How to Grow More Vegetables

by John Jeavons

So many people love How to Grow More Vegetables and dive into it hard. There’s a forward by Alice Waters, a chef who has done so much to bring attention to the Slow Food movement, farmers growing healthy food in healthy ways and the creation of school gardens. Many people that I learn from use this book as an important gardening resource. The author, John Jeavons, has done a lot to work toward building a healthy, closed-loop farm systems that build soil on the farm. Often when soil is improved in one place, it is done at the expense of another—bringing in fertilizers, composts, etc from outside (and therefore depleting that place). Because growing healthy food is completely dependent on healthy soil, much of John’s focus is on teaching how to build healthy soil in a sustainable way. In addition to this, one of it’s greatest contributions is the master charts and planning that show you how to most efficiently lay out your beds to maximize what you are able to plant.