Organic Gardening Books Review

You want to do it right, right?

Organic gardening has gone from esoteric and suspect to mainstream in practice. Most home gardening books available today, if not completely organic, offer extensive advice on organic practices. The organic movement traces its roots to the '40s and J.I. Rodale's magazine Organic Farming and Gardening. Rodale's magazine continues today and it has spawned a very successful organic gardening book publishing company, Rodale Press.

The plants

The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control by Barbara W. Ellis (Editor), Fern Marshall Bradley (Editor)
This is one of Rodale's more popular titles. This organic gardening book covers everything from organic pest and weed control to methods of companion planting that enhance both disease and parasite resistance. The book is also recommended by the International Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture.

Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening
This organic gardening book, edited by Ellis and Bradley, is a companion piece to the Organic Gardener's Handbook. It offers the organic gardener a dependable reference guide allowing the user to troubleshoot most issues they face in their gardens on a daily basis.

The land

Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work by Mel Bartholomew
Bartholomew, a retired engineer and efficiency expert, developed a new way for home gardeners to approach their plot of land. Eschewing the traditional method of rows, The method in Bartholomew's organic gardening book allows the home gardener to use their land and other resources in a much more efficient manner.

The square foot method is an approach to how the physical garden is set up. The method builds the garden up, not down, so there's no digging or tilling after the first year. And the method requires less thinning, less weeding, and less watering, thus making it an ideal method for organic growers. This method can also be used in conjunction with books about beginning a kitchen herb garden.

The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Edward C. Smith
Smith's system is called WORD: Wide rows, Organic methods, Raised beds, Deep soil. With deep, raised beds, vegetable roots have more room to grow and expand. The method in this organic gardening book is similar to Bartholomew's but offers some differing perspectives that prove quite useful for those who prefer a more traditional look.

Smith's approach can be used in a large plot or in fabricated planked beds. Smith also instructs gardeners in regard to one of the most overlooked and misunderstood subjects in gardening-crop rotation. The importance of rotation is that it improves soil nutrients while also decreasing disease and infestation.

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