How to Grow Vegetables Organically

""A disease will not attack a variety which has been specially bred to be resistant to that disease,'' Cox et al. advise early ona sentence indicative of the mediocre writing and gratuitous comments that undermine this book. The information on garden planning, soil preparation, planting and care is densely written and does not have a strong enough ``organic'' focus to be substantially different from other vegetable garden tomes. The comprehensive ``encyclopedia of vegetables'' that follows is a fairly helpful alphabetical compendium on everything from artichokes (``while heat doesn't affect the health of the plant, it can ruin the eating quality of the buds'') to watermelons (``Melons in plots mulched with black plastic grow much more vigorously''). But some material is repetitious, and the section is preceded by poorly designed charts on common diseases, container gardening and other topics. Cox is an editor of Rodale's Organic Gardening magazine and coauthor of Flowers for All Seasons (see below). Illustrations not seen by PW. (February)