Gardening When It Counts
Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)
by Steve Solomon
Reading Profile
Should I read this?
A detailed, pragmatic manual for backyard food self-sufficiency aimed at North American gardeners who need high yields with minimal water and cash. It opens by arguing why cheap-oil decline changes what counts as sensible gardening, then pivots into dense, hands-on guidance on bed layouts, soil preparation, watering economy and crop choices. The useful part is concrete plans that lower input costs and boost reliable yields. The limit: a prescriptive, often opinionated tone, repetition of core claims, and advice tailored to temperate North American conditions.
Read this if...
- •A suburban parent converting lawn to a food garden on a tight budget and limited irrigation—wants step-by-step, low-input methods to feed a family reliably without expensive systems.
- •A small-acre hobby farmer in a temperate North American region shifting toward intensive food production—needs crop selection, soil recipes, and layout advice that scale to a family garden.
- •A community-garden coordinator organizing volunteer plots with scarce funding and watering—needs low-maintenance, high-yield strategies and practical planning guidance volunteers can follow.
Skip this if...
- •Annoying if you prefer glossy photography, design-focused gardening, or attractive ornamental planting rather than gritty productivity advice.
- •You’ll likely put it down when chapters turn into long technical lists, soil recipes, seed-spacing charts and repeated defenses of the author’s approach—midbook detail can feel relentless.
- •Not a great fit if you garden in a tropical or drastically different climate, or if you want many alternative methods; the advice is fairly North-America–specific and often dismisses popular intensive approaches.
The decline of cheap oil is inspiring increasing numbers of North Americans to achieve some measure of backyard food selfsufficiency. In hard times, the family can be greatly helped by growing a highly productive food garden, requiring little cash outlay or watering.Currently popular intensive vegetable gardening methods are largely inappropriate ...
Before You Buy
Reading Specifications
Difficulty:hard
Audience Fit
- A suburban parent converting lawn to a food garden on a tight budget and limited irrigation—wants step-by-step, low-input methods to feed a family reliably without expensive systems.
- A small-acre hobby farmer in a temperate North American region shifting toward intensive food production—needs crop selection, soil recipes, and layout advice that scale to a family garden.
- A community-garden coordinator organizing volunteer plots with scarce funding and watering—needs low-maintenance, high-yield strategies and practical planning guidance volunteers can follow.
- Annoying if you prefer glossy photography, design-focused gardening, or attractive ornamental planting rather than gritty productivity advice.
- You’ll likely put it down when chapters turn into long technical lists, soil recipes, seed-spacing charts and repeated defenses of the author’s approach—midbook detail can feel relentless.
- Not a great fit if you garden in a tropical or drastically different climate, or if you want many alternative methods; the advice is fairly North-America–specific and often dismisses popular intensive approaches.
Check formats, pricing, and availability options for Kindle, physical print, or audiobooks directly.
View available editions on AmazonKey themes
Why recommended
appears in Gardening, Food, and Nonfiction.
Recommendation Signals
Recommendation proof is sourced from public posts, interviews, reading lists, and cited references.
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Appears In
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