The Truth About Organic Gardening

April 13, 2009
Gillman, from the Department of Horticultural Science at the University of Minnesota, is a real life Mr. Smarty Pants when it comes to gardening. But don't let that throw you off-his books are quite good. Direct and unfussy, Organic Gardening presents a balanced take on both organic and synthetic approaches to enriching and fertilizing soil and controlling undesirables: weeds, diseases, insects, and pests. Though Gillman tends toward "natural" solutions, including traps, resistant strains of plant, and distributing beneficial insects, he feels that synthetics, used properly and responsibly, have their place (except in the case of pesticides-those he's decidedly against). Garden Remedies is similarly excellent and covers just about any remedy you've ever heard, from beer for attracting (and drowning) slugs (it works, just don't let slug lovers catch wind), to using ammonia as lawn fertilizer (No! Bad idea!). Just like every dude's fave web site, Snopes.com, Gillman provides a brief, well-written history of each practice and the intent behind it before discussing its effectiveness. He also tackles insecticides, fertilizers, fungicides, and herbicides. Dudes will learn that hanging soap or a tuft of hair from a stocking in your garden will indeed repel deer, because these things reek of "anti-nature" and freak the deer out.-Douglas Lord, Connecticut State Lib., Middletown

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