358 of 360 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tired of weeding, fertilizing, watering constantly?, December 14, 2004
I spent a few hours reading this book and was rewarded with 7-foot high tomato plants with big flavorful fruit, beautiful herbs (a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary were just the thing for a New Year's coq au vin I still remember fondly), beans, peas, lettuce, flowers and more, all from four 4x20 garden beds. All (organic) fertilizing is done before planting, and I only have to weed *twice* a year. If this sounds like the kind of gardening you'd like to do, then this book will show you how. (The automatic watering I came up with myself - buried soaker hoses made from recycled tires a couple of inches deep in the beds and hooked them up to a hose on a timer.)
Contrary to a couple of comments, I didn't find the book at all difficult to understand - quite the opposite. Here, try one great idea on for size:
The roots and leaves of each plant fill a circle. (The book tells you the size of that circle for just about every common garden plant, plus more than a few uncommon ones.) Space your plants so that all the circles are just touching. (You can picture what this looks like by using coins.) That way, each plant has enough room to grow and thrive, while at the same time all their roots and leaves form a "living mulch" that crowds out weeds.
This really works - as I said, I only have to weed twice a season. And how difficult was that to understand? This book is full of great, clearly explained ideas like that, with all the information you need to put them into practice yourself. And someone gave it two stars because it uses *line drawings*? Please.
The reviewer who called it a gardening Bible had it exactly right. If you're thinking of buying a gardening book, do yourself and your garden a great big favor - make it this one.
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241 of 246 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Concise, Thorough Guide to Gardning for sustinance, November 5, 2002
This book was loaned to me by a friend who has used it's techniques to produce high-yield growth in his gardens. I have always wanted to have a self sufficent garden, and land for this, but have always thought I would need a number of acres to do this. I am now planning on purchasing a home with one acre and am confident that with the techniques detailed in this book, I will be able to produce good crops for home-grown organic vegetables.
There is so much information here on composting, conpanion planting, how plants and thier root systems grow and interact, how to make the garden beds, why beds and clumps are better and yield more produce than planting in rows, soil composition, garden implements and more.
There are diagrams for everything you need to know presented in such a way that it's easy to understand and implement. There is so much information here, it would be usefull to a complete beginer like me or an experienced gardner.
Happy Planting!
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150 of 157 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's not easy, but it's brilliant and could save the world, May 21, 2007
This review is from: How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine (Paperback)
I am impressed at how many people misunderstand the purpose of this book. It's not just a gardening book. It lays out a comprehensive guide to growing the most food you can on the least amount of land in the most sustainable way -- meaning the way that is, on an ongoing basis into perpetuity, most healthy both for your family, your land, and the wider world. All those things are connected, and maintaining the connection is part of what the book and authors are all about.
The title means what it says, and they tell you exactly how to do it, basing their recommendations on the work of the organization that publishes the book, Ecology Action. They have been growing experimental gardens and conducting detailed research over the past 35 years. In succeeding editions of "How to Grow More Vegetables" they summarize their continuing research for those interested in personally benefiting from their methods and discoveries.
Some may object to the excruciatingly detailed charts and plans. Some of us find them a godsend. Regardless of what we think of them, they are the outgrowth of years of research and are intended to help, not just backyard gardeners in the US, but people in Kenya, India, Russia, Mexico, and other places around the world, whose lives and livelihoods, not to mention the health of their environment, may depend on maximizing their yields while minimizing their purchased inputs and water usage.
The central fact underlying this method is this: the only way to achieve the highest sustainable yields is to build and feed your soil, and the only way to build your soil without taking away fertility from someone else's soil (through purchased inputs such as compost, fertilizer, etc.) is to make and use your own compost. This book explains why, and shows you how. It works.
Though we are still shielded from it in the US, the world is facing a potentially devastating loss of agricultural fertility due to a combination of squandered topsoil (lost through both development and abuse by chemicals and poor tillage practices), water shortages, and soaring prices and reduced availability of fossil fuels (which power the farm equipment, get it to market, and form the basis of most chemical fertilizers). Years ago, Ecology Action set out to discover in a rational and scientific way, just how much land and labor it would take to grow the amount of food, properly balanced for calories and nutrition, required by one person for one year. Could a family of four truly feed itself from a 1200 square foot garden if it had to, or wanted to? How much work and water would it take? How much fertilizer would they have to buy? Could they grow their own fertilizer? What tools would they need? What about fiber for clothing? Building materials? Animal feed?
The "How to Grow More Vegetables" books answer those questions, and much, much more. As the years go by, (and with each succeeding food contamination scandal) more of us, even in the US, are realizing just how important those questions are. You may not need or want all the information in this book. But it is all there, and nowhere else that I am aware of, for those who do want it.
This book could save the world, if only the world would pay attention. But it will also show you how to grow fabulous, tasty vegetables with less water, less work, less weeding, less money.
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