“Gardeing When it Counts”, Book Review, Part 2

Continued Review and Commentary on “Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)” by Steve Solomon

Note: You can read the first part of our review here.

‘Continued Review’: Chapter 2 – Basics

The really smartest teachers and instructors begin their class with the assumption that the students know little or nothing about the subject matter that’s going to be presented and they begin from the beginning.  Mr. Solomon begins his class the same way in his Chapter 2 – Basics:

• The author notes that vegetable plants are very much the product of human development and as such require an environment that is highly favorable to their development with sunlight, shelter, water, fertilizer and little competition from other (wild) plants or animals.
• “ … heirloom varieties, bred before the use of chemical fertilizers, are especially good at growing in ordinary soil.”
• Mr. Solomon breaks down vegetables, by name, in a chart according to the level of care needed to have them productive: Low Demand (carrots and turnip greens), Medium Demand (sweet corn and tomatoes), and High Demand (cauliflower and Italian broccoli).
• He points out that soils are richest where rainfall is just sufficient and therefore plants, animals and people are healthiest when growing in/on/from these soils. His example is prairie soil.
• The author continues by describing and defining a complete organic fertilizer (COF) he has developed, which along with compost  will provide optimum plant nutrition. He describes it as a “… concocted by the gardener.”
• On page 24, Mr. Solomon offers a key reason for growing your own vegetables: “… a comparison of nutritional tables published by the USDA over the past 25 years (covered in the March 2001 issue of Life Extension Magazine) shows that the average nutritional content of vegetables has also declined about 25 to 33 percent across the board — all vegetables, all vitamins and minerals. …”
• An excellent chart of “Fertilizing values of manures and simple fertilizers” is presented on page 28 and is sandwiched in between informed commentary on variables for the listed values with  suggested uses in/for your garden. Here it is also noted that the healthiest animals with the soundest nutrition provide the most valuable manure.
• In his section on Increasing soil fertility, Mr. Solomon shines by speaking to a broad economic range of readers and enabling almost anyone to improve their soil in a step-by-step program.
• His last chart in Chapter 2  is “Soil improvement in a nutshell”. This chart discusses soil improvement in terms of the demands placed on the soil by the types of vegetables to be grown in it: Low demand, Medium Demand, and High Demand. Preceding and subsequent pages of the chapter discuss soil improvement with clarity by presenting definitions, examples, and usages/applications.
• In his chapter Summary, Mr. Solomon says, “This chapter has provided the bare minimum of information and some basic techniques. If you knew nothing more than this, and if you spread some manure and lime (or, better, manure and COF), dug the ground once a year, followed the vague instructions on the back of seed packets, put in some seedling and a few seeds, hoed the weeds, and did a bit of thinning, you would have a productive garden.” — He’s absolutely right.

Chapter 1 and 2 alone should give the idea that Mr. Solomon’s book isn’t just a good gardening book but an excellent gardening “reference book” also. It is and we’ll be continuing our review and discussion of subsequent chapters shortly.

Until a little later; keep your eyes on the horizon as the weathers changing fast.