Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times

Author has major ego issues.- But - Read This! You need, if you garden or farm, to be exposed to this very unusual viewpoint. He is smarter and more experienced than most all garden writers in the 21st century. Explains the dirt-basic science of growing food with limited commercial resources when lives depend on it, rates vegetables on ease of growth and nutritional value in average soil without purchased additives, contains recipes for natural fertilizers that are truly balanced according to the individual species plant needs, not garden myths or trends. Most importantly and conversely, explains why the organic movement started in the fifties has mislead America and the world into believing that the elements of the earth- like iron, magnesium, nitrogen, potassium, calcium, molybedon, manganese, copper, zinc-are “toxic” to plants, people and harm plants and the micro soil life. They are rocks. Derived from the earth and exactly what plants need- but not in an even numbered ‘balanced’ amount. They *are* organic. Chemicals can be ‘natural’, they are what makes up everything natural.That’s organic chemistry. Not ‘Toxic’. Necessary in every garden, and he explains why soil tests are necessary before ‘improving’ anything. He also details out in solid evidence, why ‘compost’ isn’t magic, it being made of the products that are mirrors of the strengths and weaknesses(much more likely) of the soil they grew in. That nutrients in so-called organic composts and preparations are unavailable to plants until they have been broken down in the stomachs and inner workings of soil micro life. Opinionated. Some readers are offended by his callous treatment of various loved garden methods, but on the important points, Steve Solomon in Gardening When it Counts writes the absolute unheard truth.