The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals [Paperback]

Barbara W. Ellis (Editor), Fern Marshall Bradley (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 1996

End your worries about garden problems with safe, effective solutions from The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control!

* Easy-to-use problem-solving encyclopedia covers more than 200 vegetables, fruits, herbs, flowers, trees, and shrubs
* Complete directions on how, when, and where to use preventive methods, insect traps and barriers, biocontrols, homemade remedies, botanical insecticides, and more
* More than 350 color photos for quick identification of insect pests, beneficial insects, and plant diseases

Newly revised with the latest, safest organic controls.

A New York Times Best Gardening Book

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

An excellent handbook with entries for common fruits, flowering plants, vegetables, and trees. Each listing has information on disease and pest problems and tips on how to solve them without chemicals. Especially useful sections feature photos of garden insects and diseases. (LJ 6/1/92)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"This book is our most helpful resource on pest control. It's the first book we turn to for solutions."--Terry Gips, President, International Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture

"Every year, we review hundreds of books on how to manage soils and pests organically and how to reduce the use of toxic materials. We're excited at the quality and completeness of The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control and recommend it to our clients."--Bill Wolf, President, Necessary Trading Company, New Castle, Virginia

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books; Revised edition (May 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875967531
• ISBN-13: 978-0875967530
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #103,043 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

250 of 254 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get Rid of Diseases and Insects Safely, October 12, 2000

By 

Rebecca Green - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals (Paperback)

Bravo! Finally a book that not only tells gardeners how to avoid getting diseases and undesirable insects in their gardens, but how to get rid of them safely.

Many books addressing insect and disease control problems would have you believing gardening is chemical warfare! Following their advice, I acquired an arsenal of chemicals in my garage that would kill virtually any creepy crawly thing that dared slither into my garden.

What these books failed to tell me is the more you use these chemicals the more you need to use them. In a sense, your garden becomes addicted to them, as they kill all or most of the natural organisms in the environment that help your plants combat natural occurring bacteria, viruses and insects. Eventually your plants' only defense to such pathogens is your habitual spraying.As The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control explains, if left to its' own devices, nature will frequently correct the imbalances that caused the disease or insect problem long before any serious damage is done. This book clearly explains how plants naturally defend themselves against pathogens and how we can help them without harming the environment. It's no-nonsense, common sense approach to gardening makes you wonder what the human race was thinking of when we created all those dangerous chemicals.Every gardener wants his or her garden to be perfect. However, sometimes we get carried away, forgetting that earthly gardens are not sanitized portraits of heaven. This book brings us back to reality and reminds us to enjoy nature, not fight it.

This is definitely one of the best gardening books I have read in a long time!

90 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great reference., July 9, 2001

By 

Artemis Gems "ChainWeavers.com" (CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals (Paperback)

This is a overall a great book. One of the easiest to use I have found. The only thing which bothers me (and it is a minor detail) is that for each plant on which aphids are a pest, the book merely says "aphids" (green, black, white, red). There are many types of aphids, and it would be nice to know if I am looking for black, green, red, etc on a particular plant. Also for some species more aggressive management is needed than for others, but this book makes no distinction.

However, if you are considering this book, don't let that very minor detail stop you. This is definitely one that should be on every gardner's shelf! It is a wonderful reference.

74 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good listing of what goes wrong and what to do, June 16, 2006

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals (Paperback)

I love the listing of each plant species in this book, and the lavish pictures of pests and diseases. You can take this out to the peach tree or the magnolia and figure out what is wrong.

We use an organic lawn service and I do organic gardening (what of it I do, not much...no time) but it's essential to us not only as "green" folks but because I am chemically sensitive. I just can't have sprays or chemicals around me. I think this book is also wonderful because these chemicals are not to be lightly handled, and if you are pressed for time, it's better not to be careless with harmful pesticides and herbicides and just go for the more gentle organic way.

While learning how to control pests the organic way takes a lot of time (because you learn to plant and cultivate in such a way as to mitigate them and find an equilibrium with your local environment) this is a wonderful reference book and better than most others I've read.

Highly recommended.