The Organic Garden Green and Easy - Softcover

Shepherd, Allan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007290918 ISBN 13: 9780007290918

Publisher: Harpercollins Pub Ltd, 2009

Synopsis

The meaning of "organic" is changing fast, becoming more and more an umbrella term for all things environmental from ethical consumerism, waste recycling, and self-sufficiency to new trends in wildlife-friendly, sustainable, and forest gardening. This resource reveals why these popular new areas of green living are relevant to the ordinary gardener and demonstrates simple, achievable ways of using these ideas to transform a garden. Topics covered include the essentials of organic practice, gardening for wildlife and ornament, gardening for food, exploring alternatives for outdoor living, gardening beyond the garden conservation volunteering and community gardening, and climate change and today’s gardener.

About this title

About the Author

Allan Shepherd is the author of The Little Book of Compost, The Little Book of Garden Heroes, The Little Book of Slugs, and The Organic Garden.

From Publishers Weekly

Shepherd takes the notion of organic gardening to a new level with this poetic guide that "treats gardening as the starting point for a whole organic lifestyle." With a holistic attitude reminiscent of the back-to-the-land hippie days, Shepherd begins with the premise that farmer's markets, community gardens and organic gardening are thriving because "people have rediscovered what it's like to be part of something." At turns whimsical and practical, he writes, "I enter my garden and immediately want to slow down to the pace of a snail." In this leisurely spirit, the first part delves mainly into atmospheric and social considerations (benches, hedges, fences and sheds) and how to achieve them sustainably. Only then does it address the more traditional gardening topics of microclimate, soil, planting and pests. Shepherd's 10 principles of organic gardening-"create space," "soil is everything," "make a social space," among them-provide underpinnings for the overlapping themes of the book, which, although light on the step-by-step instructions novices might expect, provides something less tangible but perhaps more important: a vivid taste of why gardeners love to garden.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Harpercollins Pub Ltd
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0007290918
• ISBN 13: 9780007290918
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256