Grow Your Soil

By Diane Miessler

Creating healthy soil isn't rocket science. It's easier than you think! Step away from the rototiller, stop digging, skip the fertilizers, and let microbes do the heavy lifting. Discover no-sweat soil-building steps like turning weeds into on-the-spot mulch, using cover crops and kitchen waste to feed and protect your soil food web, and brewing super-easy, super-charged compost tea to fend off soil pathogens. Then sit back, relax, and watch your garden thrive.

• Contents includes chapters on cover crops, the soil food web, no-till growing, soil testing, composting and making compost tea, much, much more.

Softcover. 165 pages. Storey Publishing 2020.

Use the book to build a soil-improvement plan around observation, organic matter, living roots, and reduced disturbance rather than a single amendment. Results depend on starting texture, drainage, climate, crop rotation, and management history. Pair the author’s methods with a current soil test when nutrient or pH decisions are involved, and introduce changes gradually so tilth, infiltration, and plant response can be evaluated over multiple seasons.

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