BOOKCLUB : A Good Garden Book for the Science Minded Gardener

Gardening is a passion of mine. As you can tell from my blog posts. Reading is another and science is yet another. From sci-fi to mystery to science books, I am hardly ever without a book in my hand or sitting next to me on a side table. I value books, not just for the feel of turning a page, but because books hold memories and they can take you to different world, and they can be a means to celebrate what we can create, simply from our minds.

So, what I would like to achieve here on Steemit as one of my first projects, is to post a short description of a book that I think holds value, not just for me, but for many others. It would be great to say that I will post a new review each week - I will try - but life does get in the way and time is not always convenient to do this. I will try though. Plus, if you have a book that you like, especially if it's similar to the book that I am describing in my post - please feel free to comment about it.

I am tagging these posts with #bookclub. So here is today's Book Post:

Every year at this time, I dig out my seeds from the year before, clean up the seed trays and cells and pull out some of my favorite gardening books. I have several that are dog-eared, have writing in the margins and have notes and torn paper stuck in between pages as bookmarks. The web is a wonderful place to find information but I still like that hard cover or paperbound book that I can pull from the shelf year after year. Maybe it's because I worked in the printing and book publishing industry for many years and books are a part of my life.

Photo of book: Teaming with Microbes - by J. Lowenfels and W. Lewis

With my chemistry and mathematics background I tend towards science-heavy gardening books. I like to get down to the base science to see how things really tick. I've always been that way. My parents would hide their clocks, radios and tape players from me because I was always dis-assembling and re-assembling. So it's natural that I like to dis-assemble the garden world to re-assemble it to be better.

The book that I am writing about today, is actually one of a series of three books by the author; Jeff Lowenfels. The first book in his series was co-written with Wayne Lewis and is titled: Teaming with Microbes - The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web. The other two books are about nutrients and fungi. All are very easy to read, even for a lay person and contain a lot of useful and practical information.

The book is basically written in two parts, with the customary appendices and index. The first part explains the science, taking each part of what makes up a handful of soil, and explaining how that part works with all the rest. This includes chapters on soil science, bacteria, fungi, algae, earthworms and even above ground critters like birds and reptiles. The second part is how all of that applies to your gardening.

The book is about the biology and the microbiology of the soil. It is about the predictability of the relationships between the soil and the organisms living in and on the soil and how that relates and impacts plant life, especially your garden. When you stick your hands into the soil, it's not just rock and minerals, but it contains whole colonies of living creatures. When you use harsh chemicals on that soil, you can disrupt the symbiotic relationships that exist below the soil horizon and consequently harm or even destroy the soil's ability to support healthy plant growth.

In this book, you learn about important ratios that keep your soil in balance, such as the carbon to nitrogen ratio and the fungal vs. bacterial dominance ratio. Later in the book, Jeff and Wayne talk about composting, vermiculture, weeds and pests, and they give recipes and directions on how to apply the soil food web science to your gardening process.

I may be incorrect but I believe this book was originally written around 2006, but the book that I have is copyrighted for the year 2010 (its second printing) and is the Revised Edition. I purchased it fresh off the shelf the week that it came out and it has gone on my shelf and been taken down off my shelf hundreds of times.

@jefflowenfels and @waynelewis

A good book endures over time. It can be passed on even as it ages. It is an investment that pays for itself over and over.