Teaming with Nutrients: The Organic Gardeners Guide to Optimising Plant Nutritition

The author of Teeming with Microbes explains what nutrients are involved in feeding plants and offers step-by-step instructions for organically providing both macro- and micro-nutrients to plants while presenting easy-to-understand lessons in biology, chemistry and botany.
If we are what we eat, the same can be said of plants, as Lowenfels points out in a book that would please scientists as well as organic gardeners. Food for thought: the agricultural revolution came about as people observed the effect that human and animal waste had on plants; all the nutrients that plants need are easily provided by organic sources. Furthering his belief that gardening practices can be clarified with some scientific knowledge, the first chapter delineates the parts of a plant cell and what actions take place and each chapter builds on the preceding one. Other chapters describe the basic chemistry along the nutrients' journey, the seventeen elements that sustain the lives of plants, animals, and humans, and what happens when water meets plant roots. Chapter 8 discusses the application of the book's information to gardening, examining factors like microbes in the soil, temperature, and moisture. The final chapter provides recommendations and recipes for vegetables, annuals, and grass. He elucidates the downside of artificial fertilizers (in use since 1845): phosphorus in decline, their effect on the N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) ratio of commonly used fertilizers, and the GMO-glyphosphate debate. The book is well-organized, coherent, interesting, and user-friendly. It is well illustrated in color with a resources section at the end. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Just as he demystified the soil food web in his ground-breaking book Teaming with Microbes, in this new work Jeff Lowenfels explains the basics of plant nutrition from an organic gardener’s perspective. Most gardeners realize that plants need to be fed but know little or nothing about the nature of the nutrients and the mechanisms involved. In his trademark down-to-earth, style, Lowenfels explains the role of both macronutrients and micronutrients and shows gardeners how to provide these essentials through organic, easy-to-follow techniques. Along the way, Lowenfels gives the reader easy-to-grasp lessons in the biology, chemistry, and botany needed to understand how nutrients get into the plant and what they do once they’re inside. (Don’t worry: you won’t have to learn college-level science.) Teaming with Nutrients will make you a better informed, more successful, more environmentally responsible gardener and will give you a new appreciation for the plants you grow.