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  • From: Pat Meadows <pat AT meadows.pair.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Three new books of great interest to market farmers and gardeners
  • Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:17:45 -0500


Just want to let you all know about three new and very interesting books;
one by Eliot Coleman, one by Gene Logsdon, and one co-authored by Sharon
Astyk and Aaron Newton.

Pat

=========================================================================

1. 'A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil',
Sharon Astyk and Aaron Newton. I wish they hadn't used the word 'American'
in the title (maybe the publisher did it). I suspect that much of their
book is relevant to everywhere in the Developed World. Sharon's first
book ('Depletion and Abundance') was, for my money, the BEST book yet on
adapting to Peak Oil/Global Warming, and so on. Her blog is here:
www.sharonastyk.com .

Amazon says:

Once we could fill our grocery carts with cheap and plentiful food, but not
anymore. Cheap food has gone the way of cheap oil. Climate change is
already reducing crop yields worldwide. The cost of flying in food from far
away and shipping it across the country in refrigerated trucks is rapidly
becoming unviable. Cars and cows increasingly devour grain harvests,
sending prices skyrocketing. More Americans than ever before require food
stamps and food pantries just to get by, and a worldwide food crisis is
unfolding, overseas and in our kitchens.

We can keep hunger from stalking our families, but doing so will require a
fundamental shift in our approach to field and table. A Nation of Farmers
examines the limits and dangers of the globalized food system and shows how
returning to the basics is our best hope. The book includes in-depth
guidelines for:

* Creating resilient local food systems
* Growing, cooking, and eating sustainably and naturally
* Becoming part of the solution to the food crisis

The book argues that we need to make self-provisioning, once the most
ordinary of human activities, central to our lives. The results will be
better food, better health, better security, and freedom from corporations
that don’t have our interests at heart.

This is critical reading for anyone who eats and cares about high-quality
food.

=======================================================================================

2. 'Small-Scale Grain Raising, Second Edition: An Organic Guide to Growing,
Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains, for Home Gardeners and Local
Farmers' by Gene Logsdon. I'm sure that a lot of folks here are familiar
with Logsdon's writing and will want to order this book.

Amazon says:

In 'Small-Scale Grain Raising', Logsdon lays out clearly just how easy it
can be to grow grains for your family and your livestock, from his beloved
“pancake patch” up to acre-sized plots. Interspersed with good-humored
vintage anecdotes and his usual Contrary Farmer commentary, this primer
elevates the status of grain-growing on farms of all sizes (from the
backyard on up) to a happy essential. As he states repeatedly, there’s
nothing so delicious — or so economical — as home-baked goods made with
fresh grains you grew and milled yourself. And when those same home-grown
grains can also feed your animals and build soil fertility… well, what’s
stopping you?

Logsdon’s book covers all of the well-known grains and several of the
lesser ones: barley, buckwheat, corn, millet, oats, rice, spelt, sorghum,
triticale, wheat, and others. He also devotes a chapter to soybeans and
dried beans, despite their classification as legumes, because they partner
so well with grains both in growing and in eating. For at least the major
grains he discusses varieties, yields, nutritional value, and uses (both
for human and animal consumption as well as other farm uses). He describes
how to prepare the soil, how to plant the grain seeds (including optimal
space requirements), what diseases and pests to watch for and how to deal
with them, how to harvest and dry the grains, how to store them, and,
finally, how to turn those seeds into food for your family.

Drawing on his personal experience growing almost all of the major grains,
Logsdon describes “how we do it” even when it contrasts with conventional
wisdom. He touts the value of open-pollinated seed, despite advances in
hybrids, because of their superior taste and the satisfaction of not being
beholden to agribusiness. He also demonstrates that old hand tools and
techniques can sometimes be the most efficient when growing on a small
scale. For example, though corn may be harvested by machine, he outlines
how to bundle corn stalks into shocks for easy, inexpensive drying and
storage (and aesthetic value). He claims to keep a basket full of old socks
to slip over ripening ears of corn to prevent wild animals from dining on
his crops. (I’d like to see that!) And for his money, the best weed control
— the one to which pests never develop resistance — is the hoe.

================================================================
3. 'The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using
Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses' by Eliot Coleman. From a
discussion on another list, I gather that this is NOT the handbook that
Coleman has been selling from his farm; this is a very revised and expanded
version of it of that Coleman has been working on a long time.

Amazon says:

Choosing locally grown organic food is a sustainable living trend that’s
taken hold throughout North America. Celebrated farming expert Eliot
Coleman helped start this movement with The New Organic Grower published 20
years ago. He continues to lead the way, pushing the limits of the harvest
season while working his world-renowned organic farm in Harborside, Maine.

Now, with his long-awaited new book, The Winter Harvest Handbook, anyone
can have access to his hard-won experience. Gardeners and farmers can use
the innovative, highly successful methods Coleman describes in this
comprehensive handbook to raise crops throughout the coldest of winters.

Building on the techniques that hundreds of thousands of farmers and
gardeners adopted from The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest, this
new book focuses on growing produce of unparalleled freshness and quality
in customized unheated or, in some cases, minimally heated, movable plastic
greenhouses.

Coleman offers clear, concise details on greenhouse construction and
maintenance, planting schedules, crop management, harvesting practices, and
even marketing methods in this complete, meticulous, and illustrated guide.
Readers have access to all the techniques that have proven to produce
higher-quality crops on Coleman’s own farm.

His painstaking research and experimentation with more than 30 different
crops will be valuable to small farmers, homesteaders, and experienced home
gardeners who seek to expand their production seasons.

A passionate advocate for the revival of small-scale sustainable farming,
Coleman provides a practical model for supplying fresh, locally grown
produce during the winter season, even in climates where conventional
wisdom says it “just can’t be done.

=========================================================================
-- North-Central Pennsylvania, USA
www.meadows.pair.com/articleindex.html

The world has enough for everyone's need,
but not enough for everyone's greed.

Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi.






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