The Gardener's A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food (Paperback)

by Tanya L. K. Denckla (Author) "The industrial revolution brought mechanization and precise replication to the world of manufacture..." (more)
Key Phrases: Plants Affected, Anecdotal Anecdotal, Bay Laurel (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Denckla's guide to growing organic food covers 765 varieties of vegetables, herbs, fruits, and nuts. There are instructions on temperature, soil and water needs, planting depth and space between plants, propagation, harvesting, first and last seed-starting dates, storage requirements, and support structures when needed. With each entry is a list of selected available varieties. Denckla also tells gardeners how to control 201 pests and diseases organically. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Description
Here is the only single-volume reference that supplies all the information necessary to plant a successful organic food garden. Before it was a book, THE FACT-HUNGRY ORGANIC GARDENER was organic gardener Tanya L. K. Denckla's private database, the distillation of years of hands-on, real-life, dirt-under-the- fingernails experience in growing her own vegetables, herbs, fruits and nuts. Interest in organic gardening is increasing, and The Fact-Hungry Organic Gardener is the one book that answers all the questions that sprout up among novice, intermediate, and even experienced gardeners.

Plants are arranged in an A-to-Z format that makes it easy to pinpoint the information you need. Each entry provides specific information on planting, watering and fertilizing, when to harvest, how to store the produce - even which plants profit by getting a headstart in a greenhouse.

And fully half of the book is dedicated to organic remedies that can prevent or combat plant diseases and garden pests. Hundreds of common diseases and pests are arranged alphabetically, and each entry explains which plants are likely to be affected and how to recognize the problem, and then offers a variety of well-tested natural remedies.

This is an easy-to-read, authoritative, accessible resource that lets you find answers to questions quickly so you can spend less time skimming gardening books and more time enjoying your garden.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC; Revised edition (February 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580173705
• ISBN-13: 978-1580173704
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #88,813 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to use - Rodale, move over, February 21, 2008

By	Cecil Bothwell "Author of Pure Bunkum" (Asheville, NC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have owned my copy of Rodale's classic, Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, for well over 30 years. It has been my garden bible.

But times change. Denckla has created a much handier growers' resource. In this book, she catalogues 765 varieties of vegetables, herbs, fruits and nuts and offers controls for 201 pests and diseases, but better than the numbers is the way she presents the information. For each species there is a clear, concise directory for every aspect of planting, culture and storage. It is really easy to use. The single best feature may be the planting charts for annuals that make it simple to calculate when to start the first and last seeds of the season, based on last and first frost dates. Rodale's classic will never be far away, but from now on I will pick up Denckla's first.

As an organic grower for nearly four decades and a garden columnist, I'm a pretty good judge of this genre (my own collection of garden writings came out in 2008, Garden My Heart: Organic strategies for backyard sustainability). The only place I take serious exception to Denckla's advice concerns moles, which she treats as a garden pest. Moles are garden allies, consuming vast quantities of beetle larvae and other members of the enemy camp.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book - very thorough and well organized, May 17, 2007

By	Gotarun26.2 - See all my reviews

I would have given this book 5 starts except that the section on pest control, which is very important to an organic gardener names the pests and suggests control solutions but shows you no pictures of the pests so if you don't know what the various insects (or for that matter diseases) look like, that's not helpful.

Otherwise the book is well organized and contains a lot of useful information, especially in regard to what plants are allys and incompatible

22 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, but leaves out a few things, May 25, 2004

By A Customer

Tons of fabulous information in this book, but it unfortunately leaves out quite a few things that I am interested in growing... bananas, oranges, tangerines, avocadoes, mangoes, lemons, limes, and starfruit to name a few. It is, however, the best resource for herbs that I've seen so far.