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| Author: John Jeavons
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $12.56
You Save: $7.39 (37%)
New (34) Used (9) from $8.57
Avg. Customer Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 8358
Media: Paperback
Edition: 7
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 268
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 1580087965
Dewey Decimal Number: 635
EAN: 9781580087964
ASIN: 1580087965
Publication Date: October 31, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Not a book for "casual backyard gardening" January 27, 2008
9 out of 15 found this review helpful
The people who are disappointed with this book are the ones who bought it without understanding what it was. This book isn't a "gardening for the soul" book of fluff, nor is it a typical "how to get bigger tomatoes" text.
What this book is is a compendium of information on growing as much food as possible for real, live people to eat.
Yes, it delves into the science and discusses the big, scary numbers involved. For you 'visual types' who find yourselves having to use your fingers to complete a single digit multiplication problem, don't bother. If you want purpler plumbs or redder radishes, look elsewhere.
Assuming your IQ is above 100 and you're looking for a book to tech you some of the skills required to feed your family under all circumstances, I can hardly think of a better book than this one. It is exactly what it says.
If I had to put my family on a fertile island and give them one book on gardening, it would unquestionably be this one.
A good book with surplus pages August 16, 2007
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
This is a definitive guide to the Bio- Intensive method of growing vegetables. It is well written, and you can see that a lot of time and effort are behind the concepts presented here.
Two things bother me; There`s an almost 100- page bibliography included in the book!? Couldn`t it have been put up on a website or something, instead of just making the book (look) bigger and thicker? The second issue is that I find it always a bit irritating when a lot of equipment or systems get mentioned in a book, but to get their specifics or plans you must buy another book. Maybe the plans for the U- bar or for the mini- greenhouse could have fitted on those bibliography pages?
Anyways, the four stars is for the part where the actual system gets described.
It's not easy, but it's brilliant and could save the world May 22, 2007
40 out of 40 found this review helpful
I am impressed at how many people misunderstand the purpose of this book. It's not just a gardening book. It lays out a comprehensive guide to growing the most food you can on the least amount of land in the most sustainable way -- meaning the way that is, on an ongoing basis into perpetuity, most healthy both for your family, your land, and the wider world. All those things are connected, and maintaining the connection is part of what the book and authors are all about.
The title means what it says, and they tell you exactly how to do it, basing their recommendations on the work of the organization that publishes the book, Ecology Action. They have been growing experimental gardens and conducting detailed research over the past 35 years. In succeeding editions of "How to Grow More Vegetables" they summarize their continuing research for those interested in personally benefiting from their methods and discoveries.
Some may object to the excruciatingly detailed charts and plans. Some of us find them a godsend. Regardless of what we think of them, they are the outgrowth of years of research and are intended to help, not just backyard gardeners in the US, but people in Kenya, India, Russia, Mexico, and other places around the world, whose lives and livelihoods, not to mention the health of their environment, may depend on maximizing their yields while minimizing their purchased inputs and water usage.
The central fact underlying this method is this: the only way to achieve the highest sustainable yields is to build and feed your soil, and the only way to build your soil without taking away fertility from someone else's soil (through purchased inputs such as compost, fertilizer, etc.) is to make and use your own compost. This book explains why, and shows you how. It works.
Though we are still shielded from it in the US, the world is facing a potentially devastating loss of agricultural fertility due to a combination of squandered topsoil (lost through both development and abuse by chemicals and poor tillage practices), water shortages, and soaring prices and reduced availability of fossil fuels (which power the farm equipment, get it to market, and form the basis of most chemical fertilizers). Years ago, Ecology Action set out to discover in a rational and scientific way, just how much land and labor it would take to grow the amount of food, properly balanced for calories and nutrition, required by one person for one year. Could a family of four truly feed itself from a 1200 square foot garden if it had to, or wanted to? How much work and water would it take? How much fertilizer would they have to buy? Could they grow their own fertilizer? What tools would they need? What about fiber for clothing? Building materials? Animal feed?
The "How to Grow More Vegetables" books answer those questions, and much, much more. As the years go by, (and with each succeeding food contamination scandal) more of us, even in the US, are realizing just how important those questions are. You may not need or want all the information in this book. But it is all there, and nowhere else that I am aware of, for those who do want it.
This book could save the world, if only the world would pay attention. But it will also show you how to grow fabulous, tasty vegetables with less water, less work, less weeding, less money.
 Are you into numbers? May 12, 2007
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
I like John Jeavons and his book is very useful. However, I'm not into calculating and figuring every square inch in the garden with tables/charts. I enjoy growing for the freedom of spirit it provides. This book although very useful, feels very constrictive. Not to mention EVERY page has at least 5 mentions of "Grow Biointensive". I felt like a was reading a long drawn out advertisement. Enough John, say it in the intro and then leave us alone to enjoy the book. If we weren't interested in your method we wouldn't be reading your book.
This is a great book May 4, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I had an earlier edition of this book that I used as an introduction to high intensity gardening. I love the book because gives technical information on such things as soil pH, soil preparation, plant spacing, and crop yields. It probably is not a book for people that do not enjoy the technical aspects of gardening; those wanting only a quick fix approach. I have ordered the 7th edition.
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