Comments on: Best Books on Practually Everything: Gardening Books

By: David King

David King — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:18:01 +0000

A lot of very good books! When I teach organic gardening, I like to use the Peaceful Valley Farm Supply catalog (groworganic.com) – not only will they sell you the goods, but they explain how and why to use that – graphs of green manure seeds and their application and use; same for beneficial insects.

Working With Microbes revolutionized the way I garden – we till as little as possible and add compost and mulch right on top. We use no commercial fertilizers AT ALL and we still get fabulous results. Gardening Without Inputs would be the title of another book, but it isn’t written yet – at least I HOPE it isn’t written yet!

I second anything written by Gene Logsdon, I am in love with his Small Scale Grain Raising. In addition to the wonderful herb books mentioned above by the woman (Sara) in Alabama, I would add Buhner’s Lost Language of Plants (which is the ecological underpinnings of herbal medicine – western medicine’s Silent Spring).

Though not strictly gardening books, I wouldn’t be here today without Wendell Berry and J. Russel Smith’s Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture. Gosh, there are so many more!!!

david

By: Ståle

Ståle — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:02:35 +0000

Not just a gardening book, strictly speaking, but my favorite for comprehensiveness: “Permaculture – a designer’s manual” by Bill Mollison (one of the two originators of Permaculture). This book constitutes the curriculum for the (typically) 72-hour Permaculture Design Certificate course and is chock-a-block full of information and wisdom.

Also fond of H.C. Flores’ “Food, not lawns” and Toby Hemenway’s “Gaia’s Garden”, as mentioned several times above.These are both more accessible than Mollison’s epic work (540 dense pages), but obviously do not aim for the same level of detail and comprehensiveness.

By: V

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 07:17:13 +0000

“Growing food in the southwest mountains: A permaculture approach to home gardening above 6,500 feet in Arizona, New Mexico, southern Colorado and southern Utah” by Lisa Rayner is a great regional book for my area.

Also “The Zen Of Gardening In the High & Arid West: Tips, Tools, and Techniques” by David Wann.

By: Hot Diggity

Hot Diggity — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:01:19 +0000

Thanks for asking, Sharon, and here are a few titles from a Desert Southwest perspective:

Already given thumbs up by one of your readers is Tucson Champion Brad Lancaster’s supremely important books (2 in a projected series of 3) on rainwater harvesting because no wawa means nada petits pois.

Plan your next Three Sisters’ garden with the interesting and valuable Native American Gardening: Stories, Projects and Recipes for Families by Michael J. Caduto and Joseph Bruchac.

Next, comes a winning pair of books by The Garden Guy himself, David Owens. Keep a positive outlook about your gardening efforts with Extreme Gardening: How to Grow Organic in the Hostile Deserts, and The Garden Guy: Seasonal Guide to Organic Gardening in the Desert Southwest.

Lastly, I add my voice to your readers in support of Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth and Kent Whealy, and Nancy Bubel’s New Seed Starter’s Handbook.

Danielle C.
Tucson, Arizona

P.S. Also…for some indoor kitchen magic: The Sprouting Book by Ann Wigmore.

By: simplephat

simplephat — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:40:42 +0000

and The Humanure Handbook

By: simplephat

simplephat — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:38:03 +0000

mike and nancy bubel’s Root Cellaring and ditto on Nancy’s The New Seed-starters Handbook

Mary Louise Flint’s Pest of the Garden and Small Farm: A Grower’s Guide to Using Less Pesticide

Shane Smith’s Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion

Barbara Damrosch’s The Garden Primer

The American Horticultural Society’s Pruning and Training: A Fully Illustrated Plant-by-Plant Manual

Lewis Hill’s Secrets of Plant Propagation

Suzanne Ashworth’s Seed to Seed

Eliot Coleman and John Jeavons for sure

Novella Carpenter for fun

By: Jen

Jen — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 01:20:14 +0000

I definitely add my vote to the already-mentioned Four-Season Harvest, Gaia’s Garden, Square-Foot Garden, Robert Kourik’s Edible Landscaping, Ruth Stout’s No-Work Garden Book, The Seed-Starter’s Handbook and my favorite (not so much gardening but like learning by the side of a salty old zen master) Fukuoka’s One Straw Revolution.

I would add to the heap Rose Marie McGee and Maggie Stuckey’s The Bountiful Container, and my all-time favorite, Bill & Helen Olkowski’s City People’s Guide to Raising Food. Hands-down the best small-space gardening book there is, but unfortunately out-of-print. Both are excellent for us small-spacers!

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:56:21 +0000

Definitely John Seymour and Elliot Coleman (esp 4 season harvest)

By: Susan

Susan — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:26:26 +0000

For Australian gardeners:
“The Wilderness Garden” and “Backyard Self Suffiency”, both by Jackie French (anything by Jackie French is highly readable and packed with information). “Easy Organic Gardening” by Lyn Bagnall. “Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture” by Rosemary Morrow. “One Magic Square” by Lolo Houbein.
The magazines “Earth Garden” and “Organic Gardener”.

By: southernrata

southernrata — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:45:42 +0000

Down at the other end of the world we have been very inspired by Linda Woodrow’s “Permaculture Home Garden”, and borrowed her schema of integrating a moveable chook dome into a mandala of circular garden beds, but have discovered that we have to be quite flexible in adapting er enthusiasms to a climate at least 10 degrees cooler