Why the Midwest Needs Its Own Book
From the Upper Midwest down through the Corn Belt and the Ohio Valley, the summer is warm and reliable but bounded by real cold at both ends. That rewards good timing: starting warm-season crops indoors, planting out after the last frost, and choosing varieties that finish before fall closes in.
The advantage is the dirt. Deep prairie loam is the envy of gardeners everywhere, and worked well it grows spectacular vegetables. The Great Lakes add their own trick, moderating the shoreline into a fruit belt that grows cherries, apples and grapes. The book plays to those strengths.
Planting Season Midwest fixes that. It calibrates to the region, gives the local shifts throughout, and works with your ground and your weather instead of against them.
What You Get Inside
The Full Chapter List
Seventeen main chapters plus a nine-part plant library. Every chapter is written for the Midwest. Every chapter assumes you want to eat what you grow.
The Plant Library (parts 1 through 9)
- Part 1: Leafy greens and brassicas, with the cool-season windows that suit Midwest
- Part 2: Fruiting vegetables, with sweet corn, tomatoes and the classic vegetable patch and the timing that works here
- Part 3: Root vegetables, with soil and season notes for the region
- Part 4: Heat-lovers and warm-season survivors
- Part 5: Legumes, beans and peas through the local seasons
- Part 6: Herbs, the ones that thrive and the ones to baby
- Part 7: Fruit trees, vines and perennials suited to Midwest
- Part 8: Regional and native edibles worth a place in the garden
- Part 9: Companion plants and flowers
Each plant entry includes Midwest sowing windows by season, spacing, sun, water needs, companions, common pests, common diseases, a kitchen-use note, and a realistic local tip.
A Sample from the Book
The Midwest gardener is handed a short season and some of the finest soil on earth, and the job is to make the trade pay. From the last frost in May to the first in fall is not long, but drop a seed into that black prairie loam and stand back.
Along the Great Lakes the water bends the rules, holding off the frost and warming the fall just enough to ripen cherries and grapes. It is why a fruit belt runs where the map says it should be too cold.
Who It's For
You just moved in, the yard is bare, and you want food growing next season. The book walks you through your first year, step by step.
You followed generic advice and lost crops to the wrong timing. This book tells you why, and gives you the calendar built for the Midwest.
You gardened somewhere else and moved. the Midwest keeps a different schedule. The book recalibrates your timing to local reality.
You rent, or you are short on space. The small-spaces chapter is built for patios, balconies and raised beds.
You want real food, lower grocery bills, and a yard that feeds the household year-round. The book is the 12-month plan for that.
You know your way around a garden. The plant library and the the Midwest-tuned calendar are the reference you keep on the bench.
Pair the book with the free Planting Season app
The book is the full reference; the free app is the day-to-day. the Midwest is covered month by month, with reminders tuned to your region and a mobile plant library you can search from the garden.
Open the Planting Season app →Why This Book, Not Another
Planting Season Midwest is written for the Midwest and nothing else. If a paragraph could apply unchanged to another part of the country, it does not belong in this book. The voice is plain and direct, the neighbor over the fence, not a textbook.
It is built to last: a genuine reference you come back to every season for years, paired with the free app for the day-to-day.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which states does the Midwest book cover?
The Great Lakes and Corn Belt broadly, from the Upper Midwest through the Corn Belt and Ohio Valley, with the calendar flagging the colder north and the lake-moderated shoreline.
How does it handle the short season?
With indoor starts, careful last-frost timing, quick-finishing varieties and fall season extension, so warm-season crops ripen before the cold returns.
What is the Great Lakes fruit belt part about?
The lakes moderate the shoreline climate enough to grow cherries, apples and grapes where the latitude alone would be too cold. The book covers gardening in that fruit belt specifically.
Does it work with the Planting Season app?
Yes. The app covers the Midwest month by month for free, and the book is the full reference to pair with it.
Grow food every month of the year in the Midwest.
Planting Season Midwest is coming soon to Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Be first to know.
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Gardening in another region? Browse the whole series →