The Ecological Farm: A Minimalist No-Till, No-Spray, Selective-Weeding, Grow-Your-Own-Fertilizer System for Organic Agriculture

Researcher and farmer Atthowe (coeditor, The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control) takes a deep dive into the scientific side of organic gardening. This book is not for casual botanists. Instead, it’s for readers interested in creating ecological balance in their well-tended gardens. Though parts of this read like a textbook on ecology, plenty of charts and bullet-point lists help break the information into digestible chunks for the layperson, without shying away from scientific facts. The author has learned by doing, and she wants to share knowledge she’s gained with readers determined to go through the trial-and-error process of creating balance in their own organic garden. This book serves as a hearty resource full of reliable answers to questions about the effects of carbon-to-nitrogen ratios in the soil, the factors to examine while deciding whether to till, ways to identify what kind of pest is chewing holes through kale leaves, and more.