ISSUE #34.25 • SPECIAL SECTION •

Books

[April 30th, 2008]

Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades: The Complete Guide to Organic Gardening

by Steve Solomon (Sasquatch Books, 368 pages, $21.95)

Now in its sixth edition, this is the pinnacle of old-school wisdom on doing veggies in our bipolar, sodden-then-parched climate. It offers details on the most suitable edibles from spinach to spuds, including planting strategies, how to save seed and whether each lends itself to dry gardening. Another popular feature is his recipe for making a four-ingredient organic fertilizer to unlock the hidden strengths in our soil type.

Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times

by Steve Solomon (New Society Publishers, 360 pages, $19.95)

You think you’re politically perturbed? The man who founded Territorial Seed Co. and taught Cascadians how to raise vegetables has battened down the peak-oil hatches and gone from off-the-grid Oregon right off the continent. Writing from his new farm in Tasmania, Solomon shows how a family (albeit one that enjoys a good root vegetable) can supply itself with half its food on a city lot, without running up the water or fertilizer bill. If you’re near Tasmania, Solomon invites the likeminded stop in “for a cuppa.” Or read his website at soilandhealth.org.

McGee & Stuckey’s Bountiful Container: Create Container Gardens of Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Edible Flowers

by Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey (Workman Publishing, 400 pages, $17.95)

Two wonderful Willamette Valley cooks and gardeners prove you don’t need to own any earth at all, or even get your knees dirty, to enjoy abundant crops and home-grown meals. Stuckey container-gardens on a patio “the size of a handkerchief.” McGee, owner of half-century-old Nichols Garden Nursery in Albany, has a simpatico blog, the Gardener’s Pantry, at nicholsgardennursery.wordpress.com.

Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long

by Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch (Chelsea Green, 236 pages, $24.95)

You fair-weather Willamette Valley gardeners think you need the store “the other eight months” of the food year? This chemical-free couple grows and sells an astonishing variety of fruits and veggies year-round in Maine, eschewing artificial heat, thanks to ingenious crop-protection and storage strategies. We weather wimps from the Other Portland apparently need to get crackin’ and embrace those muddy rutabagas.