Customer Reviews

Taylor's Weekend Gardening Guide to Soil and Composting: The Complete Guide to Building Healthy, Fertile Soil (Taylor's Weekend Gardening Guides (Houghton Mifflin))

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This book is in the Taylor's Weekend Gardening Guides series of books. Like most books in this series, it is easy to read and understand. While it touches upon some of the science behind why good soil is important, it doesn't bore the average gardener with laborious explanations. It quickly gets to what most gardeners want to know, that is what to do to improve your soil's quality and have healthier plants.

Before you start a new garden it is important to understand the characteristics of your soil and what actions you need to take before you start planting. This book will provide the weekend gardener with all the guidance they need to build healthy soil in their garden. I highly recommend you read this book before you start planting your new garden.

The copyright date makes this book seem long in the tooth, but some topics are constants and change little over the years.
"Soil and Composting" is about soil enrichment and the art of composting in about equal measures. After all, the whole point of composting is to enrich the soil to grow healthy plants.

There's much to like about this composting and gardening guide. For the beginner are annotated photos and graphics as well as helpful charts dealing with compost, mulch, and plants. For the experienced grower are facts and figures that bear repetition and refreshing,little details that may have been buried in one's memory, and even some new ideas to incorporate into this year's growing season.

I expected a book that dealt mostly with the science and art of composting, but certainly didn't mind the extra information that extends and elaborates the composting information in a practical and useful way. Had I read this book before purchasing a tumbling composter, I may have opted for the tried and true (and cheaper) instead.

This is quite the helpful guide for a weekend gardener and a handy reference book that earns a reserved spot on one's bookcase.