An English gardener--too bad I didn't realize that when I borrowed the book. I do like his idea of skipping all the double-digging that intensive gardeners do, keeping weed seeds buried and the soil structure intact. However, it's pretty useless for American Great Lakes states. He is obsessed about slugs--they are the only insect pest he mentions and every technique he talks about is related to how good it is at dealing with slugs. I also got lost trying to translate British terms into American. What is fleece as a row cover? Remay? And all units of measurement are in metric--with an occasional American equivalent thrown in. Hard to think of lumber sizes as cm. ( )

Charles Dowding's Organic Gardening the Natural No-Dig Way is an introduction to organic gardening in general, and the 'no-dig' method in specific. The 'no-dig' method doesn't mean that absolutely no digging will take place: after all, you need to plant things in the soil and sometimes you also need to dig them up again. However, you really won't need to till or turn. Dowding believes in using raised beds composed almost entirely of rich compost, which worms naturally incorporate into the soil beneath.

Since the no-dig method is meant to be part of a larger program of organic gardening, much of the book details various fruits and vegetables you might plant and how best to organically raise them. It doesn't go into things such as organic pesticides and fertilizers, but instead delves entirely into physical methods of pest control.

A typical entry covers varieties, growing seasons, weeding, thinning, dressing with compost, harvest, diseases, pests, and even a simple recipe for enjoying your vegetable or fruit to the fullest. There's also a very thorough index---complete with a separate recipe index!---to help you along.

Dowding's book will definitely be of the most use in Britain and similar areas. Some of his suggestions are climate-specific, as are many of his discussions regarding varieties. Measurements and amounts are only given in units of cm and so on with no equivalents provided. Terminology differences aren't explained, and there were some cases where I wasn't sure if a bit of confusion over something the author was communicating was due to something that wasn't clear in his wording or a bit of terminology that was being used in a different manner than that to which I'm accustomed.

All in all I'd have to say that within Britain and similar areas (in terms of climate, use of measurements and terminology, availability of varieties, etc.) this book rates a 4.5 or a 5. In the US it's still highly useful for those wanting to explore the no-dig method and organic gardening at home, but it's moderately less useful---call my rating for us a 4.

Read a longer version of this review at Errant Dreams. ( )