A very useful book for the home gardener. A quick guide for growing, harvesting and using herbs.

This is a relatively small book at about 150 pages, but it manages to pack in a lot of information very concisely. It's beautifully illustrated with color photographs and drawings.

The first 2/3 of the book includes general herb gardening background and use of herbs tips: how to choose plants, pick the location, general design principles, planting instructions (including some nice tips on extending the growing season), propagation, harvesting, drying, pests and diseases, etc.

It also includes suggestions for common culinary uses, such as salads, herbal vinegars, flavored oils, teas, jellies, honeys, and breads. These are not an extensive set of recipes, but more like master recipes with some suggestions for how you can mix them up with variations.

The book also includes suggestions and recipes for health and beauty products (again, not an extensive collection). This section includes potpourri, sachets, bouquets, dried arrangements and insect repellents.

The last 1/3 of the book has individual pages on about 50 different herbs. These individual pages tell you a description, how to grow, harvesting instructions, suggested uses, tips, cultivars, and also includes a quick key on the level of care required (using a 4 glove rating system), if it attracts beneficial insects, whether or not it is ornamental, whether or not it can be grown in a container, how much yield you can expect to get and how easy it is to grow.

The back of the book contains a few pages of resources for laboratories, vendors, herb associations and other books or literary resources.

There are lots of charts and sidebars and overall I found this book to be very useful and easy to access. It doesn't have the level of information needed to make this anything other than a quick reference book though.

I adore this book! Wow! It has all the things I wanted!
- it's organic
- it very thorougly covers many herbs in different formats, so you know everything from what bugs they attract or repel, how tall they grow, and what zone they can be grown in
- common uses for them: I discovered many herbs I thought were inedible plants that are indeed herbs
- easy to use tables

I wasn't too hip on all the cosmetic and craft uses - I'd rather eat them, but they're short and may come in handy. I know the rest of the book sure will!

Great resource book. Covers all of the basics in clear, simple instructions.

I really like this book. It is very easy to follow and has a little bit of everything you need to know packed into the book. I bought it for the outside herb garden design, but I changed my mind. I am trying a kitchen garden, growing the herbs inside in containers. If you are new to herb gardening, this is the perfect book. And in my opinion, it is the only book you will need. I want to use the fragrant herbs for sachet crafts and dry some herbs for cooking. These will be terrific gifts for my DIL because she buys and uses a lot of herbs for cooking and will never have the time to grown them. You will never put this book away. There are so many possibilities of what to do with herbs.

My first herb book for my new herb garden this here. Has been very helpful identifying annuals v. perennials, ease of cultivation, how to mix plants and uses for different herbs.
I would recommend to beginning herbalists.

I'm a newbie at an herb garden, altho I've dabbled in a few like parsley, tyme, and chives in the past. But this book is the best one I've ever bought and has encouraged me to DO SOMETHING with what I grow in my summer garden. I have now doubled my herbs and will add more next year to add to my gifts, crafts, and cooking thru the winter from my garden. I have already saved by freezing & drying my own and this book showed me how EASY it is to do. So if you're just starting your own herb garden or you want to expand on what you have and do more with what you harvest, this is deffinantly the book you should have out for reference and a guideline.

Here is what one needs to grow herbs -- soil conditioning, pests, fertilizing, watering -- all of them done organically.

What I find really attractive is a chart on each of the fifty herbs discussed showing its Attention Required, Freindly to bugs, Ornamental quality, Container Growing, Yield, Easy to Grow.

There is also great section on propogation, using in cooking and beauty, dried arrangements, etc.

Done in color with great drawings, this is informative book, each page is loaded with info.

I really enjoy this book! I am new to gardening and really wanted a book to guide me in growing herbs and this is a great start. It has a great deal of information on growing herbs and their uses. There are other books that have more specific information on each and also has a larger selection of herbs, but this is good for a beginner. Not to mention that it is visually appealing and well laid out.

This book is so easy to read for a beginner gardner! I love that there are details on all the requirements that each herb needs to grow (soil, light, fertilizer, pests). Also, there is a little bit of everything, recipe's, crafts. Just enough to get started. I would recommend that this book be taken with a person when they go to buy their plants to use as a reference. I feel Miranda Smith did an excellent job in making an easy to follow guide. This book will be used while at the garden store, and in the yard while planting. It will not sit on your shelf!

This book enabled me to set up a thriving herb garden on the balcony of my apartment. It offers recipes for herbal breads and teas, instructions for making potpourri and drying herbs, and detailed but not complicated advice on setting up an herb garden, as well as detailed breakdowns on the care and usage of more than 50 herbs. Although a complete plant novice who has ritualistically sacrificed almost every houseplant I've ever owned, I visited the garden department of a hardware store with this book under my arm and got myself started. The ratings that Smith gives each herb are especially helpful--ease of care, herb yield, attention required, and ability to grow in containers. I highly recommend this book to get you started!

A good book for (mainly) culinary herbs and how to recognize them, but thin on information about medicinal use, and lacking in too many delicious plants that really ought to be mentioned. Great starter book for someone getting into growing their own herb garden though. I thoroughly enjoy it.

I wish I'd had this book years ago when I first started growing herbs. It would have saved me lots of 'trial and error' experimenting with my herb garden. This informative, thorough guide is good reading for the beginner as well as the expert herb gardener. There are lists of which herbs love shade and which love full sun; lists of what kind of soil each herb prefers; lists of fragrant herbs and culinary herbs. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to start an herb garden or learn more about growing and using herbs, earth's magical gifts to us!

I've always been interested in herbs but I have very little gardening experience. This book will walk you though all the steps you need to take in order to grow your own herbs. I purchased this book along with another which I've never even opened because this book is so good. Talk about user friendly, the charts are simple and the photos are inspiring. You'll find information on planting, preparing, growing and caring for herbs. Also there's a whole section on enjoying your herbs with crafts and cooking. The section I've found most useful is the herb directory. This is the only book you need to get started.

I LOVE this book. We live in a condo and have no yard space at all. This book helped me set up containers on my decks filled with wonderful fresh herbs. It's such a great experience to know that I CAN grow them myself instead of having to rely on "store bought" jars. I just bought another copy as a house warming gift for a friend. It's easy to understand and takes you step by step through the entire growing, planting & harvesting. It tells you about pests too. Great book!!!