The Organic Gardener's Home Reference : A Plant-By-Plant Guide to Growing Fresh, Healthy Food

Secrets to Great Soil : A Grower's Guide to Composting, Mulching, and Creating Healthy, Fertile Soil for Your Garden and Lawn

Four-Season Harvest : How to Harvest Fresh Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long

Shows home gardeners how to grow and harvest up to forty different vegetables in season all year round by using cold frames, mobile greenhouses, high-quality compost, and other simple and inexpensive tools and techniques.

Synopsis
Organic Grower, Coleman now speaks to the home gardener and shows how to eliminate the confines of the growing season. The Four-Season Harvest provides a simple and elegant way for gardeners in any climate to grow vegetables year-round using inexpensive techniques. 100 illustrations.

Synopsis
The new organic grower is back! Having established himself as the expert on organic growing techniques with his first book, The New Organic Grower, Coleman now speaks to the home gardener and shows how to eliminate the confines of the growing season. The Four-Season Harvest provides a simple and elegant way for gardeners in any climate to grow vegetables year-round using inexpensive techniques. 100 illustrations.

Becky Michelsen (childrensgarden@hotmail.com) from Petoskey, MI, USA , August 1, 1998 -- A unique resource This book is the only one of it's kind I have found. Not only does it have step-by-step instructions and tables on when and how to plant and harvest, it also has plans for building your own cold frames and a portable greenhouse (hoop house). Many books on the same subject focus on artificially heating a greenhouse to grow warm-weather vegetables. This one does not! The focus is instead on how to use what is naturally cold tolerant, and how to keep your plants harvestable throughout the winter.

JANGAUCK@AOL.com from Pennington, NJ , November 22, 1997 wonderful tips and instructions on raising food organically This book is full of wonderful tips and instructions on raising fruits and vegatables organically and how to best improve the soil. I use this book so much as a reference in the garden that it is covered with soil and the pages are wrinkled from rain so I am ordering a new copy.

The New Organic Grower : A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener

Reviews
Booknews, Inc. , May 1, 1996 -- This expansion of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables, with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock, the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other topics. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews, Inc. , March 1, 1996 -- This expansion of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables, with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock, the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other topics. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Booknews, Inc. , October 1, 1990 -- Coleman presents the production techniques that have placed him at the forefront of biological agriculturists and gardeners. For home and market gardeners. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Midwest Book Review -- Revised and expanded is a new edition of a classic gardening guide. Here master grower Coleman presents a simple, effective formula for growing quality organic vegetables, updating details on marketing harvests and using small-scale equipment.

Customer Comments
Average Customer Review: Number of Reviews: 1
devault@fast.net from Emmaus, PA (won't be in Moscow until next week) , November 3, 1998
Eliot Coleman Outdoes himself! The New Organic Grower and Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest are two of the absolute best books ever written on the sunject of cold-climate market gardening. For the latest on Coleman's ingenious techniques, check out his newest publication: "The Winter Harvest Manual." The sub title is "Farming the back side of the calendar." He is doing commercial greenhouse production of fresh vegetables -- throughout the Maine winter -- without supplemental heat! This is MUST reading!

Solar Gardening : Growing Vegetables Year-Round the American Intensive Way (The Real Goods Independent Living Books)

Reviews - From Booklist , September 1, 1994 -- "American intensive" gardening is what the authors call a continuous food-producing system that provides an ideal growing environment for the entire plant. By creating and maintaining a deep, well-balanced, fertile soil, the system optimizes growing conditions below the ground. By using heat-assisting devices to create beneficial microclimates for seedlings and mature plants, it ensures optimum growing conditions above the ground. The authors have designed solar devices--insulated pods, cones, and pod extenders--to ensure fresh harvests even in winter. These solar structures capture and retain the sun's heat in winter and diffuse strong sunlight and protect tender plants in summer. The book gives step-by-step instructions on building the solar devices and offers a month-by-month gardening guide for the three main North American growing zones--northern, moderate, and southern. There is advice on garden sites and soil, harvesting, storage, and seed-savings, as well as growing tips on 90 vegetables divided into heat-loving, cool-hardy, and cold-tolerant. George Cohen -- Copyright© 1994, American Library Association. All rights reserved

