Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)
by Steve Solomon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Steve SolomonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2006-04-01
ISBN: 086571553X
Number of pages: 360
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Book Reviews of Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)
Book Review: Get Mad But Keep Your Copy! You May Need It Someday.
Summary: 5 Stars
"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 105, @2005 New Society Publishers, Canada)
If you are a hobby gardener or a staunch enthusiast of intensive methods you are going to dislike this book. You may even get your feelings hurt. Gardeners are an opinionated lot and Solomon doesn't pull any punches concerning his own experience successfully running a mail-order seed business or working a homestead.
Plants are not political nor are the insects that feed on them. Much current garden literature perpetuates a garden of eden myth that purports to be an enlightened response to the supposedly brutal crass monoculture practices of the past. The methods and products sprouting from this glorified ideal make for good sales but often leave home gardeneners feeling like failures when their efforts do not pay off. Solomon provides a revealing if somewhat depressing look at the gardening industry and explains why I have been so often puzzled by low germination rates, low yield, or a piece of equipment simply not performing adequately.
No matter your gardening persuasion, if you are beyond beginning gardening, Solomon is worth a read. His strengths as an advisor are:
1) If you take away nothing else, at least learn how to sharpen your tools from this man. No other gardening book is going to tell you how to do this simple thing that every farmer knows.
2) Solomon never loses his emphasis on cost containment and the little balancing trick we all must do on this subject. Most organic gardening guides don't approach the subject because most of their advice is quite costly, such as irrigation, growing of transplants and doubling up on seed for the necessary companion planting. Cost is a real world struggle for most of us and this issue permeates Solomon's experience and advice.
3) A soil thermometer! What a novel idea for starting those seeds directly in soil! I don't see this item in the gardening shops as often as the light meters and such. But I am going to look for one. A sensible piece of equipment that I had never thought of seeking out.
4) Low germination rates - it may not be your fault! Don't take to heart your failure to start plant from seed and resign yourself to buying costly transplants. Read the seed chapter and you are going to learn a lot from an ex-seedsman about what makes a good seed, how to save and buy seed, and for how long seed can be kept to contain your purchasing costs.
5) Professional farmers know about the plow pan where the soil compacts over multiple plowings and they understand that managing soil fertility is more than applying Miracle-Gro a few times a year. If you plan to keep the same garden lot for many years you may find that you have decreased yield over time. Solomon's strength is bringing professional information to the lay person and his writing will actually hold your attention as he talks about trace minerals and other arcane bits of soil fertility.
6) A soil amendment is provided in his COF formula (page 21) that addresses the trace minerals needed by plants over time and that doesn't flood the soil with one nutrient to the detriment of others. The ingredients are accessible and it is worth a try.
7) When you are paying for water knowing just how much is needed can save you a bundle. Solomon provides a system for measuring your sprinkling system water output and gives ideas for cost management and placement that could be a huge help to someone whose environment makes irrigation a must.
8) The cornstarch gel for laying out seeds, or fluid drilling, (page 126) what an awesome idea I have never seen anywhere else! Though seed is cheaper than starters if you have to buy enough seed the bill can run high. That means utilizing the seed you buy as efficiently as possible. Again cost containment is integrated in his approach and he brings some of the most valuable insider knowledge to the serious home gardener.
Solomon's one recurring limitation is one that we all share, he has a hard time imagining a life vastly different than his own. Having homesteaded so many years he doesn't have experience with the average shady city lot and may not realize just how much many urbanites relish home grown produce. Part of the intensive movement is a response to urban gardeners wanting to engage in more sustainable responsible environmental practices and partly due to an increased interest in gourmet, ethnic and traditional foods. More people are cooking from scratch and they want to cook vegetables they have grown. They don't want to move 50 miles from work so they can have a large garden plot and the world still needs doctors, lawyers and such who keep our infrastructure going. Homesteading is not for everyone nor should it be.
When considering your particular environment raised beds, irrigation and intensive planting schemes may be your best or only option. If you must garden intensively I recommend Sally Jean Cunningham who is as chummy as Solomon is crotchety. Actually I recommend that you read both authors, both organic growers whose well-explained diametrically opposed approaches will give you a strong broad knowledge base that will support you through years of gardening.
Gardening is as simple as putting a seed into dirt, but it is also a craft with a large body of research, experience and debate. This book is an articulate beginning primer into the actual science behind gardening. Possibly overwhelming for a beginner, but intriguing and blessedly honest for the gardener or homesteader seeking to push ahead their soil management skills and increase their yields significantly.
Solomon who describes himself as "gardening grandfather" is like all grandfathers, set in his ways, a bit crabby and way past any pretense of political correctness. When he trashes a practice he admits to his negative tone but does not soft peddle his recommendations. He shoots straight from the hip and be prepared to hear some of your more cherished notions challenged.
That is how we humans grow, not just as gardeners but as people. Don't let any irritation with the old man lose you the chance to take in what he imparts. A contrarian voice is sometimes needed when the prevailing wisdom fails us. Get mad but don't throw away your copy. There may come a time when you will need it.
More Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series) reviews:
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Summary of Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)
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.
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