(And How Do I Fix It): A Visual Guide to Easy Diagnosis and Organic Remedies
by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, 2009,
Timber Press, $24.95, paperback

The title is accurate. It’s a visual guide. It’s easy to use. It’s organic. And it provides help with both diagnosis and cure. The book is divided into three parts: Part 1 includes flowcharts to help you determine what the problem is. The charts are a series of drawings with yes-or-no questions that lead you to more questions until you arrive at a diagnosis.

Once you have a diagnosis, you go to Part 2, which includes information on solutions and remedies, all of which are organic. Where organic based sprays are suggested, the authors emphasize safety and rank the solutions with signal words of “none,” “caution,” “warning” or “danger.” They advocate that any sprays with the last three signal words be used only if needed and not “just in case.” Each chapter in part 2 describes a particular type of problem, such as bacteria, fungi, nematodes or mites, and provides interesting background information on each of these. The authors also offer a lot of good, basic plant culture information to help prevent some of these problems.

Part 3 has photographs of plants with symptoms of many of the problems described in the book. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and the authors don’t hold back. They include numerous pictures that show signs and symptoms on roots, stems, fruits, flowers and leaves of real plants. I even noticed a picture of an onion with nematodes and realized that I’ve seen that same thing on some onions in my garden. But that’s okay, I can flip back to Part 2 and find organic solutions for this problem, along with other problems identified.

Where does this book belong on my bookshelf? Front and center. I want to be able to easily get to it as I stroll about the garden being just a bit more observant noticing the signs and symptoms of possible problems. I have no other book that includes so much disease and pest information, so I’m sure it will end up being well read and oft referenced.

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Comment

smaller | bigger

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment