Golden Gate Gardening: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area & Coastal California

About me: I bought Golden Gate Gardening before starting my first backyard vegetable garden two years ago. Everything was new to me. Soil, weeds, water, sun. About the book: [fawning alert] Ms. Peirce has no agenda, other than to give clear, useful, concise information. Her introduction let me know she has a soul. Her information let me know she is an expert. And her information is useful. It appears that Ms. Peirce puts herself into the place of the gardener, answering questions which might reasonably arise. And the information is organized in an accessible manner. The calendar processes are essential, and I refer to them often, and can tell you without looking that the transplanting guide is on page 53. I use it that often. I go to the section on vegetables three or four times a week. Following her guidelines, I had a very successful first year in the garden, raising 30 varieties of vegetables - from arugula to zucchini.

It includes useful details that I haven't found anywhere else, even in specialty Web sites and books -- about how to cope with deer and blackberries, for instance, both of which most of us love, but we hate their interference with our gardens. Get it!

I love this book. I have never read it all the way through, but rather I look up things that I am interested in. The seed company (and variety) recommendations are likely out of date. I really appreciate Peirce's reports about her experiences with different plants.

This is a good book both for the avid gardener as well as the beginner. I've given this book as gifts to many people throughout the SF Bay area and everyone has loved this book!It is particularly a good gift if they grow vegetables and have had limited success in some aspects of gardening such as trying to grow tomotoes the coastal areas of the Bay Area. This book has growing charts of when to plant and harvest, best varieties for the bay area, and covers points to explain the many microclimates even within the same city.A great book with lots of pointers. Note that this is not a book to compete with Sunset's Western Garden Book but rather to supplement it. This book doesn't have the details with regard to horticultural specifics.