Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web (Revised Edition)
A breakthrough book for the field of organic gardening.
American Gardener
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 become increasingly dependent on an arsenal of artificial, often toxic, substances. But there is an alternative to this vicious cycle. We can garden in a way that strengthens the soil food web — the complex world of soil-dwelling organisms whose interactions create a nurturing environment for plants.
Teaming with Microbes extols the benefits of cultivating the soil food web. First, it clearly explains the activities and organisms that make up the web. Next, it explains how gardeners can cultivate the life of the soil through the use of compost, mulches, and compost tea. The revised edition updates the original text and includes two completely new chapters — on mycorrhizae (beneficial associations fungi form with green-leaved plants) and archaea (single-celled organisms once thought to be allied to bacteria).
With Jeff Lowenfels's help, everyone — from devotees of organic gardening techniques to weekend gardeners who simply want to grow healthy, vigorous plants without resorting to chemicals — can create rich, nurturing, living soil.
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 220 pp.
- Book dimensions: 6 x 9 in. (230 x 150 mm.)
- Images: 88 color photos, 18 charts and diagrams
- ISBN-10: 1604691131
- ISBN-13: 9781604691139
- Product code: 689113
Media reviews
"Jeff Lowenfels roots for the home team, but not the kind you watch play in a stadium ... he makes a boisterous case for the micro-organisms that live and die under our feet, and in the process feed the plants that feed us."
—Kym Pokorny, Oregonian
"This updated resource will help everyone create rich, nurturing, living soil — from organic gardening devotees to weekend gardeners who simply want to grow healthy, vigorous plants without resorting to chemicals."
—Michigan Gardener
"Takes readers underground to meet the critters that live if you let them under the garden."
—Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
About the authors
Jeff Lowenfels
Jeff Lowenfels teaches home gardeners about the soil food web with a painless and extremely entertaining method. After just one hour, his audiences know how to return beneficial biology to their soils and why it is necessary to do so.
Read more about Jeff Lowenfels
Wayne Lewis
Wayne Lewis is a lifelong Alaskan gardener. He has worked with Jeff on many projects over the past 25 years, including the now national Plant a Row for the Hungry program (started in Anchorage by Jeff), which encourages gardeners to donate a portion of their harvest to charitable organizations in their community.
In the UK or Europe? View this book at TimberPress.co.uk.
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