Book: Rocky Mountain Vegetable Gardening Guide

You don’t have to be one of the 30 million people who lost their jobs last spring to contemplate vegetable gardening as an alternate—even primary—food source. Whether you want to ease up on the food bank or simply experience the incredible taste difference between home-grown tomatoes and store-bought, grab a copy of Rocky Mountain Vegetable Gardening Guide (TwoDot Press, $25), written by Cheryl Moore Gough and Robert Gough, both former MSU teachers and Montana Master Gardener instructors. It’s easy to fail spectacularly in the mountain west, thanks to a short growing season, cool nights, pests, and lousy soil, so you need help. The Goughs tell how to get your soil in order, which species to start from seed, how to select high-quality baby plants (called “starts”) for those that don’t transplant well, the magic of fertilizers, when and where to dig your holes, when to harvest—everything except how to eat them. My guess is you’ve got that down by now.