How to Grow More Vegetables : Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops

Reviews Amazon.com -- Now in its fifth edition and printed in seven different languages, Jeavon's book is considered a classic in the field (literally) and has brought about a kind of green revolution in food production around the world. This book is based on Alan Chadwick's biointensive gardening techniques. It will show you how to raise enough fresh, healthy, organic vegetables for a family of four on a parcel of land as small as 800 square feet! Nothing could be more fundamental to the needs of an increasingly crowded world than food. Jeavons and the group he heads, Ecology Action, are making a quiet but earth-shaking revolution in how people raise nutritious food.

If you have a small, flat rooftop, access to a bit of open space between your house and your neighbor's, or any small patch of land, here's the ultimate how-to manual for making the most of it to raise your own food, including ways to enhance soil fertility and productivity, non-chemical pest controls, where and when to plant what in your climate or location, the tools you'll need, and the problem-solving skills essential to success. This "ground-breaking" book is used by gardeners around the globe and is as hopeful, inspiring, and motivating a gardening book as has ever been written. --Mark Hetts

Customer Comments -- Average Customer Review: Number of Reviews: 4 -- Jim Coombs (zog@ime.net) from Maine, USA , July 14, 1998
A book that unlocks knowledge long needed in today's society This book is not just about growing more vegetables in the vein of "Throw some more ferterlizer on in the garden!" This book is about a way of life, a philosophy. It gives one a whole systems view of healthy, living soil creation and plant growing. When one reads, absorbs and applies the material, it becomes almost a religious experience.

A reader from Long Beach, CA , May 13, 1998 -- The best book for starting a vegetable garden. Like a bible. If you're starting a garden from scratch or know nothing about gardening, this book is a great way to begin. If you're an accomplished gardener and want to learn more about composting, companion planting, and improving sustainability of your garden, this is a wonderful book. I use it and read it over and over again. It's a wealth of information. The bibliography alone is worth the price of the book.

Gregory Leiber (gleiber@pobox.com) from Oregon, USA , May 6, 1998 -- Best Introduction To Biodynamic/French Intensive Gardening I learned organic gardening principles by reading the first edition of this book back in the mid '70s while I was living in Santa Cruz, California.

I have been practicing the techniques outlined in the book for over twenty years now and all I can say is that it really works. I'm on my fourth garden started from scratch using BioIntensive techniques: 2,500 square feet with 18 double-dug raised beds. The soil at the beginning was covered with low weeds and was heavy clay with a lot of small and medium-size rocks.

That was seven years ago...Now the soil is a rich loam with plenty of organic matter and crawling with the biggest worms you ever saw! (We have before-and-after pictures that say it all...). We use a "U-Bar" most of the time to dig the beds; it's not much slower than a rototiller and we can still "double-dig" a bed with a spade and fork if we want to. Pest problems are minimal, the yields are substantial and the produce is the tastiest I've ever had.

In 1981 I began teaching workshops on the method and I have seen similar results among the students who adopted these techniques in their own gardens. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who wishes to get started in organic gardening and is looking for a book that brings together the basic concepts and techniques in one volume.

Backyard Guide to Sustainable Agriculture

The Backyard Homestead : Mini Farm and Garden Log Book

A reader from Priest River, ID , August 21, 1998 -- Excellent log book and reference guide for food gardeners. This book explains biointensive gardening, which would be enough to recommend it. But, it also provides abundant planning charts for your own situation, including garden space and layout, length of growing season, frost dates, and desired crops. You can keep records of cultivars chosen and how they did (over several seasons), fertilizers used and the results, planting dates and methods. There's a whole year planning calendar with log pages in the back, a schedule for planting based on YOUR frost dates, and log pages for each type of veg. or other crop. Also included are recommendations for an herbal lawn, fruit trees, and small livestock, reference data for many different crops, and tons more. Publishing date is 1983, but it's not one bit outdated. Get this book!

