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Soil Science for Gardeners

Working with Nature to Build Soil Health (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)

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About this listen

Build healthy soil and grow better plants

Robert Pavlis, a gardener for over four decades, debunks common soil myths, explores the rhizosphere, and provides a personalized soil fertility improvement program in this three-part popular science guidebook.

Healthy soil means thriving plants. Yet untangling the soil food web and optimizing your soil health is beyond most gardeners, many of whom lack an in-depth knowledge of the soil ecosystem.

Soil Science for Gardeners is an accessible, science-based guide to understanding soil fertility and, in particular, the rhizosphere - the thin layer of liquid and soil surrounding plant roots, so vital to plant health.

Coverage includes:

  • Soil biology and chemistry and how plants and soil interact
  • Common soil health problems, including analyzing soil's fertility and plant nutrients
  • The creation of a personalized plan for improving your soil fertility, including setting priorities and goals in a cost-effective, realistic time frame.
  • Creating the optimal conditions for nature to do the heavy lifting of building soil fertility

Written for the home gardener, market gardener, and micro-farmer, Soil Science for Gardeners is packed with information to help you grow thriving plants.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 Robert Pavlis (P)2021 New Society Publishers
Agricultural & Food Sciences Gardening & Horticulture Science Sustainable Agriculture Gardening Sustainability Health Plant Science
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This book is a much needed book. I am a a professional gardener and this book confirms my suspicions that many practices are not scientific. There are so many garden myths and this book aims to give an idea of the facts and soil is also perhaps the most important aspect of healthy plants.

It's a technical book which is not a light read, but I found myself re listening many times as there was so much info that changes completely how I understand many gardening practices.

fantastic book.

This book is needed for the gardening world.

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The pragmatic approach of soil testing makes sense to me. The information that nutrients migrate at different speeds was also valuable to me, as the notion of aggregation. Need to listen again!

I liked the scientific approach

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I’m only about halfway through but this is brilliant. Of course you should listen with a healthy scepticism and be prepared to find other sources of information to enrich your understanding, or corroborate or challenge what’s here… but this is an accessible yet fact-dense overview for gardeners like me who have only the lightest understanding of biology and chemistry. So there’s no such thing as humus in soil! Or is there?! Wow! I’ll be listening again (and again).
Required reading/listening for all gardeners. The narration is ok, a bit nasal but it’s fine really, maybe the subject matter is so interesting it doesn’t matter.
Ok I've finished it now and I have some questions about the writer's biases - he seems a tiny bit pro-agroindustry, sort of maybe a bit anti-greeny... but I suppose that just means listen with an open mind.

Brilliant?

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I listend to this over and over to pass my soil science exams. It was very useful even if a lot of it sounded like propaganda for the agrochem industry, with statements such as organic gardeners being 'completely wrong' about something. Bit of a shame that.

Useful for revision

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The narration is most off putting! David Skulski talks as if his mouth was full of cotton pads!
The book itself takes a rather old fashioned and dispassionate approach to soil. Given how wondrous it is, I was hoping for a more exciting read.

Dull and poorly narrated

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