Practical Organic Gardening

Practical Organic Gardening: The No-Nonsense Guide to Growing Naturally is correctly titled. This non-nonsense gardening manual is filled with wonderful photographs and pretty encyclopedic knowledge of gardening.

The millions of photos are so helpful, especially for newer gardeners / farmers who don't know what the heck stuff is supposed to look like (me). There are key tips and charts of everything from common plant diseases and plants that attract pollinators to seed longevity and crop rotation planning.

I would love to have a print copy of this book to keep on hand for all my gardening questions.

Highland's book provides a comprehensive introduction to organic gardening and sustainability. It is written from a scientific viewpoint, yet most of the book is easily understood by the lay person and would be a good guide to the beginning organic gardener. I am particularly impressed with his chapter on soil structure, focusing on the benefits of handling the soil with care, not over-working it. This is often neglected in basic gardening guides. I also like the use of tables, photos, and diagrams to illustrate the points in each chapter. It prevent the book from being overly wordy.
As a professor who teaches a sustainable horticulture class, I can state that books suitable for use as textbooks for such a class are not very common. This book comes close to suiting the needs of a beginning gardener. I would recommend it to my students if Chapter 2 could be reorganized to make it more understandable for the lay person. As is, topics (e.g., pH) are discussed in more than one section, often with the more technical aspects of the topic discussed before the basics. A little more attention needs to be given to making that chapter, in particular, more reader-friendly. The other chapters, however, are thorough, interesting, and at the appropriate level.

What a great resource! This book lays out everything you need know to organically grow healthy, vigorous plants (edible and ornamental) from root to leaf, from soil prep to harvest. There are helpful pictures, graphics, diagrams and charts to visually explain complex information, and a few how-to sections that walk you through a process step by step. This book takes away the intimidation/complexity worry that many have about growing organic.

For general public. This book can be consulted to create or maintain a community garden or a backyard garden. Very good tools, step by step techniques and educational section.

An inspiring book to get back in touch with nature in your own back yard:
My parents used to have an organic garden long before anybody called it organic. Our fruit and vegetables always were delicious. Now I would like to grow some herbs and vegetables in my backyard, and I believe doing this organically is the best way to go. This book delivers a practical overview over the philosophy behind organic gardening and organic gardening methods. Mark Highland covers a lot we should know about organic gardening in his book: analyzing and preparing the soil, planting and propagating plants, organic pest and weed control, watering, lawn maintenance and proper care of container plants. I like Mark's idea of leaving the garden a little bit "messy" to supply food and cover for the birds. I especially love the beautiful organic landscape transformation of a front yard with grains and flowers and I am trying to figure out how I could do something similar in my own front yard. I can only recommend this book to all beginning gardeners and those who have not been gardening organically before.

Whilst I would not call myself a purist, as a very keen gardener, and passionate vegetable gardener and cook, I have focused more and more on organic methods of producing our food. So Mark Highland’s guiding principle of “first do no harm” ensured that this book would be of interest to me.

The book is well written, full of interesting information, yet easy to read. The first chapters on soil, including the basic science of soil layers, soil types and soil properties, and caring for the soil was excellent, although non-USA readers must be aware that the tables of information on soil types are for the USA only. I was delighted to see details on no till methods (in the UK we call this no-dig) to reduce soil compaction.

Further interesting reading can be found in chapters on organic fertilizers and amendments , fighting pests and diseases naturally. I found the table of various insects, including cultural treatment and organic pest control useful, although I would have liked to see scientific names for the insects. Chapters on being water smart and propagation techniques were good too. I could relate to the comment that sitting reading a seed catalogue is “close to nirvana for a gardener in the winter months when all is cold and wet outside” !

I found the chapters to the end of the book to be less useful for me. Great detail on lawns, but then only a very small section on bees. Planning and maintaining your organic garden and container gardening organically could have been left to another book? For me it felt as if it was an effort to cram everything into one book and detracted (just a little!) from my overall enjoyment of this book.

Good concise for beginners wanting to garden with organic methods. Horticultural advice not suited to temperate and above Australia. However the book still contains inspiration and basic info applicable to Gardeners everywhere.

Goodreads Synopsis:
Practical Organic Gardening sprouts homegrown, healthy edibles and other safe plants that are nourishing and tasty for your family, pets, and beneficial wildlife.

Organic gardening has been a popular gardening method for most of the past century, but interest in organic gardening has soared in recent years as gardeners have become more aware of the quality of their food.

Now is your chance to learn with this comprehensive book. Written by Mark Highland, founder of The Organic Mechanic, this is far from a hippie manifesto; it is a scientifically driven, modern-day dive into the organic methods, products, and practices that will appeal to any home gardener looking to make the transition from conventional to organic.

My Review:
I received a copy of Practical Organic Gardening from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Now I hate saying this, but I really don't usually read books like this. I thought, hey I want to get into gardening, saw this in the catalog, and decided to give it a shot since it was pre-approved. Though this book is full of pictures, which I wasn't expecting, you really learn a lot reading it, not only about gardening but the background of it as well. It read like a textbook, but I knew what I was getting myself into. The book is really informative about climate change, and although only having one organic garden might not change the world, it does actually do wonders for the soil and the animals around the area. Definitely check it out if you want to be more informed on the world of organic gardening.

Here's a link to the book on Amazon and another link to the authors twitter.

https://www.amazon.ca/Practical-Organic-Gardening-No-Nonsense-Naturally/dp/1591866871/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516260108&sr=8-1&keywords=Practical+Organic+Gardening+Mark+Highland

https://twitter.com/organicmechanix

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More than just an organic gardening guide, this book is basically a how-to for everything you need to know about your garden. A good resource for gardening noobs.

I was excited to read this book since I would love to grow an organic garden but I definitely need some help! I should have learned from my grandfather, but now at least I have help from this book. I definitely have no desire to slather pesticides on my food or in my yard where my kids play, so organic is the only way I'll do a garden at all. With this book, I might actually succeed at it....