Ultimate Guide to Soil

Grow twice the fruits and vegetables in half the space on the farm, in the backyard, or even in your window! Have you noticed the extraordinary flavors and yields emanating from even a small garden when the soil is just right? If you've ever been envious of your neighbor's dirt or just curious about homesteading, then The Ultimate Guide to Soil is the perfect fit for you. This second volume in the series walks new and experienced gardeners through turning a good garden into a great garden using no-till techniques. Learn to create a vegetable plot from scratch without heavy machinery. Deal with common soil problems like waterlogging, excessive drainage, compaction, and urban subsoil. Then take your skill set to the next level with labor-saving techniques like solarization and spot kill mulches. Finally, the last chapter in this eBook expands your reach beyond the traditional garden and into containers and aquaponics. With an emphasis on simple techniques suitable for the backyard gardener, The Ultimate Guide to Soil gives you the real dirt on good soil. Maybe next year your neighbor will be envious of you!

Grow twice the fruits and vegetables in half the space on the farm, in the backyard, or even in your window! Have you noticed the extraordinary flavors and yields emanating from even a small garden when the soil is just right? If you've ever been envious of your neighbor's dirt or just curious about homesteading, then The Ultimate Guide to Soil is the perfect fit for you. This third volume in the series walks new and experienced gardeners through bringing their soil into balance via remineralizion and pH correction. Learn chemical quick fixes for out-of-whack garden plots, then dive into slower-but-surer techniques utilizing cows, goats, chickens, mushrooms, cover crops, dynamic accumulators, and more. If merely adding compost to your soil isn't improving yields the way you think it should, then the simple approaches in this book should have you up and running in no time. Maybe next year your neighbor will be envious of you!

Feed your garden and your garden will feed you. This final installment in The Ultimate Guide to Soil series walks new and experienced gardeners through using dozens of amendments for fertilizing, mulching, and conditioning the organic garden. Hess starts with traditional materials like compost and cover crops, branches out into permaculture goodies such as biochar and hugelkultur, and comes full circle with both urban and rural waste products including cardboard and humanure. Based on a decade growing all of her family's vegetables using organic techniques, the author steers readers away from potential hazards like weedy straw and heavy-metal-imbued inks. Then she suggests both quick fixes and slow-but-sure options for integrating found and purchased amendments into troubled ground to create a garden paradise. Don't miss this conclusion to a series that has been described as "Easy, useful, and homestead tested." You'll recoup the cost of this book with your first nutrient-dense bunch of homegrown asparagus and the increased flavors in your existing garden will be icing on the cake.