Book Review: The Profitable Culture of Vegetables by Thomas Smith
Reviewed here: The Profitable Culture of Vegetables For Market Gardeners, Small Holders, and Others
By Thomas Smith
Published by Longmans, Green and Co. 1914 and Applewood Books in 2008
Reviewed here by Douglas Smith
Reading this will bring you bang up to up to date with the latest gardening techniques…of, well…1914 actually. But that said, the French Intensive garden system was the most intense and productive in Europe, and likely not matched since. It fell from grace due to increasing land prices around Paris pushing the market gardens further and further from the markets they hoped to support, combined with increasing scarcity of the crucial input of horse manure (up to 500 tons per acre per year!) as people swapped horse and cart for cars.
Some of the techniques (or volume of inputs!) aren’t applicable to us today, but others stand the test of time and are as relevant today as they were then. Cover to cover, this book has gems throughout and it’s a fascinating insight into the thinking of the time – and can only help you think of your own vegetable production methods in a new light and with new eyes. Some of the highlights for me included:
- Intricate glass cloche work and rotation on successional crops
- Landforming for early cropping using artificial south facing slopes followed by “hotbed” manure trench and broad bean windbreaks
- Frost protection – e.g. running shallow trenches with glass covers
- Detailed intercropping plans to make the most of space
The book’s available to download or read online at Archive.org for free – it will only cost your time. I came across this book in the small print in the back of Eliot Coleman’s New Organic Grower, and I’ve not been disappointed. A great historical read which still has relevance today. Highly recommended!
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With thanks to Douglas Smith for his review.
Five Books Dan Brisebois thinks new farmers should read
Today The Ruminant debuts a new feature that shares readers’ recommended reading for new farmers
About a month ago I unceremoniously created a page on this site that allows readers to suggest up to five books new farmers (or really, any farmers wishing to brush up on their knowledge) should consider reading. Until yesterday I hadn’t received any submissions. I now have three, and I’ve decided to feature the odd one on the main blog. The first is by Daniel Brisebois, an organic market gardener, seed producer, and co-author of Crop Planning for Vegetable Growers. Here are Dan’s suggestions:
Type of farming this list instructs: Great vegetable farming
Farming/Gardening Background of the submitter: I’ve been farming for 12 years. I run a CSA, market garden and seed company with 4 other folks (Tourne-Sol co-operative farm).
Book 1:
The Organic Farmer’s Handook, Richard Wiswall
This book will challenge you understanding of your farms profitability and make you wonder whether you should be growing so many peas. Tons of good business management advice.
Book 2:
Diseaese and Pests of Vegetable Crops in Canada. Entomological Society of Canada
Great pictures of horrible pests and diseases. 500+ pages of information and some management solutions. The best disease/pest reference.
Book 3:
Whole Farm Planning. Elizabeth Henderson and Karl North
A guide to set your farm goals to meet your financial, ecological, and quality of life targets. If you don’t take the time to set your targets, how can you know if you’re working towards them?
This a simplified version of Allan Savory’s holistic management model.
Book 4:
Seed to Seed. Suzanne Ashworth
Because farmers should be saving seed and this book has all the basics.
Book 5:
Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers. Fred Thériault and Dan Brisebois
As one of the co-authors I am a touch biased but we wrote the book we wished we could have read when we were starting.
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Thanks, Dan, for taking the time to submit. Anyone else who would like to recommend some books for new farmers can do so using the form I’ve got set up in the right-hand column there.
Book Review: Feeds and Feeding by Frank B. Morrison
I’ve got a decent bit of content lined up to post. With special thanks to George Wright of Castor River Farm, who wrote the following review:
Reviewed here: Feeds and Feeding: A Handbook for the Student and Stockman
by Frank B. Morrison
Published by Morrison Publishing Company in 1959
Reviewed by George Wright
I picked this book up at a used book store for $5 dollars. I did not realize how much it would become part of our farm. This book turned out to be the bible of feeding animals. Horses, mules, dairy cattle, beef cattle, goats, sheep, and swine are covered in extensive detail. It was first published in 1898 and
Book Review: Folks, This Ain’t Normal by Joel Salatin
Reviewed here: Folks, this ain’t normal
by Joel Salatin
Published by Center Street in 2011
Reviewed by George Wright of Castor River Farm
“Your best option for real food is to totally opt out of the current food system and get to know your farmers” –Joel Salatin
I was waiting for a flight at the Ottawa Airport when I spied Joel Salatin’s latest book at the bookstore, out front on a display. You know alternative agriculture is hitting the mainstream when a book such as Joel’s can be purchased at the airport! For most of you, he’s the farmer who stars in the movies Food Inc, Fresh, and the newly released American Meat.
I have to say outright that if Joel ran a church I would attend it; I am a big fan. I’m not the only one. Some have dubbed him
Book Review: The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
Reviewed here: The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dustbowl
by Timothy Egan
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 2006
Aphorism of the cowboys of the high plains in the early 20th century, frustrated with the ‘dusters’ who insisted the prairie could be converted to viable grain farming: ”miles to water, miles to wood, and only six inches to hell.”
During a recent bout of procrastination I happened upon a short blog post on boingboing that featured a photo of a gent holding up a perennial wheat variety and its tremendously long roots. One of the post’s subsequent commenters linked our society’s failure to make better use of such varieties with the 1930s era ecological disaster known as the Great American Dust Bowl, and recommended The Worst Hard Time as a terrific read. I took the bait, so here we are.
New Book: The Art of Fixing Things by Lawrence Pierce
As the off-season picks up all sorts of lazy steam and reading time becomes less of a fantasy, I would like to devote a bit more blog space than I have so far to books of relevance to farmers and gardeners. Many such posts will be book reviews, but I’m going to ease into the tub, so to speak, with this post, which is less a review than a snapshot of a book just published by a farmer and all-around handyman from Hornby Island, BC.
Book Review: Empires of Food
This review of Empires of Food is the third review of three on this site featuring books that peg the rise and fall of civilizations to the state of their food security.
Reviewed Here:
Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations
By Evan D.G. Fraser and Andrew Rimas
Published by Free Press in 2010
Book Review: Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers
Reviewed here: Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers
By Frédéric Thériault and Daniel Brisebois
Published by Canadian Organic Growers Inc. 2010
The worth of a crop-planning book can’t really be reckoned until said crops have been harvested. Still, having progressed through this book far enough to develop our crop plan for the year, I wanted to get some preliminary thoughts up for anyone considering a purchase. My partner Vanessa will do the honours for this segment. One of us will add to this post mid-way through the growing season, and then again at season’s end. Vanessa, that’s your cue to take over this post.
Book Review: You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Start and $ucceed in a Farming Enterprise
Reviewed Here:
You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to
Start and $ucceed in a Farming Enterprise
By Joel Salatin
Published by Chelsea Green Books in 1998
Thanks to John Mardlin for this guest book review.
You Can Farm: The Entrepreneurs Guide to Start and $ucceed in a Farming Enterprise was written before Joel Salatin’s rise to rock star status in the small-scale farming world. The book’s title says it all: the book focuses on how to start and sustain a farming operation, without having to live in poverty or be held hostage by agribusiness.
Book Review: Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations
This review of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, a book by David R. Montgomery, is the second review of three in a series about books focusing on the effect of soil erosion on societal collapse through history.
Reviewed Here:
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations
By David R. Montgomery
Published by University of California Press in 2007
