This book is an excellent synthesis of several schools of thought regarding soil management in organic agriculture, including biodynamics, permaculture, conventional NPK, soil food web dynamics, probiotics, microbiotics, mineralization, and paramagnetism. The book is divided into three sections. The first section provides an overview of the soil food web and its relationship with plants, together with the importance of soil testing and its mechanics. The second section is organized around the author's six-step approach to creating and maintaining a healthy soil and details the role of water, organic matter, microbial inoculants, fertilization, micronutrients, and energy in this process. The third section is the briefest and focuses on action strategies for dealing with pests, weeds, soil amendment, and garden health. Each chapter concludes with a bulleted summary of the key points of information the reader needs to learn and remember.
Perhaps, the most significant contribution of this book, however, is that it updates the knowledge base of soil management strategies for real-world gardeners. It's one thing to know a concept, but an altogether different thing in knowing why, when and how to apply it. Nauta bridges this gap by providing how-to subsections with examples for each approach. In the process, the author introduces readers to concepts such as microbial inoculation, effective microorganisms (EM), cation exchange capacity (CEC), ERGS (Energy Released per Gram of Soil), anions, and radionics among others, and translates their meaning and importance without ambiguity. That is no small task.
Whether you are a beginning gardener (but especially if you are a beginning gardener) or a seasoned veteran Building Soils Naturally is a book that needs to be on your top 10 go-to list of reference books. The broken spine on my dog-eared copy testifies to where I go most often.
- Amazon Business : For business-only pricing, quantity discounts and FREE Shipping. Register a free business account
