Steve Solomon – författare

The decline of cheap oil is inspiring increasing numbers of North Americans to achieve some measure of backyard food self-sufficiency. In hard times, the family can be greatly helped by growing a highly productive food garden, requiring little cash outlay or watering. Currently popular intensive vegetable gardening methods are largely inappropriate to this new circumstance. Crowded raised beds require high inputs of water, fertility and organic matter, and demand large amounts of human time and effort. But, except for labor, these inputs depend on the price of oil. Prior to the 1970s, North American home food growing used more land with less labor, with wider plant spacing, with less or no irrigation, and all done with sharp hand tools. But these sustainable systems have been largely forgotten. Gardening When It Counts helps readers rediscover traditional low-input gardening methods to produce healthy food. Designed for readers with no experience and applicable to most areas in the English-speaking world except the tropics and hot deserts, this book shows that any family with access to 3-5,000 sq. ft. of garden land can halve their food costs using a growing system requiring just the odd bucketful of household waste water, perhaps two hundred dollars worth of hand tools, and about the same amount spent on supplies - working an average of two hours a day during the growing season.Steve Solomon is a well-known west coast gardener and author of five previous books, including Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades which has appeared in five editions.

Vegetables, fruits, and grains are a major source of vital nutrients, but centuries of intensive agriculture have depleted our soils to historic lows. As a result, the broccoli you consume today may have less than half of the vitamins and minerals that the equivalent serving would have contained a hundred years ago. This is a matter for serious concern, since poor nutrition has been linked to myriad health problems including cancer, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. For optimum health we must increase the nutrient density of our foods to the levels enjoyed by previous generations. To grow produce of the highest nutritional quality the essential minerals lacking in our soil must be replaced, but this re-mineralization calls for far more attention to detail than the simple addition of composted manure or NPK fertilizers. The Intelligent Gardener demystifies the process while simultaneously debunking much of the false and misleading information perpetuated by both the conventional and organic agricultural movements. In doing so, it conclusively establishes the link between healthy soil, healthy food, and healthy people.This practical step-by-step guide and the accompanying customizable web-based spreadsheets go beyond organic and are essential tools for any serious gardener who cares about the quality of the produce they grow. Steve Solomon is the author of several landmark gardening books including Gardening When it Counts and Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades. The founder of the Territorial Seed Company, he has been growing most of his family's food for over thirty-five years.

"...Unfortunately everything that I wrote before high school was lost with time. But I did manage to save a fair collection of pieces from high school and college days. Aside from my poems book from high school, it wasnt till 2010(and thanks to Facebook) that I actually started taking my poems off the scraps of paper I scribbled them on and put them where I can save them. Then one day I noticed I had a significant number of poems and got the idea to make a book. I selected the ones I wanted to share and compiled them here."

This book was written to help educate the general public about the virtues of natural medicine and to encourage the next generation of natural healers. I was a physically tough, happy-go-lucky fellow until I reached my late thirties. Then I began to experience more and more off days when I did not feel quite right. I thought I possessed an iron constitution. Although I grew a big food garden and ate mostly vegetablitarian I thought I could eat anything with impunity. I had been fond of drinking beer with my friends while nibbling on salty snacks or heavy foods late into the night. And until my health began to weaken I could still get up the next morning after several homebrewed beers, feeling good, and would put in a solid days work. When my health began to slip I went looking for a cure. Up to that time the only use Id had for doctors was to fix a few traumatic injuries. The only preventative health care I concerned myself with was to take a multivitamin pill during those rare spells when I felt a bit run down and to eat lots of vegetables. So Id not learned much about alternative health care. Naturally, my first stop was a local general practitioner/MD. He gave me his usual half-hour get-acquainted checkout and opined that there almost certainly was nothing wrong with me. I suspect I had the good fortune to encounter an honest doctor, because he also said if it were my wish he could send me around for numerous tests but most likely these would not reveal anything either. More than likely, all that was wrong was that I was approaching 40; with the onset of middle age I would naturally have more aches and pains. Take some aspirin and get used to it, was his advice. Itll only get worse. Finally, I should mention that over the years since this book was written I have discovered contains some significant errors of anatomical or psysiological detail. Most of these happened because the book was written off the top of Isabelles head, without any reference materials at hand, not even an anatomy text. I have not fixed these goofs as I am not even qualified to find them all. Thus, when the reader reads such as the pancreas secreates enzymes into the stomach, (actually and correctly, the duodenum) I hope they will understand and not invalidate the entire book. [AUTHORS]

Gardening Without Irrigation is a novel written by Steve Solomon. Soil moisture loss averages 1-1/2 inches per week during summer in the eastern U.S. West of the Cascades, bare soil may not lose much moisture at all. By creatively using and conserving this moisture, some Northwest gardeners can go through an entire summer without irrigation. A plant wilts out of self-preservation when it can no longer absorb as much water as it is losing. Water is so crucial to life. In deep, open soil west of the Cascades, most vegetable species may be grown quite successfully without irrigation or mulching. Let's suppose that on April 1 the soil in this bare plot was at capacity, holding all the moisture it can. From early April until well into September the hot sun will beat down on the bare plot. The soil serves as their bank account, storing the water that is accessible. Water will eventually rise by capillary action from below the root zone if the soil body is deep.

Gardening Without Irrigation is a novel written by Steve Solomon. Soil moisture loss averages 1-1/2 inches per week during summer in the eastern U.S. West of the Cascades, bare soil may not lose much moisture at all. By creatively using and conserving this moisture, some Northwest gardeners can go through an entire summer without irrigation. A plant wilts out of self-preservation when it can no longer absorb as much water as it is losing. Water is so crucial to life. In deep, open soil west of the Cascades, most vegetable species may be grown quite successfully without irrigation or mulching. Let's suppose that on April 1 the soil in this bare plot was at capacity, holding all the moisture it can. From early April until well into September the hot sun will beat down on the bare plot. The soil serves as their bank account, storing the water that is accessible. Water will eventually rise by capillary action from below the root zone if the soil body is deep.

Organic Gardener's Composting is a novel written by Steve Solomon and starts with a chapter about some composters who are very fussy and take great pains to produce a material exactly to their liking. Simple, less rigorous ways of composting produce a product nearly as good with much less work. One unique method suited to handling kitchen garbage might appeal even to the ecologically concerned apartment dweller. The overly-large garden produces dozens and dozens of stumps and uneaten savoy cabbages. Sprouting potatoes, mildewed squash, and shriveled apples are spread atop brassica stalks. With the first frost in October, there is a huge amount of garden cleanup. Compost turning can be a laborious, sweat-inducing, back-breaking task or it can be rather quick and simple. Even with a really sharp shovel, it is exceedingly challenging to penetrate a compost pile. One requires a hay fork, sometimes known as a "pitchfork" by most people. Spading forks with four wide-flat blades don't work well for turning heaps, but in extremes, I'd prefer one to a shovel. The normal "combination" shovel is made for builders to move piles of sand or gravel. A combination shovel has a decidedly curved blade that won't scrape up very much with each stroke.