This book is an excellent concept and quite useful, but I have quiet doubts about some of its accuracy. While it is brimming with useful and interesting tips (not QUITE everything in this book is strictly to do with companion planting), several of the entries seem inconsistent with each other.

Also, the way it is arranged means it is not always the easiest to find exactly what you want. Entries are simply arranged alphabetically like an encyclopaedia under some keyword, and not always the one you think it might be under; for instance, a soap-spray for mildew is found under 'S'. I would instinctively have looked under 'M', for mildew.

The last section is a handy, succinct 'Good Companions, Bad Companions' guide, which covers a few dozen main crops and summarises what to and what not to grow them with. Again this is an easy, useful reference except for the fact that one or two entries flatly contradict each other.

Companion planting in general is a little-understood field that needs a great deal more research invested in it. Despite its shortcomings, this is an interesting, friendly guide that is probably as reliable a resource as any.