| The Food Co-op : Food / Health Issues :
More Articles :
Book/Film Reviews :
Gardening When It Counts
|
 |
BOOK REVIEW
Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times, Steve Solomon
by Bill Thorness (reprinted with permision; originally published in Seattle Tilth, May/June 2006)
A gardener always wants to get those newly sown seeds off to the healthiest start, but what methods best support that goal? Germane advice on the topic can be found in a new book by Steve Solomon, who as founder of Oregon’s Territorial Seed Company has a special connection with those little nuggets of life.
Consider this example: When we till the garden bed, he says, the capillary nature of the soil is temporarily lost, and soil that would normally “wick” up moisture from below has lost its ability to do so. A simple technique to restore capillarity is to tamp down the furrow before sowing. Sow into the furrow, then cover it with compost. The seeds can draw necessary water from below, thus reducing the need for overhead watering, which lowers soil temperature and increases the danger of damping off problems. The compost hold more moisture than regular soil, and will provide less resistance through which the sprout must push.
If tamping, damping, furrows and such terms are a bit foreign or scary, dig into Solomon’s latest book, Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times. In patient, comfortable prose, he takes readers through the basics, with such chapter themes as “Helping Plants Grow.” He posits that a gardener needs just three tools, and suggests how to choose the best starts from the nursery—or, better yet, how to grow your own starts.
But the book presents a larger theme, implied by its title. Solomon suggests that the advent of peak oil and unsustainable economic practices are sending the United States toward a crisis. To face those times, he offers thrifty suggestions to gardeners with poor soil or little water. For instance, a plant will be healthier grown from seed in the ground than transplanted, as it will develop a stronger root system. He makes a compelling case that planting farther apart saves water and results in bigger, healthier vegetables, because they are not competing for available soil moisture. Square-foot or intensive gardening this is not!
Solomon’s earlier book, Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades, became a well-thumbed primer for regional Tilthies. This volume also is a cornucopia of tips, from progressive thinning to root cellaring, to help develop your food gardening techniques. Although he no longer owns Territorial and now lives in Tasmania, his wife’s homeland, this book too has many references specific to our area, while comparing needs in many climates.
But along with the serious theme and non-stop advice, the author succeeds in conveying a neighborly, over-the-fence style that supports his desire to be “the gardening grandfather you never had.” How can you not smile when coming across his invented words, like vegetablerian and fertigation?
Indeed, sharing the spirit of gardening is almost as important as the techniques, especially if his theories about “coming hard times” come true. What better place—with the possible exception of Tasmania—could we live in if we must face that future? Solomon doesn’t know of any. “Ah Cascadia!” he writes. “Closest thing to paradise there is in North America.”
|
|
 |
|
|
