You Bet Your Garden Guide to Growing Great Tomatoes

by McGrath, Mike

• ISBN13: 9781565237100
• ISBN10: 1565237102
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-04-01
• Publisher: Fox Chapel Pub Co Inc

Summary

From backyards to terraces, this deliciously funny little book is also a serious guide on how to start and nurture an heirloom tomato patch. Radio host and master gardener Mike McGrath has a growing legion of fans who love his trademark wit. In You Bet Your Garden Guide to Growing Great Tomatoes, McGrath doesn't disappoint, delivering both sound advice and plenty of laughs to help gardeners beat the heat and have a great tomato harvest. In this book McGrath explains why readers should grow their own tomatoes in the first place: You just can't beat the taste. Tomatoes are the most popular home garden vegetable crop, and heirloom tomatoes are older, open-pollinated varieties that have stood the test of time. More and more gardeners are finding heirloom vegetables to be superior in flavor, color and disease resistance to the more common hybrid commercial varieties. Based on McGrath's personal adventures in tomato-growing, You Bet Your Garden Guide to Growing Great Tomatoesguides would-be gardeners through choosing seeds, germinating, planting, staking, caging, nurturing, watering and harvesting homegrown tomatoes. Readers also get tips on how to control pests and deal with disease. Along the way, he weaves in fascinating tomato lore and tips. This is a book for everyone who loves to laugh, loves to eat, and loves to grow beautiful tomatoes.

Author Biography

From Mike McGrath, host of You Bet Your Garden, nationally syndicated on Public Radio.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Why Am I Doing This instead of Enjoying My Summer?	p. 10
'Picking' Your Tomatoes	p. 14
(Do all of these things have funny, rude, or mysterious names?)
The Joy of Germination	p. 30
(Or, Killing Your Own Tomatoes from Seed)
The Art of Tomato Planting	p. 42
(You want me to bury them?)
Staking and Caging	p. 58
(And no, that's not staking or caging. It's staking and caging!)
Food, Water, and Basic Keeping-Alive Skills	p. 70
(Oops-you mean I shouldn't have watered them each and every day?)
Pest Control and…
(Am I the only creature around here not eating my tomatoes?)
Dealing with Disease	p. 84
(Can't we just take them to the hospital?)
The Harvest and Beyond	p. 96
(Aren't they supposed to stop being green at some point?)
(So this one here cost me about forty bucks, right?)
(Can the kids use the green ones to play Mr. Tomato Head?)
Cool-Stuff Sources	p. 104
Index	p. 108
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.