Eliot Coleman Book Special
Get all 3 of Eliot Coleman books for this special price!
$64.00
Gardening When It Counts - Growing Food in Hard Times
By Steve Solomon
$18.00
A Mother Earth News Book for Wiser Living
New Society Publishers ©2005
Paperback - 360 pages, 6 x 9
The decline of cheap oil and the threat of harder times to come is
prompting people to grow more food themselves. But currently popular
intensive vegetable gardening methods depend on cheap oil, requiring
high inputs of water, fertility and organic matter. Prior to the
1970's, home food growing used more land because wider plant spacing
reduces the need for irrigation and requires lower levels of soil
fertility to be productive – and well spaced plants can be weeded
rapidly and conveniently with hand tools while standing upright. But
these efficient systems have been largely forgotten. Gardening When It
Counts helps readers rediscover these traditional low-input gardening
methods in their quest to produce healthy and affordable food.
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 square feet of garden land can halve their food costs in
most climates using just the odd bucketful of household waste water, a
few hand tools, and a few hundred dollars per year spent on supplies
and seeds – working just an average of two hours a day during peak
growing season. Helpfully illustrated, it covers a host of material
including:
• Vegetables Ranked by How Difficult They are to Grow
• Root Systems as the Key to Gardening Mastery
• Seeds, Spacing and Irrigation
• Home Made Organic Fertilizer that Really Works
• How to Choose, Use and Sharpen Hand Tools
• Compost Making, Root-Cellaring and Irrigation
• Chemical-Free Handling of Insects and Diseases
Designed for readers with no experience, yet an eye-opener for even
the seasoned gardener, Gardening When It Counts returns the backyard
food garden to center stage for uncertain times ahead (from the back
cover).
