The New Organic Grower
The New Organic Grower
by Eliot Coleman
A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener
The New Organic Grower has become a modern classic on organic gardening. In this revised and expanded edition, master grower Eliot Coleman continues to present the simplest and most sustainable ways of growing top-quality organic vegetables. Coleman updates practical information on marketing the harvest, on small-scale equipment, and on farming and gardening for the long-term health of the soil. The new book is thoroughly updated, and includes all-new chapters such as:
- Farm-Generated Fertility – how to meet your soil-fertility needs from the resources of your own land, even if manure is not available.
- The Moveable Feast – how to construct home-garden and commercial-scale greenhouses that can be easily moved to benefit plants and avoid insect and disease build-up.
- The Winter Garden – how to plant, harvest, and sell hardy salad crops all winter long from unheated or minimally heated greenhouses.
- Pests? – how to find "plant-positive" rather than "pest-negative" solutions by growing healthy, naturally resistant plants.
- The Information Resource – how and where to learn what you need to know to grow delicious organic vegetables, no matter where you live.
Written for the serious gardener or small market farmer, The New Organic Grower proves that, in terms of both efficiency and profitability, smaller can be better.
Softcover, 340 pages.
Praise
"Every small-scale grower and serious gardener should have a copy."
— Robert Rodale, Rodale Press
"I know of no other person who can produce better results on the land with an economy of effort and means than Eliot. He has transformed gardening from a task, to a craft, and finally to what Stewart Brand would call 'local science'."
— Paul Hawken, best-selling author and entrepreneur, from the Foreword
Table of Contents
| Foreword | ix | |
| Preface | xi | |
| Preface to the First Edition | xii | |
| 1 | Agricultural Craftsmanship | 1 |
| 2 | Land | 7 |
| 3 | Scale and Capital | 19 |
| 4 | Part-Time Help | 24 |
| 5 | Marketing Strategy | 29 |
| 6 | Planning and Observation | 33 |
| 7 | Crop Rotation | 50 |
| 8 | Green Manures | 68 |
| 9 | Tillage | 82 |
| 10 | Soil Fertility | 94 |
| 11 | Farm-Generated Fertility | 111 |
| 12 | Direct Seeding | 119 |
| 13 | Transplanting | 127 |
| 14 | Soil Blocks | 133 |
| 15 | Setting Out Transplants | 154 |
| 16 | Weeds | 158 |
| 17 | Pest? | 172 |
| 18 | Pests: Temporary Palliatives | 185 |
| 19 | Harvest | 190 |
| 20 | Marketing | 196 |
| 21 | Season Extension | 204 |
| 22 | The Movable Feast | 225 |
| 23 | The Winter Garden | 240 |
| 24 | Livestock | 268 |
| 25 | The Information Resource | 278 |
| 26 | A Final Question | 289 |
| 27 | L'Envoi | 293 |
| 28 | From Artichokes to Zucchini | 293 |
| Appendix 1 | USDA North American Hardiness Zone Map | 313 |
| Appendix 2 | A Schematic Outline of Biological Agriculture | 314 |
| Appendix 3 | Metric Conversions | 316 |
| Appendix 4 | Recommended Tools & Suppliers | 318 |
| Annotated Bibliography | 326 | |
| Index | 335 |