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2 Beaverton Gardening- Composting and Mulching
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2 Home & Garden Gardening- Composting and Mulching
25 Local Warehouse Gardening- Organic Gardening
15 Remote Warehouse Gardening- General
1 Technical Environmental Engineering- Sustainable Living

This title in other formats:

The Complete Compost Gardening Guide

by Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin

The Complete Compost Gardening Guide Cover

Staff Pick

After obsessing over house projects, it's refreshing and lovely to go outside and play in the dirt for a while. Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin's Complete Compost Gardening Guide is the best book on composting that I've ever read. Full of color photos and useful information, this book is a fantastic resource for making your own "black gold." Pleasant and Martin introduce the reader to different kinds of composting, such as "comforter compost" and banner batches, and explain how to "activate" your compost with dry dog food and kill pesky weed seeds. They also give the lowdown on tools, explain what materials to put in your pile, and tell why sifting compost is a good idea. If you think that composting is just putting kitchen scraps into a black plastic Metro bin, you'd better read this great book.
Recommended by Carole R., Powell's Technical Books

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:


Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin turn the compost bin upside down with their liberating system of keeping compost heaps right in the garden, rather than in some dark corner behind the garage. The compost and the plants live together from the beginning in a nourishing, organic environment. The authors' bountiful, compost-rich gardens require less digging, weeding, mulching, and even less planting. And here's one of the best parts: and no more backbreaking slogs from compost bin to garden. The authors even identify the plants that benefit most from compost and how the elements of a composted garden work together.

A natural Six-Way Compost Gardening System provides the ruling principles for successfully improving every garden with healthy compost. Readers will learn how to:

  • Choose labor-saving sites that keep gardens and compost piles as close to one another as possible.
  • Work with the compostable riches produced at home. Every yard and kitchen produces plenty of material and easily identified with at-a-glance charts and for a great start
  • Help composting critters do their work by balancing ingredients, adding high-nitrogen meals when needed, and keeping the compost moist
  • Reuse recycling bin items, such as large plastic buckets and cardboard boxes, as composting equipment
  • Keep diversity in the mix. The magic is in the variety of the components and how they work together to create "gardener's gold"
  • Customize composting to suit specific garden needs, always concentrating first on soil care

Adhering to these guidelines, Pleasant and Martin bring readers on a thorough, informative tour of materials and innovative techniques, leading the way to an efficient and rewarding home gardening system. Their methods are sure to help gardeners turn average vegetable plots into rich incubators of healthy produce, bursting with fresh flavor, and flower beds into rich tapestries of bountiful blooms all season long.

Book News Annotation:

Compost devotees think outside the compost bin in presenting ways to better utilize this garden resource. After introducing the rationale for and basics of recycling organic materials, Pleasant and Martin present such labor-saving techniques as banner batches, grow heaps, and "catch-and-release" vermicomposting. They also address the challenges of composting such materials as dead fish and old bones, and provide recipes for compost tea and special soils for specific crops. The well-illustrated guide, commended by Mother Earth News, includes safety tips, a glossary, and compost gardening resources (including the authors' Web site). Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Synopsis:

Turn the compost bin upside down! The nutritious, organic diet your garden craves is as simple as creating compost heaps right in the garden. Plants and compost live together in labor-and time-saving harmony, producing bright, sweet, juicy vegetables all season long.

About the Author

Barbara Pleasant has written five books for Storey, including the Garden Writer's Association 2003 Garden Globe Award of Achievement winner, Garden Stone. She lives in Virginia.Deborah L. Martin's affection for compost dates back to The Rodale Book of Composting, which she edited. A former garden book editor at Rodale Press, Martin edited numerous popular titles and recently contributed chapters to Rodale's 100 Easy Garden Projects to Make, Build, or Grow. She has also written for Organic Gardeningand Horticulturemagazines. She lives in Pennsylvania.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
Bonnie Johnson, April 3, 2009 (view all comments by Bonnie Johnson)
I'm a garden book junkie. As a kid I spent many an Alaskan winter pouring over every single gardening book I could get my hands on. If only this book had existed then!

This is exactly the kind of composting book I had always looked for and never found, until today!

It's comprehensive, detailed, and entertaining to read. It covers everything including bins, pit composting, vermicomposting, and even growing plants in your compost pile! There are instructions for making your own tumble composter, making your own worm bin, and how to make that banner compost heap for quick composting.

The pictures are fantastic, yet not overwhelming. The author's writing style is fun and informative. I just can't praise this book enough!

The ultimate compost book - hands down!
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dullheat, April 13, 2008 (view all comments by dullheat)
This book describes in detail the benefits of setting up a composting site. Composting not only benefits you, but benefits the environment. It is critical to our world's future that we act now in taking simple steps such as composting to reduce the amount of waste that goes into our landfills. Please educate yourself, your children, and anyone else around you of the benefits of composting, you can better a life and a world!
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781580177023
Author:
Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin
Publisher:
Storey Publishing
Author:
Martin, Deborah
Author:
Pleasant, Barbara
Author:
Martic, Deborah
Author:
Martin, Deborah L.
Subject:
Techniques
Subject:
Organic
Subject:
Protection
Subject:
NATURE / Environmental Conservation and Protection
Subject:
Compost
Copyright:
Edition Description:
Paperback
Publication Date:
March 2008
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
319
Dimensions:
10.87 x 8.5 in

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