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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 635 EAN: 9780865715530 ISBN: 086571553X Label: New Society Publishers Manufacturer: New Society Publishers Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 360 Publication Date: April 01, 2006 Publisher: New Society Publishers Studio: New Society Publishers Sales Rank: 1927
The decline of cheap oil is inspiring increasing numbers of North Americans to achieve some measure of backyard food self-sufficiency. In hard times, the family can be greatly helped by growing a highly productive food garden, requiring little cash outlay or watering.
Currently popular intensive vegetable gardening methods are largely inappropriate to this new circumstance. Crowded raised beds require high inputs of water, fertility and organic matter, and demand large amounts of human time and effort. But, except for labor, these inputs depend on the price of oil. Prior to the 1970s, North American home food growing used more land with less labor, with wider plant spacing, with less or no irrigation, and all done with sharp hand tools. But these sustainable systems have been largely forgotten. Gardening When It Counts helps readers rediscover traditional low-input gardening methods to produce healthy food.
Designed for readers with no experience and applicable to most areas in the English-speaking world except the tropics and hot deserts, this book shows that any family with access to 3-5,000 sq. ft. of garden land can halve their food costs using a growing system requiring just the odd bucketful of household waste water, perhaps two hundred dollars worth of hand tools, and about the same amount spent on supplies - working an average of two hours a day during the growing season.
Steve Solomon is a well-known west coast gardener and author of five previous books, including Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades which has appeared in five editions.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Detailed, Valuable Advice
Gardening When It Counts is truly a book for our times. There's already a well-deserved buzz about this book among home gardeners I know. For one thing, it firmly refutes the supposed advantages of mulch ... Read More
Rating: - Fascinating crankiness
This is a serious manual for subsistence gardeners. Steve Solomon differentiates himself from "everybody else" and the result is a no nonsense guide delineating the right way to get maximum yield from a piece ... Read More
Rating: - Self obsessed author who talks down to his readers
I would give this book zero stars if I could. I am so surprised this book has such high ratings. First, the author can not stop himself from talking down to his readers, and making himself appear as he is the ... Read More
Rating: - The only gardening book you need
I've read so many gardening books, but this is the only one you really need. It is full of useful information you'll never see anywhere else. However, much of the important information is buried in the narrative ... Read More
Rating: - Good Info.
Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)Good information. Easy to read. Glad I purchased this book
- Detailed, Valuable Advice
- Fascinating crankiness
- Self obsessed author who talks down to his readers