Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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!

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.

When I first bought this book in 1988 I read it cover to cover on a cool winter evening, dreaming into the night of all the wonderful seeds I could begin to sprout....and plants that I could grow and eat. I now have the most recent edition as well, to loan out to "gardening newbies", but every year I pull out the older copy as a reference when planning & planting my spring garden. (Hence the dirty fingerprints throughout!)
The book is an excellent easy-to-read source and guide for the importance of good soil preparation as well as companion planting and planting by phases of the moon.
(By the way, the reviewer that called this book "New Age Crap" was wrong wrong wrong.)
The author takes old concepts (such as planting by lunar cycles) and encourages one to try it. I did, and am very pleased year after year with the results. I think the reviewer (HL - a self-proclaimed "technical specifications reader") who did not care for the style of the book should stick to reading and let us gardeners stick to the dirt!
May all the newbie vegetable gardeners out there be as inspired as I continue to be by this book!
Incidentally, for San Francisco Bay Area readers, the author occasionally teaches in person at Common Ground in Palo Alto (559 College Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94306 650-493-6072) A wonderful down-to-earth store where one can buy seeds "by the teaspoon" from shelves of seed jars and take informative classes. http://www.commongroundinpaloalto.org/upcomingclasses.htm

I own and have read many books on gardening. John Jeavons has put together THE TEXTBOOK for beginners and advanced gardeners alike. I like the simple illustrations of such basic activities as double digging the garden, composting, and possible layouts of the garden. At the same time, I find the tables of detailed info on each plant an excellent resource for planning my own garden. I guess that some gardeners will feel intimidated by all the info, I sure did at first, and one other reviewer seemed to as well. But I can't imagine passing up this book for that reason!

This book is an amazing, overwhelming wealth of information.
I'm not sure I totally agree with all the advice - he's somewhat
anti-manure and recommends transplanting everything twice. It
mentions things like phase of the moon planting, but it's not
dogmatic about these more offbeat ideas. The real value is
the charts for the growing needs, spacing, etc. for every plant
and grain and tree, with suggested layouts and rotations; and
how it targets sustainably suppling real food for people, in
quantities needed to live on, rather than just growing the odd
vegetable for fun.
They are, I believe, in Northern CA so more appropriate for me
in Oregon than many of the Rodale and other east-coast authors.

This is the sort of book you search for. You can now recycle your other garden books. This book along with a good seed catalogue is all you'll ever need. It is packed to overflowing with detailed information about the hows and why's plantings in your garden will or will not work. Inside it has lists of companion plantings, and plants that would be detriment to each other. It is science with practical field experience. It also contains detailed charts and guides to truly make the most of your garden. The author has given you exactly how many seedlings you need to plant to provide for a family of one to four. Brilliant! They've taken the guess work out of the adventure! And that is a huge relief!!

THis book I would suggest to anyone that wants to learn how to produce a productive vegetable garden. I used to plant in rows with mixed results, but once I started composting and using the rasied bed meathod along with planting in blocks instead of rows, well I have enough to can and make my own home-made condiments now. I HIGHLY reccomend this book!!

This is a definitive guide to the Bio- Intensive method of growing vegetables. It is well written, and you can see that a lot of time and effort are behind the concepts presented here.
Two things bother me; There`s an almost 100- page bibliography included in the book!? Couldn`t it have been put up on a website or something, instead of just making the book (look) bigger and thicker? The second issue is that I find it always a bit irritating when a lot of equipment or systems get mentioned in a book, but to get their specifics or plans you must buy another book. Maybe the plans for the U- bar or for the mini- greenhouse could have fitted on those bibliography pages?
Anyways, the four stars is for the part where the actual system gets described.

I have read a few of the reviews below, and feel compelled to add my experience.

I am not a professional farmer, nor am I even a master gardener. By following at least 1/2 of the principles Jeavons uses in this book, I have managed to grow 100's and 100's of pounds of fruits and vegetables. We are well on our way to a sustainable garden that will most of the fruits and vegetables we eat for 8 months of the year.

I find the book to be pretty technical and requiring more than one read, but it is a comprehensive instruction manual on how to integrate some great gardening techniques.

Believe or don't believe in what some of the reviewers call "new age cr**, I just know that it works for me!