Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)

A previous reviewer was being nice in describing the author's writing style As 'grandfatherly'. Personally, my grandfather never talked down to me like I was an idiot, and did not pat himself on the back every other sentence.

While the book is intended to help the novice gardener, the tone made this title a difficult book to read. The author spends a great deal of time ridiculing other garden writers (John Jeavons in particular) that he refers to as Everyone Else. While describing these authors as foolish slaves to production quantity (apparently Everyone Else includes every person who believes in raised bed, intensive gardening), Steve Solomom extolls the virtues of planting in rows and giving plants 'room to grow'. He provides his own example of having not one, but TWO 2400sq ft garden beds - he allows one lot to lie fallow each year with a green manure while the other is planted.

Steve also seems to loathe clay soil, so much so that he doesn't even bother giving any advice on how to improve it. He says clay is the worst, nutrient-sucking soil (like a battery that eats nutrients) and that even when adding lots of organic matter, it will still hurt your crop production. So instead of recommending a realistic and effective means to address this soil type, the author recommends paying someone to haul in a truckload of topsoil to create the ideal garden bed. That's what he did (spending $1200 in the process), and of course he has beautiful results. Seeing as how I am reading the book to learn how to garden 'in hard times', and I do live on northeastern American clay soil, I had to look past this ridiculous recommendation to get to the good information in the book.

The book does contain very good information that covers many aspects of how to treat a garden if you are to truly rely on its production. He provides an inexpensive recipe for a complete organic fertilizer (noting that today's chemical concoctions of potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus are creating vegetables that do not give maximum nutritive value - garbage in is garbage out). He also explains the importance of seed quality and provides information on how to obtain the ideal variety for your area, as well as selecting plants for seed to improve future yields.

While I did find a lot of good information, Steve Soloman's writing style made this book torturous to read.

This book claims to tell you how to 'garden when it counts' and specifically mentions gardening during times of economic hardship (i.e. Peak Oil). Yet, it's not nearly as comprehensive or as down-and-dirty survivalist as I had hoped. I wanted simple to follow, bullet point format, but the book did not deliver.

Sometimes the narrative left me behind and I didn't follow. Gardeners in general (not just this book) tend to gloss over details as if we're just supposed to know. For example, the fertigation section of the book doesn't have a really good definitive statement of what the heck fertigation is. Nor do I recall any specifications being provided on the size of the hole or how you make the hole in the first place. Good definitive (and idiot proof) topic sentences would've been a huge help.

Also, it was frustrating for a book that purported to teach gardening for hard times to say it's not worth it to garden in clay soil or rocky soil. I would've thought there would be a focus on things that can be done to maximize growth in all conditions. This is Gardening When It Counts, not Gardening In Ideal Conditions.

That and gardening is more expensive than I thought. Especially as the author notes that once oil prices go up so will the cost of all the fertilizers he advises you will need. Can I afford to garden when it counts? I'm not sure.

Plus, unless you can buy seeds at least every other year, you are S.O.L. (which I would've hoped there would've been more discussion on alternatives, perhaps some discussion of exchanging seeds with local gardeners etc...)

In addition the author recommends at least 2700 square feet of garden space times two (so you can rotate your crops). This is not practical for most of suburbia.

Again, back to my point that this book is not supposed to be about Gardening In Ideal Conditions With Unlimited Funds And Space, but it often seems to take that tack.

There are some positives.There is no question that the author is a master gardener so whatever info you do glean from the book is solid. Composting is covered in great detail. There are some excellent nuggets of information that make the book worth a read (the seed company recommendations were much appreciated). However, you will not learn everything you need to know in this book alone and I question whether it truly does offer any good advice on how to garden when it counts for the average person in the average house.

Excellent book to own. I never had grandparents or parents that gardened and this is info that if they had been they could have passed on to me.

Excellent book. Well written. As a gardener for over 40 years using many different methods depending on the type of crop, I even picked up some new ideas. Recommend for those who have not started a garden plot and need to know how to begin with the removal of sod and laying in of the first bed.

This book is simply outstanding in everyway. We have been gardening for many years and found this book to just take gardening to another level. This book told us why things we had been doing for years in the garden worked. It also told us why we were having trouble with certain aspects of the gardening relm. We sent this book to everyone we know who has an interest in gardening and they all read it and gave it rave reviews. If you love being out in the dirt and working you will love this book.