Originally published by Kelly Allsup on October 24, 2018.
Are you an avid vegetable gardener or maybe you just want to know more about growing food? University of Illinois Extension has brought you this new resource that is sure to be a "garden changer" for the novice and the expert! Vegetable Gardening in the Midwest is out now and available to help you with your gardening goals.
The third edition of "Vegetable Gardening in the Midwest" was recently released and is now available for purchase. This valuable reference discusses all major and minor vegetable crops in the Midwest, providing recommended varieties and specific information on when to plant, spacing and depth of planting, care throughout the growing season, common problems and best harvesting practices. It is a comprehensive guide to successfully growing vegetables in our area, containing useful tips that have been field tested for almost 40 years.
A team of Extension specialists, led by Elizabeth Wahle, took up the project of completing the third edition update.
"We decided to keep the focus on the beginner, not production gardening," Wahle said, although she admits there is something in this edition for everyone. "A lot of time was invested in updating the recommended varieties, so gardeners would have more information on the individuality of specific vegetable varieties."
Wahle's team did an excellent job updating recommendations for specific varieties of vegetables to reflect current availability, which is invaluable to gardeners, from beginner to advance levels. For convenience, variety recommendations have been organized into their own chapter, listing quite a bit of additional detail on each to include information such as days to maturity, relative disease resistance and a comments section that directs attention to other important specifics.
Another wonderful attribute of this publication is the photography. "Line drawings included in past editions were sufficient, but this recent update includes actual pictures that add much more detail," Wahle said. The high-quality images included in this update replace or supplement line drawings in older editions to add a magnificent new level of detail.
The updated print edition of "Vegetable Gardening in the Midwest" may be purchased at the University of Illinois Extension McLean County Office at 1615 Commerce Parkway in Bloomington at (309) 663-8306 or at pubsplus.illinois.edu by searching the title above.