Customer Reviews

The Gardener's A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have owned my copy of Rodale's classic, Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, for well over 30 years. It has been my garden bible.

But times change. Denckla has created a much handier growers' resource. In this book, she catalogues 765 varieties of vegetables, herbs, fruits and nuts and offers controls for 201 pests and diseases, but better than the numbers is the way she presents the information. For each species there is a clear, concise directory for every aspect of planting, culture and storage. It is really easy to use. The single best feature may be the planting charts for annuals that make it simple to calculate when to start the first and last seeds of the season, based on last and first frost dates. Rodale's classic will never be far away, but from now on I will pick up Denckla's first.

As an organic grower for nearly four decades and a garden columnist, I'm a pretty good judge of this genre (my own collection of garden writings came out in 2008, Garden My Heart: Organic strategies for backyard sustainability). The only place I take serious exception to Denckla's advice concerns moles, which she treats as a garden pest. Moles are garden allies, consuming vast quantities of beetle larvae and other members of the enemy camp.

I would have given this book 5 starts except that the section on pest control, which is very important to an organic gardener names the pests and suggests control solutions but shows you no pictures of the pests so if you don't know what the various insects (or for that matter diseases) look like, that's not helpful.

Otherwise the book is well organized and contains a lot of useful information, especially in regard to what plants are allys and incompatible

Actually, this book is very solid. My only issue with it at the moment is with the blueberry section. She informs the reader to inoculate the roots "with beneficial mycorrhizal fungi". Almost all of the mycorrhiza available to the consumer is endo or ecto mycorrhiza, which forms a symbiotic relationship with most plants' root systems. Though, blueberries, and all members of the Ericaceae family do not respond to those mycorrhiza and require a specific Ericoid mycorrhiza for proper root inoculation. I almost made a $50 internet purchase of the endomycorrhiza before reading (in small type) that it would not work on blueberries. And, the Ericoid mycorrhiza is a bit hard to locate right now since it has just recently become available to consumers.

Aside from slightly incomplete information on the blueberries, the book is very well laid out. She lists compatible and incompatible plants for each fruit or vegetable. There is also a decent section on natural pest control in which a field guide to insects may be beneficial if you are not familiar with the creatures.

For the price, it is definitely worth getting.

I bought this book to learn how to garden organically. Without pictures, I could not learn. That's the kind of learner I am and many people are. I have learned more from Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening on how to make compost, take care of pests organically, etc. much better. After I get these basics of gardening down, I may reach for this book in the future.

Tons of fabulous information in this book, but it unfortunately leaves out quite a few things that I am interested in growing... bananas, oranges, tangerines, avocadoes, mangoes, lemons, limes, and starfruit to name a few. It is, however, the best resource for herbs that I've seen so far.

This book is a marvel. I have given it to all of my gardening friends and regularly consult it for specifics on many vegetables. I highly recommend it!

Although the book could include more images and lacks information on some important vegetables/fruits, and apart from being centered in the North America soils and nature, the book is very very comprehensive and is tremendously well organized. It gives usually alternatives and good explanations without getting bored. Nicely written too. I also wish it could have had a more manageable format, but it as it is is also a pleasure to read.

I practically read the book cover to cover when I got it home. While my gardening capacity is fairly limited at the moment, I still got a good deal of planning done. Each food item has an large amount of information. It's great to have one resource for everything this book contains.

I like to use books to refresh my memory before I start my garden each year. I was looking for a go-to book that would have information about my veggies including germination temperatures, general times to start seeds, and any particular facts about the plants. This exceeded my expectations including companion plants to plant with them and also PH levels and much much much much more.

The book is easy to read and follow and I absolutely flat out love it. Even if you don't use it for organic gardening, it's a great book for general information about A-Z vegetables you want to grow in your garden.

Comprehensive list of all types of fruits and vegetables. I'm a beginner gardener and I thought it would have more details about growing from seed, transplanting etc but this section is fairly limited.