lyle_hanson's Journal: Finished Reading: Eat More Dirt, by Ellen Sandbeck

Subtitled Diverting and Instructive Tips for Growing and Tending an Organic Garden.

This book was cool. A fast 179 pages, only took me two or three days. Topics cover soil, tools, layout, excercise, pests, and many more in a humorous, anectotal way that imparts a ton of knowledge and tips without being presented in a dry reference format. Lots of useful information about specific things you can do to not only garden effectively, but have fun doing so. Much of the author's point is that if it isn't fun, and you don't love what you're doing, then why would you do it? She sheds a lot of light on the idea of gardening as a zen-like, therapeutic activity that often is hard work, but that's part of the benefit.

I particularly liked the organic approach to gardening, in terms of not only avoiding synthetic fertilizer and pesticides, but thinking of a garden as an ecosystem and considering how your actions affect your local garden ecosystem as well as how they reflect on our global ecosystem.

Good book.