I want to give a special thanks to my maternal grandfather, Luciano P. Nantista. We lived with him during my formative years and I became his assistant around the yard where he personally introduced me to the ins and outs of backyard gardening. This primer is of course updated with recent findings and techniques but it was my grandfather that instilled in me the endless enthusiasm for working in the home vegetable garden.

I also want to thank my good friend Philip for his encouragement when listening to my explanation of the original specifications for the HyperCard stack of Gardener's Friend version 1.0. I was on break from MacWorld in San Francisco, January, 1989 and emotionally pumped up about what could be done..