Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #736064 in Books
• Published on: 1996-06-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This engaging account will strike a responsive chord in gardeners. Shepherd, a freelance writer, grows his tomatoes in a raised bed in the front yard of his San Diego home. His year begins with the arrival of seed catalogues in December; he plants the seeds in March, nurtures the seedlings until planting-out time in April. Shepherd then waits expectantly for the harvest, battling caterpillars and blossom-end rot. He compares his plants with those of his neighbors and relatives (some friendly competition here) with whom he exchanges advice on tomato culture. But Shepherd goes beyond just growing tomatoes?he warmly embraces family, friends and neighborhood for a thoroughly satisfying story.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Even if one shares Shepherd's love of tomatoes and of gardening, it seems astonishing that someone can keep a diary for a year and get it published. Admittedly, Shepherd's family life is admirable, his San Diego neighbors interesting, and his writing graceful and felicitous. He adds flavor with a visit to the Guernsey Tomato Museum and drama with a saxophone career-threatening injury to his son's finger. There's a little weather, a little soccer, a little tomato history, odd facts about this and that. Overall, however, the book recalls a personal garden column in a small-town newspaper. For comprehensive tomato collections.?Carol Cubberly, Univ. of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The topic may be somewhat prosaic, but the content of Shepherd's year-long journal is enchanting, warm, and thoughtful. His account portrays one man's life as it is touched by family, friends, and a colorful cast of neighbors in a San Diego community. Vegetable gardeners in particular should delight in endless musings on aspects of growing numerous tomato varieties; and any literate reader can savor getting acquainted with Shepherd through his lively diary. On a practical level, gardeners who haphazardly plant tomatoes anticipating a bumper crop will find practical horticultural tips peppering the narrative. Aficionados (who already know the joy of gardening efforts paying off in fine yields of this succulent fruit of summer sunshine) will find unequaled kinship, because Shepherd is a soulmate immersed in tomato-related trivia. Alice Joyce