I am in a major gardening and landscaping obsession right now as my reviews and purchases note. Consequently, my reading is consisting almost entirely of books on the subject.
Most books, however, are geared towards the writer's personal style, interests, or region. I was so impressed that this book was uber thorough in capturing it ALL. What I mean by this is that our front yard is very formal and traditional, yet our backyard is ALL native plants to our region, some xeriscaping, waterfall, organic veggie garden and only native groundcovers as opposed to grass in "grassy" areas. Yes, we have covered it all. And so did she. This takes the reader from garden design, to composting, to compost tea (your plants will love it), to laying out a vegetable garden, to really, really super gardening tips, to formal and traditional gardening to worm beds to weeds to proper pruning to zen gardens.
zzzzz. That sounds so boring. Expecially to anyone not yet INTO gardening. And that's the best pard. This book is funny and entertaining. NOT boring.In fact, I typically go through gardening books looking for info on what I'm focusing on at the time, but this is one of the very, very few that I actually read cover-to-cover and word-for-word. I lost the book for 3 weeks (had it in a bag in my pantry, I still don't know why...) and I actually felt like I had misplaced an action novel in the midst of coming to the climax of its plot. That sounds crazy to say about a gardening book...but the style is highly unusual, full of upbeat and "real" wit and wisdom and, most importantly, I learned a tremendous amount in spite of already thinking I had mastered the art.
I'll be honest, I opened the book and didn't expect to be "wowed". I am a visual person and it contained no pictures. (It does have drawings of various plant species) I am extremely visual in learning. So I went in with a negative mindset. ...Until I began reading. That says a lot.
Honestly, I think if I had to pick one book to hand to friends who want to learn the art of gardening, whether just a small container or herb garden on a balcony, to a massive spread like we took on at our own home, I think this would be the book I'd hand off and suggest. It's fun and funny to read, (imagine if Erma Bombeck told you how to garden...somehow I retain more when it's done in that tone, maybe because I enjoy reading it more that way.) but contains almost 300 pages of a ton of information that is really important stuff. It's obvious she's done this awhile.
Like me, she has found the art of gardening that actually requires no need for synthetic fertilizers and petrochemicals due to "feeding the soil instead of feeding the plant" and, consequently, (if only feeding the plant with chemicals) killing the good microorganisms in the soil which inevitably make gardening harder. Yeah, she "gets it". It took me a long time to learn this. She breaks it down so it doesn't. In fact, she passes on wisdom that makes your garden WAY less work and WAY more productive. Impressed. Organic gardening, in the end, makes your garden work for you even when you sleep, rather than you constantly working to keep it alive...if you do it right.
I'd give it more stars if I could. VERY helpful to us. In fact, we used her exact layout of a vegetable garden diagram for our organic veggies.
