Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web

• Publisher:   Timber Press, Incorporated
• Number Of Pages:   196
• Publication Date:   2006-07-15
• ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0881927775
• ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780881927771

Teaming With Microbes enlightens readers in two important ways. First, in clear, straightforward language, it describes the activities of the organisms that make up the soil food web, from the simplest of single-cell organisms to more familiar multicellular animals such as insects, worms, and mammals. Second, the book explains how to foster and cultivate the life of the soil through the use of compost, mulches, and compost teas. By eschewing jargon, the authors make the text accessible to a wide audience, from devotees of organic gardening techniques to weekend gardeners who simply want to grow healthy, vigorous plants without resorting to chemicals.

I was disheartened to read in the Preface to "Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web" that the first part of the book would be difficult to get through. I pressed on. Very science-y. An excellent sleep inducer. No joke. I did fall asleep while reading it one warm afternoon. But it was definitely worth it. Like the authors, I urge you to read the entire book and not just the second part which is the heart of the book. Their argument boils down to one sentence: "No one ever fertilized an old-growth forest". Think about all the wild places you have ever seen, lush with growth. How did they get that way without the help of Scott's or Miracle-Gro? And if Scott's and Miracle-Gro are so superior, why don't our yards and gardens look better than those wild places? The authors' thesis is that we should garden like Nature gardens, working with the flora and fauna in the soils rather than against it through the use of compost, organic mulches and actively aerated compost tea. Best of all, they provide precise instructions and call for materials that most of us have on hand anyways. No need for expensive ingredients or equipment! I was thrilled to discover that I am not a "lazy composter" as I have always thought. Instead, I practice cold composting (not turning the compost), a method that produces the most "nutritious" compost! And what I jokingly refer to as "composting in situ", using the mower to shred up leaves and dumping them with the grass clippings onto my beds in the fall is actually a recommended mulch. As are the leaves I leave in my gardens over the winter. The only thing I am doing wrong is removing the leaves in the spring. And my deepest, darkest secret is nothing to be ashamed of. Instead of carefully working my compost into the soil, I just spread it on top. Again, a recommended method for amending the soil! Of course, there are things that I have to do differently. Such as leaving the leaves on my beds. And even though I don't roto-till, I should still stop "loosening" the soil in the spring when I plant my seeds. The soil should be disturbed as little as possible. Planting in individual holes or narrow furrows is fine. I should learn to make and use actively aerated compost teas. Perhaps most importantly instead of throwing anything and everything into my composter, I should pay closer attention to the individual ingredients and their proportions, maybe go so far as to have different composters to make compost tailored to the needs of the various plants in my gardens. This is a wonderful book that I will be referring to again and again.

This book helped to fill in lots of blanks for me regarding the soil food web. I am a Master Composter and worm farmer and while I was aware these principals work I was not aware how they work. I will recommend this book to many others and use it to help teach schoolchildren in my volunteer work. Thanks for a great job.

This book is a must for the gardener, organic or not. I spent most of my gardening life not really understanding the nature of how things grow. This book explains it very good, especially for the non scientist/novice lke me. If you read it you will learn and if you follow it's principles you will have a better and more beautiful garden/lawn etc with less disease and insect problems without the use of chemicals or poisons of any kind...A MUST READ FOR THE GARDEN HOBBIEST!!! ********** ( I give it ten stars!)

From the first page through the last, this book is interesting. All of the little gardening mysteries that plagued me for so long are finally revealed in this book. I've heard the phrase "fixing nitrogen" for so long but never had it explained to me in a way that convinced me it wasn't just mumbo jumbo. This book explains what that means and why it is so important. I question everyting until it makes perfect sense to me. This book really makes sense. Read the instructions on a bag of organic fertilizer and it often says something like scratch the fertilizer into the top inch of soil around the plant. I always questioned this, because I knew my plants roots went way deeper than one inch and very few of them resided in the top inch of soil. If the product is really water soluable then maybe it will eventually soak into the root zone but most aren't. This book explains that you're not really feeding your plant directly. You are feeding the microbes that reside in that top inch of soil and they interact with one another in many fascinating ways that end up feeding your plant. If you are a gardener with an inquisitive mind, you will love this book I promise. I think the author is also working on a second edition. I can't wait.

I like mostly everyone liked this book; it opened my eyes to a better way to garden. The jury is still out on "Compost Tea", very little true long-term scientific trials so far, and E.Coli can be quickly introduced into the soil if brewed with poor compost and molasses, and/or poor equipment, for further reading go to the microbeorganics web site. Some "Organic" ingredients are not always organic, currently "Inert Ingredients", which could be non-organic, are not required to be listed. As far as balancing the best uses of "Organic" and non-organic "The Truth About Organic Gardening: Benefits, Drawbacks, and the Bottom Line" by Jeff Gillman would be an excellent follow-up read to this book, as well as "Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture" by Toby Hemenway. All-in-all an excellent book but the brewing thing should be handled very carefully; it is not a fix-all and could be very dangerous if not done properly. Finally rotor-tilling one time can actually be good for poor soil, just one time only not every year. Then consider "Sheet Mulching", so much easier.

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