Customer Reviews

The Backyard Berry Book: A Hands-On Guide to Growing Berries, Brambles, and Vine Fruit in the Home Garden

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While I occasionally found the lack of something I felt to be important (like what HEIGHT should my blackberry trellis be?!) I found this to be, overall, and invaluable resource in understanding exactly what the differences were in berries, pitfalls of growing (and harvesting), pruning, diseases, caveats and just setting the growers expectations (so you're neither disappointed or overwhelmed by your results). I haven't found another book that covers the subject so well on such a variety of berries (including grapes, lingonberries and currants). It's written in a way that takes the ABSOLUTE NOVICE into a really good understanding--well above the norm. While it left a handful of details for you to seek out (and truly, not many and not hard to find) I would buy it again and again. It has made a difference in my garden.

Stella Otto uses plain language and ample illustrations to cover the basics of growing small fruit. Her book contains separate chapters for strawberries, blueberries, brambles, grapes, kiwis, gooseberries, currants, lingonberries and even rhubarb in the backyard garden. The coverage of varieties of each fruit and varietal differences is good, which is why each fruit requires a chapter.

First the fundamentals of growing small fruit are surveyed, including site selection, stock selection, methods of propagation, berry botany, soil nutrition, pH, irrigation, and other cultural practices. Then pest control is discussed including organic versus non-organic controls and Integrated Pest Management techniques that reduce the need for chemical controls. Lastly there are charts, resource lists, and trouble-shooting guides provided in the reference section of this book.

Well worth consulting before planning your berry patch!

This book offers rather generic information on growing a variety of fruits, most of which will be old lore to experienced gardeners. While it would be difficult to be comprehensive with regard to varieties of given fruits, more attention could have been given to them. Also, more specific information on individual fruits and varieties would have been welcome, particularly with regard to site preparation and pruning. The illustrations are poorly drawn and thus not particularly useful.

This book provides both basic and detailed knowledge needed to start berries growing in your own yard. Although, I found this book extremely useful, I would not have it as the only berry growing reference in my library.

Extremely helpful! Just moved to a new home and wanted to start my plants off right. This book helped me not only in the selection of my plants, but where on my property it is best to plant them, and how to properly plant them. I also learned the correct ways of pruning and fertilizing each plant. I have found this book to be an invaluable tool to a begining backyard gardener.

Someone highly recommended this book to me but I'm really not that impressed. It's got good basic information but some of the info such as on bramble primocanes is confusing and took further research to understand. Stella recommends 3-4 feet between rows of strawberries. Why? Who knows. Maybe she's including a path between rows. I don't know but 3-4 feet between rows of strawberries adds a whole lot of ground to be taken care of and it's absolutely not necessary (unless you're adding 18"-24" for a path)Organization of the book is not very good either. Even though there is a chapter on raspberries, the spacing for raspberries was not found there. It is in the chapter on brambles.

I found the information very limited in both her books. Taylor's guide is a much better berry and fruit tree book. The rhubarb section was interesting since I don't have a lot of information on rhubarb. The hand drawn diagrams leave much to be desired. My 12 yr old cousin could of drawn better pictures. The list of varieties is also limited and gear more to the United States. However, I did encounter a few helpful hints.

This book is somewhat general, but is a very nice text. Supplement it with information from your state's cooperative extension service (a free service for all) - including cooperative extension service publication which are free to download...

I am coming back to Amazon to buy a second copy as I have misplaced my copy of this book.
I found it a very helpful book for beginning a fruit garden, with good organization, helpful general chapters on different families of fruits and then specific chapters on individual fruits.

This is a great book that I refer to whenever I have a berry question such as planting or feeding or pruning. A lot of useful information in here. Stella knows her stuff!