Books on Gardening

Beginning Hydroponics Soiless Gardening,
A Beginner's Guide to Growing Vegetables, House Plants, Flowers, and Herbs Without Soil

By Richard E. Nicholls, gets the beginner started by filling in the blanks and providing a path from the beginning of the book to the depth desired, $8.95 paperback. Guide to growing vegetables, flowers, and herbs without soil.

 

Build Your Ark!

Information on how a family can grow their own self-sufficient food garden. Written by Geri Guidetti, a biologist, science writer and educator with advanced degrees who does research and teaches microbiology and plant/yeast molecular biology. Published by The Ark Institute, P.O. Box 364, Monkton, Maryland 21111, ISBN 0-938928-01-5, 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches, 235 pages, for $21.95 including shipping and handling.

 

Commercial Hydroponics

By John Mason, easy to understand and execute in the home environment as well as the commercial environment.

 

Complete Garden Problem Solver

Edited by Delilah Smittle. Available from Rodale Press (publisher of Organic Gardener magazine).

 

Earth Food Spirulina

4th Edition 1997, by Robert Henrikson, who pioneered algae as a world resource for 20 years, and is the President of a major algae company and a director of the world's largest Spirulina farm. This easy-to-read book has over 160 charts, tables and photographs. Published by Ronore Enterprises, Inc. PO Box 1188, Kenwood, CA 95452 USA. Clean water, bubbling CO2 up through the water; using mineral nutrients like nitrogen, potassium, iron and essential trace elements rather than manure; avoiding chemical weed treatment by controlling and balancing the pond ecology; large paddle wheels in each pond.

 

Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening

(c) 1992 Edited by Fern Marshall Bradley. Available from Rodale press or Barnes and Noble.

 

Field Guide to North American Mushrooms

By the National Audubon Society is a great picture reference guide, with lots of info. about each mushroom.

 

Great Garden Formulas

(c)1998 Edited by Joan Benjamin and Deborah L. Martin. Available from Rodale Press.

 

[The] Holistic Garden

By Clinton R. Kraft. Aristera Publications, P.O. Box 3764, Redwood City, CA 94064-3764, $5.00. Additional contact: ckraft@crl.com, ckraft@rahul.net, clintkraft@aol.com, and (650) 364-2075 FAX. This is a delightful little book, describing in simple detail the way that even city-bound people can grow food holistically and organically, while making good use of those edible plants that grow naturally. The author describes a very small plot of land, and how to grow various vegetables using a rotation system that doesn't require chemical fertilizers, doesn't deplete the soil, and produces good quality food. Once one begins to collect and grow open pollinated varieties of vegetables, an appreciation soon develops for gardening methods as ancient as the seeds themselves. Recommended by decastro@netcom.com (Richard A. De Castro), on misc.survivalism.

 

Home Hydroponics and How to Do It!

By Lem Jones et al, paperback, $10.80.

 

How to Grow More Vegetables

By John Jeavons. Published by Ten Speed Press. $16.95

 

[The] Hydroponic Hot House

By James DeKorne. An illustrated guide to alternative-energy greenhouse gardening. Directions for building several different greenhouses, practical advice on harnessing solar energy, and many hard-earned suggestions for increasing plant yield. 178 pages. $17.00

 

Humanure: A Guide to Composting Human Manure

Available from Amazon.com. Worth checking out if you’re planning on recycling your food back into your hydroponic or gardening system.

 

Hunger Signs in Crops

A symposium, prepared by Firman E. Bear et al, published by American Society of Agronomy and National Fertilizer Association, 1949. Describes deficiency diseases in plants and plant nutrition.

 

Hydroponic Food Production, A Definitive Guidebook of Soilless Food-Growing Methods

by Howard M. Resh. Technical and definitive, but nonetheless easy to understand and in depth, and excellent resource.

 

Hydroponic Gardening: The Magic of Modern Hydroponics for the Home Gardener

By Raymond Bridwell, $11.65 paperback.

 

Michigan Field Crop Ecology

By Richard Harwood, a professor of crop and soil sciences at Michigan State University, holds a special faculty position in sustainable agriculture created through an endowment by Flint's C.S. Mott Foundation. $12. Tells farmers about raising healthy plants and animals by attending to healthy bacteria, fungi and nematodes in the dirt of farm fields. Takes a scientific look at practices that were common in the years before farming was revolutionized by agrochemical, powerful tractors and genetically improved plants.

 

[The] Natural Way of Farming, The Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy

By Mansanobu Fukuoka, based upon doing as little as possible to grow crops. Radical techniques include: growing rice and clover at the same time; encasing seeds in clay pellets; never pruning his citrus trees. He also found that he could double crop the same ground. Although his methods have been criticized, he consistently manages to achieve the best yields in the Japan.

 

Organic Gardening

Magazine. Seed saving, earthworms, composting, companion planting, attracting beneficial insects, all are covered in great depth here.

 

Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control

Edited by Barbara Ellis and Fern Marshall Bradley, published by Rodale Press, Book Reader's Service, 33 East Minor Street, Emmaus, PA 18098. Recommended by Geri Guidetti of The Arc Institute.

 

Permaculture, A Designer's Manual

By Bill Mollinson, 500 pages that covers such subjects as underground housing, indoor gardening issues such as soil and water, aquaculture, natural air conditioning, natural toilets, and composting. A complete survival blueprint. ublished by Targari Publications, PO Box 1, Tyalgum NSW, Australia, PH61 66 793442, e-mail perminst@peg.apc.org.

 

[The] Secret Life of Plants and [The] Secret Life of Soil

By Peter Thompkins and Christopher Bird, books which address many of the theories of Steiner, the originator of biodynamics, a practice that increases plant and animal crop yields dramatically.

 

Seed to Seed

By Suzanne Ashworth, published by Seed Savers Publications, has information on seed saving techniques for over 150 varieties of vegetables and culinary herbs. These have been researched and tested especially for the home gardens. From Seed Savers Exchange, Kent Healy, Director, RT 3 Box Decorah, 52101. Send $1 for a brochure describing publications or $25 for annual membership.

 

Small Scale Crayfish Farming for Food and Profit

Order from Backwoods Home Magazine (800) 835-2418, 47 pages, $9.95. How to start and maintain your own crayfish farm.

 

Spirulina. Production and Potential

1996, illustrated, 232 pages, by Ripley Fox. Published by Koeltz Scientific Books, P.O.Box 1360, Herrnwaldstr, 6 D-61462 Koenigstein, Germany. Fax: (+49) 6174 937240, phone: (+49) 6174 93720.

 

Square Foot Gardening

By Mel Bartholornew. Published by Dodale Press, Emmaus, PA. Dividing up garden space so that harvests are continuous, producing fresh produce the entire growing season in amounts that can be used at one time.

 

Stocking Up: How to prepare the foods you grow, naturally

By the staff of Organic Gardening and Farming. Edited by Carol Hupping. Published by Stoner Rodale Press, Emmaus, PA. ISBN 0-87857-167-1 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-87857-221-X (Deluxe). If you like growing and preserving your own food, or if you want or need to be able to do it without electricity, this book is for you. Recommended by decastro@netcom.com (Richard A. De Castro), on misc.survivalism.

 

Walton's Dry Goods

A catalog of everything Walton's sells, including seeds and bulk food items such as beans and gains. Walton Feed, INC, 135 North 10th, P.O. Box 307, Montpelier, ID 83254, (800) 269-8563, Fax (208) 847-0467.