Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web

Book Description

Smart gardeners know that soil is anything but an inert substance. Healthy soil is teeming with life — not just earthworms and insects, but a staggering multitude of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. When we use chemical fertilizers, we injure the microbial life that sustains healthy plants, and thus become increasingly dependent on an arsenal of artificial substances, many of them toxic to humans as well as other forms of life. But there is an alternative to this vicious circle: to garden in a way that strengthens, rather than destroys, the soil food web — the complex world of soil-dwelling organisms whose interactions create a nurturing environment for plants. By eschewing jargon and overly technical language, the authors make the benefits of cultivating the soil food web available to a wide audience, from devotees of organic gardening techniques to weekend gardeners who simply want to grow healthy, vigorous plants without resorting to chemicals.

Customer Reviews:

Very good book.......2007-09-30

I am a very seasoned gardener already using many of the techniques proposed by the book. However my approach was based on intuition and experience. This book explains how all fits together in a simpler and more accessible way than the Soil Microbiology treatises.
Strongly recommended for gardeners of all levels.

Learned a great deal about improving my gardens.......2007-09-18

I has astonished at how much new information this book covered. Just the section on new oxygen activated compost teas was worth the price of the book. Highly recommended. I am starting to use the teas and can't wait to see the results.

A must read for anyone who cares about the environment.......2007-07-07

As other reviewers noted this is a 5+ star book. I agree w/ their comments and really have little more to add. I think the authors are passionate about their subject, not only as shown by the book's interesting content, but the presentation of this book. They choose high quality paper (should it have been recycled???) with beautiful photos of the soil's hidden helpers. I read it in an afternoon as one would a novel and highlighted pssages as I went along for easy reference.

Easy reading and informative.......2007-06-27

I had to get this book for a botanical class I am taking. As I began to read this book I am grateful that this is the recommended text. It is pleasant to read and informative.

This book will introduce you to your soil for the very first time........2007-06-18

I've been writing on gardening subjects for 15 years, and have read a lot of what other authors write about soil, but I've never read anything like Teaming with Microbes. This book changed everything for me. I'm convinced that this is the best book ever written for non academics on soil science -- so much so that I intend to write a new book in my series of How-to-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins II: Sequel to the Classic Book on Growing Giant Pumpkins from an entirely new viewpoint -- that in which I let the billions upon billions of microbes work for me, instead of me interfering with the optimum results. This book will make you so aware of your soil, that you will never use another pesticide or mineral fertilizer again. Mark my words: Teaming with Microbes changes everything.

The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure, Third Edition

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Great for the environment
I now have a composting toilet behind the house
WOW!!
Everyone should read this!
Insightful and well grounded book

The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure, Third Edition
Joseph C. Jenkins
Manufacturer: Jenkins Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0964425831

Book Description

There are almost seven billion defecating people on planet Earth, but few who have any clue about how to constructively handle the burgeoning mountain of human crap. The Humanure Handbook, third edition, will amuse you, educate you, and possibly offend you, but it will certainly pertain to you—unless, of course, your bowels never move.
This new edition of The Humanure Handbook is:

The Tenth Anniversary Edition

Richly illustrated with eye-candy artwork

Perfect for reading while sitting on the “throne”

Revised, improved, and updated

256 pages of crap

Customer Reviews:

Great for the environment.......2007-07-25

Due to a plumbing fault in the house, my family have been composting in the back garden on a daily basis for over a year. What a bonus to stumble upon this book and find out that our actions have been helping to preserve the future of our planet! A number of residents in our street have complainined that the local environment has been suffering from some kind of unpleasant air pollution of late, so we feel proud to be putting something back.

I now have a composting toilet behind the house.......2007-06-21

This was our primary source material for building and maintaining our composting toilet. Works great, saves on water, makes for good plant food, and only smells like sawdust inside.

WOW!!.......2007-05-12

This book combines humor, biology, humor, facts, humor, and specific instructions. Did I mention humor? ;-)

It is also incredibly thought-provoking. The author points out that we are one of the few countries that defecate in our drinking water.

We now have two composting toilets. The one we spent over a $1000 for before we bought the book and the $50 one we built after we bought the book. Guess which one is easier to deal with?!

Everyone should read this!.......2007-03-12

Wonderful book that I wish everyone would read. Great information.

