Your Organic Garden with Jeff Cox

This companion volume to the PBS program Your Organic Garden covers the territory reliably, eschewing synthetic controls (fertilizers, pesticides) for the natural alternative. Some of the methods recommended to home gardeners include: have your soil tested, and infuse it with needed organic nutrients over time; take preventive measures to avoid pest problems and disease, when possible; and, always, keep weeds to a minimum. All seemingly simple stuff, and yet not so simple, which is why Cox ``learned my way into it'' and why the book is needed. Dividing it into a portion on methods and another on plant types and their care, the author discusses composting, planting and propagation; varieties of vegetables, herbs, flowers, groundcovers, lawns, flowers and more. The plant directory contains helpful ``at a glance'' capsule summaries, and sidebars elsewhere focus on the trials to gardeners of raccoons and Japanese beetles--and how best to respond. Clear and conversational, Cox doesn't have to sell himself in these pages--he just makes sense. Illustrated. (Jan.)