Organic Gardener's Composting Part 21

A top-rate scientist asks the question: "Is organically grown food really more nutritious?" The answer is: "yes, and no."

Smith, J. Russell. _Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture._ New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929.

No bibliography of agricultural alternatives should overlook this cla.s.sic critique of farming with the plow. Delightfully original!

Solomon, Steve. _Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades._ Seattle, Was.h.i.+ngton: Sasquatch Books, 1989.

My strictly regional focus combined with the reality that the climate west of the Cascades is radically different than the rest of the United States has made this vegetable gardening text virtually unknown to American gardeners east of the Cascades. It has been praised as the best regional garden book ever written. Its a.n.a.lysis of soil management, and critique of Rodale's version of the organic gardening and farming philosophy are also unique. I founded and ran Territorial Seed Company, a major, mail-order vegetable garden seed business; no other garden book has ever encompa.s.sed my experience with seeds and the seed world.

_Waterwise Gardening. _Seattle, Sasquatch Books, 1992.

How to grow vegetables without dependence on irrigation. Make your vegetables able to survive long periods of drought and still be very productive. My approach is extensive, old fas.h.i.+oned and contrarian, the opposite of today's intensive, modern, trendy postage-stamp living.

Turner, Frank Newman. _Fertility, Pastures and Cover Crops Based on Nature's Own Balanced Organic Pasture Feeds._ reprinted from: Faber and Faber, 1955. ed., San Diego: Rateaver, 1975.

An encouragement to farm using long rotations and green manuring systems from a follower of Albert Howard. Turner offered a remarkably sensible definition for soil fertility, in essence, "if my livestock stay healthy, live long, breed well, and continue doing so for at least four generations, then my soil was fertile."

Voisin, Andre. _Better Gra.s.sland Sward. _London: Crosby Lockwood and Sons, Ltd., 1960.

The first half is an amazing survey of the role of the earthworm in soil fertility. The rest is just Voisin continuing on at his amazing best. No one interested in soil and health should remain unfamiliar with Voisin's intelligence. See also: _Gra.s.s Tetany, Gra.s.s Productivity,_ and _Soil, Gra.s.s and Cancer._