Insightful and well grounded book.......2007-03-10

The author created a masterpiece with this book, combining his vast experience of producing humanure with scientific insight, and great humor which made the book fun to read. I'm convinced that composting manure is the safest way to safely deal with our own excrement. Our society has got to be crazy to be flushing this immensely valuable resource to be dealt with later as it ends up polluting our rivers, oceans, and drinking water. I highly recommend this book to any concious reader who would like to greatly reduce their impact upon this earth.

Watersheds: Processes, Assessment and Management

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Watersheds: Processes, Assessment and Management
Paul A. DeBarry
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0471264237

Book Description

Get the most up-to-date and comprehensive guide to watershed analysis and management.

In Watersheds: Processes, Assessment, and Management, author Paul DeBarry covers aspects of watershed physical processes such as assessing, classifying, and evaluating a watershed; using GIS models for watershed assessment; and effectively planning for future use and demands. He covers precipitation, ecology, geology, soils, geomorphology, hydrogeology, hydrology, water quality, hydraulics, GIS, data collection, planning, and management. And he takes you beyond theory so you learn to apply planning, management, GIS, and hydrologic engineering principles in real-world watershed management.

Book Description

Rapid progress in sedimentology began in the 1960's and is continuing today. Not only has knowledge increased rapidly, but technology has as well. Small and inexpensive, but powerful, computers are changing the ways in which we gather, record, and analyze our data or test ideas. The pedagogical value of this text is evident in its careful approach to the discipline. Not only is the text technologically oriented (e.g. graphs of mathematical functions are programmed for automatic digital computation and plotting), the author has taken great care to consider the standard petrographic methods as well. Embracing the subdisciplines of sedimentary petrology, sedimentation, and stratigraphy, the text describes the composition, texture, and structure of all kinds of sedimentary rocks; the physical, chemical, and biological processes that create sediments are also considered. Examples of ancient and modern depositional and diagenetic systems serve to illustrate the scientific methods by which sedimentary process and product are described and diagnosed. This text is ideal for students of geology who have acquired a basic knowledge of mineralogy, petrology, and stratigraphy, and are ready to apply these skills to an exciting and challenging field.

The Secret Garden: Dawn to Dusk in the Astonishing Hidden World of the Garden

Average customer rating:

Great for any of your gardening friends!

The Secret Garden: Dawn to Dusk in the Astonishing Hidden World of the Garden
David Bodanis
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0671663534

Customer Reviews:

Great for any of your gardening friends!.......2001-11-28

This is a great Chrstimas present for any of you who have gardening friends. I loved it! It's also a great coffee table book.

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Essential reading
The demise of soil
What you never knew about history
Unsuitable title - otherwise fine
An Amazing Book!

Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations
David R. Montgomery
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0520248708

Book Description

Dirt, soil, call it what you want--it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are--and have long been--using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil--as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.

Customer Reviews:

Essential reading.......2007-09-15

This should be essential reading for any resource planner, all levels of elected policy makers and anyone that has read Jared Diamond, i. e. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

The demise of soil.......2007-09-13

Policy makers at all levels as well as concerned citizens should take Dave's lessons to heart. In addition, this is THE book for the layman wondering anything about dirt's role in human history and its fate.

With unrelenting precision, Dave builds the case-by-case history of civilizations misusing the dirt to their ultimate misfortune. As a top-flight scientist and admirable philosopher, he lays bare the storyline of people first using dirt modestly, then disturbing and losing their topsoil in dozens of cases spanning the globe and ranging from pre-history to the present.

The progression of dirt degradation becomes very familiar by the end - one wonders how many more times and on what grand scale the failures will again become apparent.

A caveat - Dave is a colleague of mine, as well as an entertaining pop-folk guitar, who leads with guitar and vocals the local band "Big Dirt".

What you never knew about history.......2007-08-28

While David R. Montgomery goes on a bit long and repetitively about how and why and where and how fast soils erode, the more interesting part of the book is the new look at history--why the Romans sought new lands to conquer, how Thomas Jefferson tried and failed to get widespread adoption of contour plowing, how the depletion of the southeast's agricultural soils provided yet more impetus for the Civil War, how even in ancient times writers urged soil husbandry, yet were largely ignored as they still are today, how monoculture, slavery and now industrialized agriculture speed up the process by which land will become unable to sustain growing human populations. It's a sobering message that we ignore at our children's peril.

Unsuitable title - otherwise fine.......2007-08-01

The story of past soil erosion is not glamorous - but why title the book DIRT ? Why not TERRA MATER (mother earth) which is the true topic of this historical story. It is well told though not in a chronological sequence while passing smoothly from one civilization to another; well researched with some 300 references, but these are not cited in the text; with many of the author's direct observation from his trips as a geomorphologist. Revised edition needed. The chapters on North American events are best,

An Amazing Book!.......2007-06-12

Read this book. It will change the way that you relate to civilization as we know it. David Montgomery has put together an emensly interesting, highly readable factual tale of the doom wrought when humans take dirt for granted.

