find the compatible plants. The top cards are companion plants that will support the plants aboveground needs while the bottom cards will support belowground needs. I really liked this setup, it allows you to choose from a large variety of plants and the companion plants are more likely to suit your needs as a gardener and your plants needs.This book was received for free in return for an honest review.
Not only is this book practical for any gardener, but it's also incredibly functional. The first part of the book is a great overview of gardening in general. The second part is comprised of mix and match cards in three tiers. It was really easy to see which plant goes with what, and the cards were fun to flip through and read. If you love to garden but have always wanted to increase your yield (without spending extra money), companion gardening can definitely be the way to go. I purposefully planted marigolds this year because tomatoes and marigolds go well together.
I had a hard time choosing a rating for this. It's well thought out and designed, with good information. It's just very limited information. There are lots of veggie/fruit plants that I want to grow that aren't included (and I believe many other gardeners would want to grow as well) and many herbs/plants that I just don't have a want or use for that are included. I would say it's geared more towards young children to set them up for success, but it doesn't really include many plants kids are interested in either. I so want to give this a 5 star for it's concept, layout, and ease of use, but it's lack of content makes it a 3-star for me.
I gleaned some good info from this book, but it was not as helpful as I had hoped and I'm not sure I couldn't have found the same info from a few Google searches online. For one thing, the "mix and match" pages in the middle could have been better thought out. There are a lot of fruit trees and berries in the mix, but who plants annual "companion" vegetables under their permanent fruit trees or in their berry patches? Most veggies need full sun...and fruits and berries take a dim view of having the area around their roots tilled up annually! Green beans, which I consider a main crop in my garden, is treated as a companion crop...which I find weird...and corn isn't even discussed. I guess what I'm really searching for is a companion planting guide for annual vegetable gardens.
The Mix & Match Guide to Companion Planting, Josie Jeffery, Ten Speed Press, March 11, 2014, 104 pages.Looing for an easy way to garden organically? Josie Jeffery's newest book, The Mix & Match Guide to Companion Planting, helps the reader understand and implement organic companion planting.Companion planting is "...the establishment of two or more plant species planted in close proximity in order to culturally benefit each other by attracting or deterring pests, keeping the soil healthy, and improving flavor."The book itself is enclosed in a hardback cover, bound by a metal spiral spine. It is sturdy enough to be used outside. The first 46 pages cover the principles behind companion planting, finding harmony with nature and basics of organic gardening. With full-color photographs this section is visually appealing. I learned about fertilizing and watering my garden, something that has always confused me.The remainder of the pages contains the mix-and-match section. The instructions for using this section are on pages 8-9.The Mix & Match Guide to Companion Planting ReviewThere are three strips that can be matched together. The middle strip is the crop selected to plant. The top strip will support aboveground needs of the crop. The bottoms strip will support belowground needs of the crop.Each middle strip has rows of colored dots. These dots symbolize things that this particular crop needs. The top and bottom strips have the same rows. Simply math the top and bottom strip dots to the middle strip dots to find the companion plants. The more dots that match, the stronger companion relationship. Simple. Easy.Written for: The non-nonsense organic gardenerWhy I like this Book: Easy-to-use mix-and-match pagesDo I Recommend: Yes
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