Permaculture : A Designers' Manual

Introduction to Permaculture

Square Foot Gardening : A New Way to Garden in Less Space With Less Work

Reviews -- Synopsis -- Square Foot Gardening presents a new way to garden in less space with less work. The book has been overwhelmingly accepted by gardeners across America. Bartholomew also hosts the popular PBS series of the same name. 37 photos. 63 illustrations and charts.

The author, Mel Bartholomew c/o The Flyer Factory - caflyer@townsquare.net , May 18, 1998
Many Thanks -- Hi, this is Mel Bartholomew. Thank you so much for all your great comments, I really appreciate them.

If you saw my T.V. show back when it was on PBS and the Discovery Channel and then the Learning Channel, you'll know that Square Foot Gardening can reduce all the work, space, and expense of an old fashioned garden by 80%. Since it's so simple and easy to understand it's especally good for beginners and non-experts. Why even kids can learn it in a few hours.

So, good luck and happy gardening to all of you. Keep the comments coming and let me know what you'd like in the next Square Foot Gardening book.

Best Wishes,
Mel Bartholomew

Carrots Love Tomatoes : Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening

Amazon.com -- This gardening classic was first published in 1975, and now a second generation of gardeners who prefer pest-resistant planning to chemicals will find a place for it on the shelves. Not only does it tell what to plant with what, but also how to use herbal sprays to control insects, what wild plants to encourage in the garden, how to grow fruit and nut trees, how to start small plots or window-box gardens, and much more. It's one of the most practical books around for any gardener of edibles, no matter how serious or casual.

Synopsis -- Sprinkled with her trademark quotations, anecdotes and detailed line drawings, Louise Riotte lists hundreds of plants and their ideal (and not so ideal) companions. Readers can easily locate the plants they intend to grow and design a garden for maximum compatibility and yield. Illustrations throughout.

Seed to Seed

This is, by far, the best book on seed saving available. A complete guide for 160 vegetable crops, with detailed information on each: botanical classification, flower structure and pollination methods, isolation requirements to obtain true-to-type seed, caging and hand-pollination techniques, and proper methods for harvesting, drying, cleaning and storing.

How do you ferment melon seeds? How long do squash seeds need to remain in the squash after harvesting to finish maturing? How far apart should corn be planted to avoid cross-pollination? Answers to these questions and hundreds of other tips are included. Invaluable for both beginning and experienced seed savers. Highly recommended. Softcover, 222 pp.

Root cellaring is a simple, energy-saving way to keep food fresh all year. This book explains building and using different types of root cellars and which vegetables and fruits store best. Includes specific storage requirements for nearly 100 home garden crops, plus dozens of delicious recipes.

The Wheatgrass Book

A reader from Los Angeles , July 23, 1998 -- This book will change your life Ann Wigmore gives a thorough analysis of the incredible powers of wheatgrass and how it can improve your health. I must say this book changed my life: wheatgrass juice will improve your health, boost immunity, aid in weight loss, and more. I even feed it to my parrots, and they are ten times healthier now--I haven't lost a single baby bird since I started feeding the parents wheatgrass. This inexpensive of book will save you oodles of money--far fewer medical bills!

A reader from oregon , September 19, 1997 -- The wheatgrass Book by Ann Wigmore is Worth the investment! The book is easy to read, gives explanations of how to juice the wheatgrass, as well as how often to take it. How to fast on grass juice is also covered. I recommend it to people who want to learn how to live a long healthy life and not rely on Medicare and the government for health care.

Sprouts : The Miracle Food!

In this first fully illustrated practical guide for the lay audience, the reader is instructed step-by-step in how to make and administer ointments, salves, and other effective treatments for a wide range of complaints and disorders, from coughs, headaches, and digestive problems to spiritual unease and stress. 600 full-color illustrtions.