Eugene weekly., May 26, 2016, Page 30, Image 30

GARDENING
BY RACHEL FOSTER
BIGGER AND BETTER
A Northwest gardening author updates his seminal work
A
few weeks ago, I ran into Steve Solomon and
Marina McShane at the Lane County Farmers
Market. This meeting was remarkable for two
reasons. One, Solomon, a guru of Northwest veg-
etable gardening and founder of Territorial Seed
Company, has lived in Tasmania since 1998. Two, McShane
had recently given me a copy of a book she and Solomon
wrote together.
That book is, of course, the new, completely rewritten-
from-front-to-back edition of an indispensable classic:
Solomon’s Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades: The
Complete Guide to Organic Gardening (Sasquatch), which
appeared on the 35th anniversary of the first edition.
Solomon said of the book: “Tell Eugene Weekly readers
that I’ve learned a lot in recent years and almost all of it is
in this new edition. I plan to keep putting this info out there
as long as I can because I want to help people grow their
own food. That’s why I wrote this new edition.”
For this first major rewrite in 15 years, Solomon enlist-
ed the help of McShane, a long-time friend who once
worked in the seed room at Territorial and still lives near
Eugene. “Steve initially asked me to update the list of seed
suppliers,” McShane told me. “Adaptive Seeds and
Osborne are two that we added because their offerings and
their PNW focus were apropos and the quality of the seed
was good. I checked out several others which we decided
not to include, because the quality of seed was not great.”
McShane did germination tests and grow-outs, and also
sent seed to Solomon for him to trial.
McShane ended up making many other contributions to
this comprehensive guide to year-round gardening, sharing
her experience with her own 1,200-square-foot vegetable
garden and, in some cases, “to challenge Steve’s point of
view, which may have been out of date from not being on
the ground here. One good example is the availability of
terrific transplants of desirable varieties which are as good
or in some cases better than ones I raise at home.”
McShane also wrote a totally new chapter on herbs and
MARINA MCSHANE AND STEVE SOLOMON
flowers, and updated the material on pest control products.
Much of her material is seamlessly woven into the text, but
the occasional sidebar accentuates a difference of opinion.
The 35th-anniversary edition is substantially bigger
than its predecessors. It’s about as thick as my old 1989
edition but nearly an inch and a half wider, with thinner
paper and smaller type — a bit too small for me. There’s
more about composting, symphylans, the chemistry of
Cascadian soils, mineral deficiency in commercially raised
food and how to offset the leaching that results from our
seasonally wet climate.
There’s also some material from Solomon’s Gardening
When It Counts: Growing Vegetables in Hard Times (New
Society, 2005), including variety-specific advice on saving
your own seed. One focus of Gardening When It Counts
emphasized spacing as the key to growing vegetables with
a minimum of water. That’s also incorporated in the “How
to Grow It” chapter of the new book — very useful infor-
mation, especially if you have more space than water.
If you have more water than space, you may not buy
Solomon’s critique of the intensive method of organic
growing, promoted by John Jeavons, that uses tons of
organic matter. He’s softened his comments on this topic
since earlier editions and, although I agree with him in
general on the subject, I think Solomon overlooks the fact
that the intensive method allows people to grow lots of
veggies in a limited space.
Solomon is a bit of a contrarian, but he’s not afraid to
change his mind — based on his own experience, that is,
along with extensive research. So those who have been
reading Solomon forever will note some rethinking.
One major change concerns his advice about liming
Cascadian soils, and with what. And his famous recipe for
COF (Complete Organic Fertilizer) has gained a few ingre-
dients along the way and he now offers refinements for
varying soil types and conditions.
In Tasmania, Solomon grows most of his own food on
a quarter acre lot in a residential neighborhood. He says the
climate there is much like Elkton, Oregon, where he used
to live. He has long been a fan of early 20th-century litera-
ture on soil, food and health and in 1997 created an online
library from which you can download books for free.
The Soil and Health Library (soilandhealth.org) is now
owned by a New South Wales charity. Solomon moderates
a Yahoo email chat group called “soilandhealth” and serves
his community as a soil analyst. He also gives away veg-
etables. ■
Rachel Foster lives and gardens in Eugene, Oregon. She can be reached at
rfoster@efn.org.
traveling soon?
telemedical advice
for global travelers
www.TravelClinicOregon.com
We provide
safe access to medicine
with the information
you need to make
empowered decisions
about your well-being.
Welcome to
The Greener Side
Eugene’s Oldest Dispensary
keepeugenegreen.org
1553 Oak St. Eugene, OR
(541) 345-8904
M-F 10am - 9pm • Sun 11am - 7pm
do not operate a vehicle under the influence of this drug - for use by adults 21 years of age or older - keep out of reach of children
30
May 26, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com