Editorial Reviews

Book Description:
Before it was a book, The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food was organic gardener Tanya L. K. Denckla’s highly prized personal database, the distillation of years of careful research and hands-on, real-life, dirt-under-the-fingernails experience in growing her own vegetables, herbs, fruits, and nuts. Now available to all, this easy-to-read sourcebook offers much to gardeners of all skill levels, answering questions quickly and authoritatively so more time can be spent enjoying the garden. Six comprehensive chapters cover vegetables, fruits and nuts, herbs, organic remedies, and allies and companions. Within each chapter plants are arranged alphabetically, making needed information eminently accessible. Individual plant entries provide specific information on planting; temperature; soil and water needs; measurements; seed-starting dates; pests, diseases, allies, companions, and incompatibles, as applicable; when to harvest; how to store produce; and overviews of selected varieties. Fully half of the book is dedicated to organic remedies that can prevent or combat plant diseases and garden pests. Hundreds of common diseases and pests are discussed, as well as which plants are likely to be affected, how to recognize the problem, and tried-and-true natural remedies. The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food demystifies how to work collaboratively with the complex natural systems of the environment, making gardening a little easier and definitely more fun.

Customer Reviews

Easy to use - Rodale, move over by Cecil Bothwell
I have owned my copy of Rodale’s classic, Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, for well over 30 years. It has been my garden bible.

But times change. Denckla has created a much handier growers’ resource. In this book, she catalogues 765 varieties of vegetables, herbs, fruits and nuts and offers controls for 201 pests and diseases, but better than the numbers is the way she presents the information. For each species there is a clear, concise directory for every aspect of planting, culture and storage. It is really easy to use. The single best feature may be the planting charts for annuals that make it simple to calculate when to start the first and last seeds of the season, based on last and first frost dates. Rodale’s classic will never be far away, but from now on I will pick up Denckla’s first.

As an organic grower for nearly four decades and a garden columnist, I’m a pretty good judge of this genre (my own collection of garden writings will be out in 2008). The only place I take serious exception to Denckla’s advice concerns moles, which she treats as a garden pest. Moles are garden allies, consuming vast quantities of beetle larvae and other members of the enemy camp.

A good read and resource by gardenDragon
I practically read the book cover to cover when I got it home. While my gardening capacity is fairly limited at the moment, I still got a good deal of planning done. Each food item has an large amount of information. It’s great to have one resource for everything this book contains.

Good book - very thorough and well organized by Gotarun26.2
I would have given this book 5 starts except that the section on pest control, which is very important to an organic gardener names the pests and suggests control solutions but shows you no pictures of the pests so if you don’t know what the various insects (or for that matter diseases) look like, that’s not helpful.

Otherwise the book is well organized and contains a lot of useful information, especially in regard to what plants are allys and incompatible

Amazing resource by M. Christine Gyovai
This book is a marvel. I have given it to all of my gardening friends and regularly consult it for specifics on many vegetables. I highly recommend it!

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