Here are some great books that can help you make your first vegetable garden and take good care of it-

Starter Vegetable Gardens: 24 No-Fail Plans for Small Organic Gardens

Home vegetable gardening is all the rage. Millions of Americans have picked up spade and hoe and are digging into the soil for the first time. But starting a garden isn’t always simple. Many hopeful growers find themselves confused by the dizzying array of things to know about soil quality, garden layout, seeds, temperatures, planting schedules, fertilizer, pests, watering, and harvesting. Still other first-time gardeners plant too much, only to find themselves overwhelmed and exhausted by July.

Barbara Pleasant is here to help. In Starter Vegetable Gardens, Pleasant a master gardener and award-winning gardening writer takes the guesswork out of growing food, explaining in simple, straightforward language how to start, maintain, and expand a bountiful vegetable garden in small, manageable spaces.

Pleasant presents 24 no-fail, small-scale garden plans from a simple bag garden (planted right in soil bags!) to an orderly border and from a family food factory to specialty beds for salads, Cajun flavors, and Italian cuisine. For each plan she provides plant and material lists, a plot layout, four-color photographs, and tips for succession planting to keep the garden productive all season long. Her all-organic approach ensures that the harvest is not simply tasty but also chemical-free.

Pleasant anticipates and answers novice gardeners myriad questions, guiding readers through the complexities of assessing site and soil, understanding the climate, choosing the very best vegetable varieties, starting seeds, identifying insect friends and foes, watering, fertilizing, mulching, and harvesting.

The books layout is friendly and accessible, filled with detailed images that bring the concepts to life. Both instructive and inspiring, Starter Vegetable Gardens is an essential one-stop resource for anyone just beginning to cultivate a vegetable-gardening green thumb.

The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible

The invaluable resource for home food gardeners! Ed Smith’s W-O-R-D system has helped countless gardeners grow an abundance of vegetables and herbs. And those tomatoes and zucchini and basil and cucumbers have nourished countless families, neighbors, and friends with delicious, fresh produce. The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible is essential reading for locavores in every corner of North America!

Everything you loved about the first edition of The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible is still here: friendly, accessible language; full-color photography; comprehensive vegetable specific information in the A-to-Z section; ahead-of-its-time commitment to organic methods; and much more.

Now, Ed Smith is back with a 10th Anniversary Edition for the next generation of vegetable gardeners. New to this edition is coverage of 15 additional vegetables, including an expanded section on salad greens and more European and Asian vegetables. Readers will also find growing information on more fruits and herbs, new cultivar photographs in many vegetable entries, and a much-requested section on extending the season into the winter months. No matter how cold the climate, growers can bring herbs indoors and keep hardy greens alive in cold frames or hoop houses.
The impulse to grow vegetables is even stronger in 2009 than it was in 2000, when Storey published The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible. The financial and environmental costs of fossil fuels raise urgent questions: How far should we be shipping food? What are the health costs of petroleum-based pesticides and herbicides? Do we have to rely on megafarms that use gasoline-powered machinery to grow and harvest crops? With every difficult question, more people think, “Maybe I should grow a few vegetables of my own.” This book will continue to answer all their vegetable gardening questions.

Grow Vegetables: Gardens – Yards – Balconies – Roof Terraces

Home-grown vegetables are fresh, healthy, and inexpensive. Here is the manual for growing your own, whether on your balcony, in your apartment, or in a garden, large or small. Even if you have only a few hours a week, Grow Vegetables teaches you the tools and methods you need to produce your own vegetables.

Vegetable Gardening for Dummies

A hands-on guide to the ins and outs of raising and using vegetables
Want to grow your own vegetables? You can do it the fun and easy way with this practical guide. From selecting the right spot to preparing the soil to harvesting, Vegetable Gardening For Dummies, 2nd Edition shows you how to successfully raise vegetables regardless of the size of your plot or your dietary needs.

You’ll discover how to plot your garden and get the soil in tip-top shape; select the types of vegetables you want to grow; plant the seeds properly; and care for them as they grow. You’ll also know the right time to pick your vegetables and the best ways to enjoy them. Plus, you’ll get tips on preserving foods grown at home.