The Regenerative Gardener’s Handbook: Essential Techniques for Growing a Garden That Leaves the Land Healthier Than You Found It

Bosch, a flower farm owner in Colorado, debuts with an accessible guide to small-scale regenerative farming. This sustainable and cost-effective method requires gardeners to eschew expensive store-bought products like fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, and instead rely on natural mulches like leaves and compost, and restorative techniques such as cover cropping (growing crops, like wheat, for soil protection, not harvesting), no-till farming, and livestock integration. Regenerative gardening, she explains, not only provides nutritious food and exquisite landscapes but also supports cleaner air and water and enables plants, insects, birds, and other organisms to thrive. Throughout, she offers step-by-step guidance for creating such gardens, including how to identify different types of soil (look at it, touch it, and smell it) and determine what it needs (clayey soil, for example, drains poorly and thus benefits from adding organic matter); how to plan a new garden (create a map); and how to make a closed-loop, or self-sustaining, system by upcycling garden waste and bringing in animals like sheep or goats, which offer natural fertilizers and aid in pest control. Providing lucid explanations and anecdotes drawn from her own experiences, Bosch makes regenerative farming approachable and enticing. Readers will be inspired to make gardens that are good for their health and the planet’s. (Jan.)