Teaming with Nutrients: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutrition

Colorful illustrations, plentiful and readable diagrams, and a well-executed chapter structure make this an indispensable resource for the serious organic farmer who did not major in organic chemistry. Lowenfels (Teaming with Microbes) has packed as much helpful information into this volume about how plants absorb nutrients as there are nutrients in a single plant cell—that is, lots. The book is weighty on the scientific level, but accessible. Each chapter builds on the previous one and concludes with a summary bullet-point section called “Summing Up.” (Some readers may benefit from reading the summary bullet points first.) Not all of the technical information presented here will be suited to every organic farmer, but every farmer will benefit from some element in the book—if nothing else, from Grandpa Al’s Can’t Fail Recipe for organic fertilizer. For organic farmers who take the book seriously, it will forever change the way they look at the “back forty.” (May 14)