- ISBN13: 9780865715530
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Product Description
The decline of cheap oil is inspiring increasing numbers of North Americans to achieve some measure of backyard food self-sufficiency. In hard times, the family can be greatly helped by growing a highly productive food garden, requiring little cash outlay or watering.
Currently popular intensive vegetable gardening methods are largely inappropriate to this new circumstance. Crowded raised beds require high inputs of water, fertility and organic matter, and demand large amounts of human time and effort. But, except for labor, these inputs depend on the price of oil. Prior to the 1970s, North American home food growing used more land with less labor, with wider plant spacing, with less or no irrigation, and all done with sharp hand tools. But these sustainable systems have been largely forgotten. Gardening When It Counts helps readers rediscover traditional low-input gardening methods to produce healthy food.
Designed for readers with no experience and applicable to most areas in the English-speaking world except the tropics and hot deserts, this book shows that any family with access to 3-5,000 sq. ft. of garden land can halve their food costs using a growing system requiring just the odd bucketful of household waste water, perhaps two hundred dollars worth of hand tools, and about the same amount spent on supplies - working an average of two hours a day during the growing season.
Steve Solomon is a well-known west coast gardener and author of five previous books, including Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades which has appeared in five editions.
Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times
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Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)Good information. Easy to read. Glad I purchased this book
Rating: 4 / 5
Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times
This book is full of good gardening information. However its hard to use it. The binding came apart 3 days after I got the book
Rating: 2 / 5
Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times
This very informative book is easy to read. I can’t wait to put Mr. Solomon’s years of experience to practice!
Rating: 5 / 5
Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times
I had very high hopes for this book. My family has started the path to self sufficiency and we were all looking forward to reading the wonderful information touted by some of the reviewers on Amazon. However, the author is condescending and pompous. He seems more interested in showing others how smart he is than writing a meaningful book. He constantly treats the reader like he/she is an idiot, not capable of intelligent, independent thought. Perhaps he has some good information. I don’t know. Every time I pick the book up to read, he starts a paragraph with a condescending remark and I put it away. Horrible, horrible book. Run. There are much better books out there. If there were a zero star option, I would have chosen it.
Rating: 1 / 5
Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times
Very, very important and informative book! This is no sissy gardening book! I bought it for my husband, and he loves it! Perfect for anyone wanting to be as self-sufficient as possible.
Rating: 5 / 5
Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times