Product Description

A witty, whimsical gardening primer for anyone who wants to tend their patch of earth with a truly green thumb.

A garden can either bring you bliss or drive you insane, but organic landscape gardener Ellen Sandbeck has spent a lifetime discovering creative, effective techniques for growing and tending a garden with ease—while being kind to the earth itself. Eat More Dirt is her delightful compendium of homespun tips and tricks for designing, planting, nurturing, and beautifying your land without the use of harmful chemicals and pesticides.

From peat moss to irksome pests and predators, Sandbeck explores the lively world of compost heaps (which can be used to naturally “vaccinate” your garden against disease), growing good soil, choosing plants well-adapted to your climate, weed warfare, planting protocols, and eco-friendly ways to quench your garden’s thirst. Whether you tend an acre or just a window box, Eat More Dirt is an essential guide to keeping your garden thriving, the natural way.
• Build up topsoil without toxic fertilizers or noisy machinery • Compost, the other black gold
• Eradicate weeds with sunflower seeds • Protect berries from birds with a sugar-water spray
• Gentle pruning techniques • Banish beetles with wheat bran • Drive off furry pests with cayenne pepper
• When life hands you a seep, dig a pond—transforming garden irritants into garden pearls
• Pre- and post-gardening stretches • Dancing with tools • The Zen of puttering •

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #169289 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-11
• Released on: 2003-02-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From Publishers Weekly
For anyone who loved Slug Bread & Beheaded Thistles, Sandbeck's terrific guide to "nontoxic" home care and gardening, this guide to organic gardening will seem the perfect follow-up. A Duluth, Minn. based landscape gardener, Sandbeck remains just as thoughtfully practical about sustainable practices as ever, but browsers who pick up this book (or Thistles) for the first time will be struck foremost with its beautiful design (Sandbeck is also a graphic designer), which strikes an uncanny balance between archaic and modern elements. The fonts recall late 19th century pre-Raphaelite floridity without being florid, while the silhouette-style illustrations and icons used throughout are less decorative than integral to explaining techniques and even gardening postures. Chapters on soil health, balance in design, knowledge of differing plant needs, tools and pests ("Learning from Your Enemies") are concise and commonsensical, while those on "Gardening as Exercise" and "The Meditative Gardener" cover physical and spiritual ground directly, and without goading or sentimentality. Sandbeck offers just the right amounts of encouragement, healthy skepticism and experience; this book will be a favorite of experienced gardeners and novices alike.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Dispensing organic and original gardening advice with wit and wisdom, Sandbeck walks novice and knowledgeable gardeners alike through those philosophies and practices that have earned her the title Queen of Nontoxic Know-how. From creative composting to prudent pruning, Sandbeck's approach to garden bliss stresses fun over fuss, success over stress, and victory over vermin, all without the use of products or procedures that will harm the environment. Hers is a garden where harmony can be produced without herbicides and where a modicum of patience is preferable to a dose of pesticides. Covering topics as diverse as rototilling and rodent removal, Sandbeck presents her logical, commonsense recommendations with self-deprecating humor in a comprehensive how-to guide as entertaining as it is informative. Whether recycling cooking water to quench thirsty plants or cooking hot pepper spray to deter rampant rabbits, Sandbeck relies upon readily available materials and ecologically sound strategies in her organic gardening pursuits. Arcane facts blend with feasible advice in this delightful discourse on natural and nurturing gardening. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Inside Flap
A witty, whimsical gardening primer for anyone who wants to tend their patch of earth with a truly green thumb.

A garden can either bring you bliss or drive you insane, but organic landscape gardener Ellen Sandbeck has spent a lifetime discovering creative, effective techniques for growing and tending a garden with ease?while being kind to the earth itself. Eat More Dirt is her delightful compendium of homespun tips and tricks for designing, planting, nurturing, and beautifying your land without the use of harmful chemicals and pesticides.

From peat moss to irksome pests and predators, Sandbeck explores the lively world of compost heaps (which can be used to naturally ?vaccinate? your garden against disease), growing good soil, choosing plants well-adapted to your climate, weed warfare, planting protocols, and eco-friendly ways to quench your garden?s thirst. Whether you tend an acre or just a window box, Eat More Dirt is an essential guide to keeping your garden thriving, the natural way.
? Build up topsoil without toxic fertilizers or noisy machinery ? Compost, the other black gold
? Eradicate weeds with sunflower seeds ? Protect berries from birds with a sugar-water spray
? Gentle pruning techniques ? Banish beetles with wheat bran ? Drive off furry pests with cayenne pepper
? When life hands you a seep, dig a pond?transforming garden irritants into garden pearls
? Pre- and post-gardening stretches ? Dancing with tools ? The Zen of puttering ?

Customer Reviews

What an excellent book!
EAT MORE DIRT is fun! More than just a gardening handbook, it's about how to get what you REALLY want out of your garden (all the time -- not just when you're resting on the lawn, avoiding the mower.) It's about how to provide the very best for all involved by using what you have to your advantage, and refusing to poison your soil, your plants, and yourself. (You might be surprised at what constitutes poison.) It's also an acerbic sort of love song for the land, one that will inspire you to "sing" organically to your own little corner of Mother Earth. (Whether or not you choose to literally sing to your plants is up to you -- and perhaps your neighbors!)

As a novice gardener, I was raised by parents whom I always felt used too many chemicals and WAY too much water! Of course, their garden is beautiful, and in that I hope to emulate them, but I'll be using Ellen Sandbeck's organic advice, appreciating her alternately dry and silly wit along the way. Check out this book: it's a joy to read and a BIG help in the garden.

EAT MORE DIRT is fun and informative !
EAT MORE DIRT, by Ellen Sandbeck, is a fun and informative way to learn more about organic gardening. I laughed, I cried and I learned a lot! I loved the original art work by Sandbeck and all the tips that I can use right away to improve my garden's health! It was such a fun, painless read that I sat down and read the whole thing! Check out all the great illustrations, too!

Eat More Dirt: Diverting and Instructive Tips for Growing ..
Like gardening with your favorite aunt--the sensible one who has sifted through a lot of foolishness to pass on the information that truly matters.