Comments on: Classic Book Review: How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible (etc. etc.)

By: Simon

Simon — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:28:35 +0000

I've put my comments about this on my blog here

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 22:50:38 +0000

I’ve read the book and constantly refer to it when needed. However, double-digging (AKA “bastard trenching”) is woefully out of date and needlessly laborious from a permaculture perspective. Not only does it invert the natural soil strata, but it also wantonly kills necessary fungal hyphae that already exist in the soil. Why on Earth would we want to do this? This is certainly not a natural process found in nature, except perhaps, where landslides have occurred, so it is thoroughly unnecessary.

The preferred method of building wide, raised bed is the technique outlined by Toby Hemenway (as originally proposed by Patricia Lanza in ‘Lasagna Gardening’) in his fantastic book ‘Gaia’s Garden’: sheet mulching/composting/soil layering right on top of the existing soil. Granted, this takes time, but in many cases where the native soil is so poor (as it is here in the Sierra foothills of N. CA), this process can be expedited in a matter of hours with additional healthy soil, compost or humus brought in from off site. The best thing is, it will save your back and a whole lotta sweat.

Great book, but save your back!

By: ROG

ROG — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:20:45 +0000

Yes it's a great and inspiring book, no. 1 in my opinion.It also has plenty of charts and tables which for a beginner can be a bit off-putting. So I agree with James - Square Foot Gardening is a great way of entering this method gently - (but it needs to be done organically). The biointensive approach really does work. On moving to Australia I had real problems getting anything at all to grow in the (by European standards)ridiculously infertile Blue Mountains soil. The key was to start with the soil, by serious composting in raised beds. Some Australians seem to be taken with 'no dig' gardening, but I've had poor results from this. Much better has been to start with a big dig, then add compost on top in successive years. Jeavons recommends a kind of 'closed loop', where you grow crops specifically for composting. This is great (especially if you grow compost crops you can also eat) but one of the features of modern life is that everyone with a garden has masses of compostable material with nowhere to put it. So all you need to do is ask the neighbours if you can take their 'green waste' off their hands. The other thing about How to Grow More Veg... is that it appears to suggest you're going to grow all your family's food. Much better to start very small, perfect the growing methods, then expand gradually. that way you don't get the burnout from over-reaching yourself that Greenpa wrote about. I think the main limit on food growing isn't space, ir even water - it's time.

By: Greenpa

Greenpa — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:37:47 +0000

There are a couple of requirements for any intensive management system that are almost always kind of casually not mentioned.

The manager has to be pretty intelligent.

And the manager has to have the time to do the work. Without fail.

It’s a very seductive idea- but my impression is that 90% of the folks who start this kind of operation wind up with “well, it didn’t work because_____” fill in the blank. My daughter broke her arm. (she did!). The chickens got into the beds. We had to go to a wedding, and the weeds took over, and I never got it back together. Etc. The dog ate my peas.

Now- I’m not opposed to the concept- it really can be wildly successful, and fulfilling. But I wish the books would cover the human end of the bargin more, and give instructions for how to really succeed, in the long run.

When you see a really successful one, there’s almost always one person, with a massive case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, who is responsible. Either that or a full family- with grandparents, parents, and children; all involved, and all taking responsibility…

By: RS

RS — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:47:50 +0000

I use Jeavons and Larkcom as my core books although I am not perfect in practice.

Found to my astonishment that a couple of the very old sources he referred to were on the shelf at my parent’s house.

Some of these ideas have been around since the 1930’s and we still do not get it?

By: James

James — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:07:41 +0000

I bought this book on recommendation. Yes it is full of great ideas but too complicated for a beginner in an urban garden. For that I’d recommend Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening. The principles are very similar but much simplified. I started with square foot gardening in my medium-sized back garden and have now progressed on to the Jevons system – increasing yeilds (even more).

James
Transition Stratford-upon-Avon

By: Joanne Poyourow

Joanne Poyourow — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:18:00 +0000

I too love this book, and my copy looks pretty bad (mud, coffee spills, lots of notes taken inside) but at least mine still has some residue of a cover on it!

I like to tell people in my garden classes that this is a book you’ll use as a beginner, you’ll use it when you’re an intermediate level gardener, and you’ll return to it as an veteran gardener of vegetables.

It gives a broad overview for the newbie, but the intensity of the charts and calculations are invaluable for even those who have been gardening for a very long time. I’ve grown veggies for more than 12 years, but still dived back into this book when presented with a new, much larger scale garden project.

As an accompanying text for beginners I recommend Rodale’s Successful Organic Gardening: Vegetables by Patricia S. Michalak (1993) which has color photos and brief descriptions of all the common veggies. It is a nice compliment to Jeavons.

Joanne Poyourow
Transition Los Angeles

By: Peter Bralesford

Peter Bralesford — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:04:55 +0000

I have this book, and it is brilliant. I’ve only done one raised bad at the moment, and it’s certainly a lot less work (In the long run, at least.) than conventional gardening.

By: Brad’s Take » Blog Archive » On “Grow more vegetables”

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:54:13 +0000

[...] Culture does a review on the classic gardening book, “How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought [...]

By: Mark Forskitt

Mark Forskitt — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:54:48 +0000

I endorse that – Jeavon’s book is a great starting point and jam packed with really useful material in the master tables. He skips over some essential practical information that you need to know about processing grains if you want to become a mini-farmer. If you can find a copy of Small scale grain growing by Gene Logsdon, that will fill the gap very well.

Oh and his idea of the amount of garlic a family of 4 needs is way too low!