Secrets of the Soil: A Fascinating Account of Recent Breakthroughs-Scientific and Spiritual-That Can Save Your Garden or Farm

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Secrets of the Soil: A Fascinating Account of Recent Breakthroughs-Scientific and Spiritual-That Can Save Your Garden or Farm
Peter Tompkins , and Christopher Bird
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0060158174

Remediation Engineering of Contaminated Soils (Environmental Science and Pollution Control Series)

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Remediation Engineering of Contaminated Soils (Environmental Science and Pollution Control Series)
Wise/TranTolo
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0824703324

Book Description

"Offers through coverage of the remediation of soils contaminated by hazardous wastes, including materials, analytical techniques, cleanup design and methodology, characterization of geomedia, monitoring of contaminants in the subsurface, and waste containment. Cites specific case studies in hydrocarbon remediation that offer a concise overview of possible technological approaches."

Soil Microbiology, Ecology and Biochemistry, Third Edition

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Soil Microbiology and Biochemistry, Second Edition
Standard text for soil microbiology

Soil Microbiology, Ecology and Biochemistry, Third Edition

Manufacturer: Academic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0125468075

Book Description

Now in its third edition, this classic textbook includes basic concepts and applications in agriculture, forestry, environmental science, and a new section entirely devoted to ecology. This revised and updated edition guides students through biochemical and microbial processes in soils and introduces them to microbial processes in water and sediments. Soil Microbiology, Ecology, and Biochemistry serves as an invaluable resource for students in biogeochemistry, soil microbiology, soil ecology, sustainable agriculture, and environmental amelioration.

NEW TO THIS EDITION:
* New section on Ecology integrated with biochemistry and microbiology
* Sections on exciting new methodology such as tracers, molecular analysis and computers that will allow great advances in this field
* Six new chapters: bioremediation, soil molecular biology, biodiversity, global climate change, basic physiology and ecological interpretations
* Expanded with contributions from leading soil microbiologists and agronomists on both fundamental and applied aspects of the science
* Full-color figures
* Includes a website with figures for classroom presentation use

Customer Reviews:

Soil Microbiology and Biochemistry, Second Edition.......2006-02-25

Book in very good condition when arrived, was new when purchased. Cost was a little high at 62.00 dollars. Received in a timely manner.

Standard text for soil microbiology.......2002-09-18

I was a graduate student in soils and forestry when I took a class in soil microbiology that used this text. It is essentially the gold standard for soil micro texts. It isn't overly technical, but it includes a thorough analysis of the basic concepts needed to understand most aspects of soil microbiology research and application. The book uses mostly agronomic examples, but there is enough variety of ecosystems to make it useful for those working in forestry, grasslands, and almost any type of soil. Those interested in detailed discussions of molecular microbial methods or biotechnology may be disappointed, but for the general student looking to understand what those billion microbes per teaspoon of soil are doing, this book is the best introduction out there.

Soil, Fertilizer, and Plant Silicon Research in Japan

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Soil, Fertilizer, and Plant Silicon Research in Japan
Jian Feng Ma , and Eiichi Takahashi
Manufacturer: Elsevier Science
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0444511660

Book Description

Silicon (Si) plays a significant role in the resistance of plants to multiple stresses including biotic and abiotic stresses. Silicon is also the only element that does not damage plants when accumulated in excess. However, the contribution of Si to plant growth has been largely ignored due to its universal existence in the earth's crust. From numerous intensive studies on Si, initiated in Japan about 80 years ago, Japanese scientists realized that Si was important for the healthy growth of rice and for stability of rice production. In a worldwide first, silicon was recognized as a valuable fertilizer in Japan. The beneficial effects of Si on rice growth in particular, are largely attributable to the characteristics of a silica gel that is accumulated on the epidermal tissues in rice. These effects are expressed most clearly under high-density cultivation systems with heavy applications of nitrogen. Si is therefore recognized now as an ''agronomically essential element'' in Japan.

Recently, Si has become globally important because it generates resistance in many plants to diseases and pests, and may contribute to reduced rates of application of pesticides and fungicides. Silicon is also now considered as an environment-friendly element. The achievements of Si research in Japan are introduced in this book, in relation to soils, fertilizers and plant nutrition.

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