Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)
by: Steve Solomon
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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 growingused 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.
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 growingused 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.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- This is a Gardening Rant
This book was so strange. I don't know why I read it. It's hard to find the actual information. It is buried in all kinds of ranting and negativity. Rule #1: If you have clay soil or live anywhere it is hard to grow food you should move. Rule #2: Compost is an inferior product. If you don't mix it just right, with the right ingredients in the correct ratio you will destroy the soil and have bad facial bone structure. Rule #3: The Native Americans knew how to grow food in a self sustainable, affordable ... Read More
Rating: 
- Must Have!
This is a must-have for the serious gardener; particularly one who is not just a "hobbyist" and wants to be more self-sufficient and frugal.I thought I knew a lot about gardening...but I have learned so much!Very easy to read and understand.
Rating: - good but needs more pictures
This is a good book to have on hand for reference.I would like to of seen more illustrations in it because the reading can be a bit boring but it still is a great book.
Rating: - Get Mad But Keep Your Copy!You May Need It Someday.
"If your food gardening is little more than a backyard hobby, an amusement, an entertainment that leads to a random mix of positive outcomes and disappointments, then getting great seeds and seedlings is of little consequence.But for me, gardening has never been a minor affair.It is life itself.It is independence.It is health for my family.And for people going through hard times, a thriving veggie garden can be the difference between painful poverty and a much more pleasant existence." (page ... Read More
Rating: - Very relevant
This is an incredibly resourceful book for any type of gardener. We have been farming organically for 16 years and found a lot of information we are now practicing in this book.
- This is a Gardening RantThis book was so strange. I don't know why I read it. It's hard to find the actual information. It is buried in all kinds of ranting and negativity. Rule #1: If you have clay soil or live anywhere it is hard to grow food you should move. Rule #2: Compost is an inferior product. If you don't mix it just right, with the right ingredients in the correct ratio you will destroy the soil and have bad facial bone structure. Rule #3: The Native Americans knew how to grow food in a self sustainable, affordable ... Read More
- Must Have!This is a must-have for the serious gardener; particularly one who is not just a "hobbyist" and wants to be more self-sufficient and frugal.I thought I knew a lot about gardening...but I have learned so much!Very easy to read and understand.
- good but needs more picturesThis is a good book to have on hand for reference.I would like to of seen more illustrations in it because the reading can be a bit boring but it still is a great book.
- Get Mad But Keep Your Copy!You May Need It Someday."If your food gardening is little more than a backyard hobby, an amusement, an entertainment that leads to a random mix of positive outcomes and disappointments, then getting great seeds and seedlings is of little consequence.But for me, gardening has never been a minor affair.It is life itself.It is independence.It is health for my family.And for people going through hard times, a thriving veggie garden can be the difference between painful poverty and a much more pleasant existence." (page ... Read More
- Very relevantThis is an incredibly resourceful book for any type of gardener. We have been farming organically for 16 years and found a lot of information we are now practicing in this book.
