Ecological Gardening. Rev. ed.

Pleasance Crawford is a Canadian landscape and garden-history researcher
and writer, and the co-author of Garden Voices: Two Centuries of
Canadian Garden Writing.

This revised and updated version of Marjorie Harris’s excellent 1991
guide to organic gardening has a new cover but an identical title and
table of contents and an only slightly altered text. Incorporating
readers’ suggestions and new information, Harris has changed a few
words in the introduction, moved a paragraph about chemical pesticides,
added Epsom salts to a list of noncommercial alternatives, adjusted a
recipe for slug bait, deleted a comment about viral disease,
strengthened a warning about purple loosestrife, tempered a statement
about water metering, and acknowledged that plastic containers can look
attractive. To the bibliography she has added several new Canadian
magazines but no new books, even though the recent explosion in garden
publishing has produced several titles worthy of inclusion.

Either version of Ecological Gardening makes a valuable addition to the
gardener’s library.