Coleman Eliot - The New Organic Grower: A Masters Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener

PRAISE FOR ELIOT COLEMAN

The incomparable Eliot Coleman serious, meticulous, inspiring.

New York Times

One of Americas most innovative farmers.

Michael Pollan

Eliot Colemans book will help market gardeners establish the vital and profitable link between farm and city. Every small-scale grower and serious gardener should have a copy.

Robert Rodale

[Coleman] writes not just about gardening but about everything that connects to good food and pleasure; a Renaissance man for a new generation.

Dan Barber, chef, Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns

I know of no other person who can produce better results on the land with an economy of effort and means than Eliot. He has transformed gardening from a task, to a craft, and finally to what Stewart Brand would call local science.

Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest ; editor of Drawdown

Anybody seriously tempted to try raising healthful food on healthy land must first read The New Organic Grower . Coleman, who has been a quiet leader in the American organic movement for several decades, presents a balanced, logical exposition of his subject.

Horticulture

Every page is imbued with the wisdom and careful observations [Coleman] and his associates have gathered; from soil structure to mobile greenhouses each method is thought through to its ultimate impact on the earth and on economic survival.

Library Journal

This is the best book on small-scale farming Ive read in years.

Pat Stone, Mother Earth News

From first sentence to last, [ The New Organic Grower ] is a delightan earnest guide written with an impish sense of humor. It will refresh anyone who wants to get the most from a vegetable garden yet doesnt want to devote too much time and energy to the process.

Publishers Weekly

Coleman conveys a vast amount of detailed information without ever insulting the intelligence of the reader. He speaks as if to a fellow home or market gardener, sharing what works for him and discussing what he knows and what he doesnt know. The New Organic Grower will be the book you dog-ear and feather with yellow sticky pages, returning to it time and again.

San Francisco Chronicle

ALSO BY ELIOT COLEMAN

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year-Round Vegetable Production Using Deep-Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses

Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long

Year-Round Vegetable Production

The Four Season Farm Gardeners Cookbook with Barbara Damrosch

The

NEW ORGANIC GROWER

A Masters Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener

30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

ELIOT COLEMAN

Photographs by Barbara Damrosch

Chelsea Green Publishing

White River Junction, Vermont

London, UK

Copyright 1989, 1995, and 2018 by Eliot Coleman.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Project Manager: Patricia Stone

Editor: Makenna Goodman

Copy Editor: Laura Jorstad

Proofreader: Eileen M. Clawson

Indexer: Linda Hallinger

Designer: Melissa Jacobson

Printed in the United States of America.

First printing September, 2018.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 19 20 21 22

Our Commitment to Green Publishing

Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business enterprise in the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlorine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible. This book may cost slightly more because it was printed on paper that contains recycled fiber, and we hope youll agree that its worth it. Chelsea Green is a member of the Green Press Initiative (www.greenpressinitiative.org), a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. The New Organic Grower was printed on paper supplied by LSC Communications that contains at least 10% postconsumer recycled fiber.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Coleman, Eliot, 1938 author.

Title: The new organic grower : a master's manual of tools and techniques for the home and market gardener / Eliot Coleman ; photographs by Barbara Damrosch.

Description: 30th anniversary edition [Third edition]. | White River Junction, Vermont : Chelsea Green Publishing, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018015247| ISBN 9781603588171 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781603588188 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Vegetable gardening. | Organic gardening. | Truck farming. | Organic farming.

Classification: LCC SB324.3 .C65 2018 | DDC 635dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015247

Chelsea Green Publishing

85 North Main Street, Suite 120

White River Junction, VT 05001

(802) 295-6300

www.chelseagreen.com

To Scott and Helen Nearing with thanks

One of the intangible legacies the Shakers left to the world is their demonstration that it is possible to create the environment and the way of life we want, if we want it enough . We can choose.

The Shakers were practical idealists. They did not dream vaguely of conditions they would like to see realized; they went to work to make these conditions an actuality. They wasted no time in raging against competitive society, or in complaining bitterly that they had no power to change it; instead they built a domain of their own, where they could arrange their lives to their liking.

M ARGUERITE F ELLOWS M ELCHER , The Shaker Adventure

CONTENTS

S mall farms are where agricultural advances are nurtured. New ideas are conceived every day by the folks who are solving Natures puzzles. Since I turned in the original manuscript for this book years ago, I have traveled to Europe many times to see what was new there; spent time with organic growers on two trips to Australia, during a month in Chile and Argentina, and on a week in Mexico; and continued to develop and refine my thinking. I have benefited from the suggestions of those who read the book and wanted more information on certain subjects or wanted data on areas I did not cover. New equipment options are now being imported or manufactured here in the United States. And in some cases I have finally made up my mind, by acquiring more information, on points where I was ambivalent.

The revisions run the gamut from small changes in detail, to adding a lot of new material to some chapters, to adding whole new chapters where appropriate. I have added scientific references in endnotes for readers who wish to pursue a particular subject in greater depth. I have expanded the material in the chapters on plant-pest balance because the subject is of particular interest to me and of great significance in understanding how the organic vegetable grower fits into the natural world.

I have a rule that I write only about those things I know how to do. Consequently, there are a number of topics that this book doesnt cover. When I think there are techniques outside my own experience that readers might find useful, I refer them to someone who practices those techniques.

Throughout this books creation and revision, my principal desire has been that it prove helpful to growers and gardeners. To that end I am pleased to have found nothing to change because it was wrong, but rather just areas that I could make clearer or on which I needed to expand because our practices have developed considerably. When I finished writing the first edition of this book in 1988, I said to myself, I wish Id had a copy 20 years ago. It is rewarding to be able to pass along the dependable information I have learned from other farmers around the world, dug out of obscure sources in many libraries, and devised on my own. There are coherent patterns in natural biological systems that can be adapted to producing the highest quality vegetables. I hope this book helps make those patterns more accessible.