High Performance Gardening by Lynn Gillespie

I give this book 9 out of 10 acorns, because who doesn't want a high performance garden??? Even though I've been gardening for a lot of years, I'm never quite satisfied with my garden's performance. In reading the first couple of chapters of Lynn's book, I realize that I've always had low performance gardens, complete with all the labor, weeds, and disappointing results to prove it.

On the one hand, I've been gardening long enough that somehow I think I should have it all figured out. One the other hand, there's always something to learn from someone else's experience and advice! This book did an excellent job of providing that.

The first three chapters discuss and define low performance gardening versus high performance gardening. Chapters four through fourteen address the practical and effective ways the gardener can create a high performance garden:

Harmony with Nature

Bug & Disease Resistance

Weed Free Gardening

Very Little Time

Very Little Inputs

Few Tools Required

Planning

Succession Planting

Extending the Growing Season

Utilizing all the Space

Creating Huge Yields

Chapter 15 discusses other benefits of high performance gardening and chapter 16 summarizes the specific practices to apply to your garden.

While I was familiar with many of the book's ideas, the two that have been eye openers are BRIX indicators and mineralizing. I always thought BRIX was just a scale of sweetness, but thanks to Lynn's book, I now understand that it's also strongly tied to flavor, vitamin and mineral content, increased production, insect and disease resistance, and weather resilience. Minerals are the key. I learned that they don't automatically show up in the compost and may have to be added to the soil from other sources.

While there was excellent information about minerals in general, I was left with a lot of questions. Gardeners are familiar with nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous, and Lynn mentions trace minerals. But which minerals? How do I know what I need? How much? Is there any particular combination that's best? What are the recommended sources? Is there a recommended product or company to look for? Where do I find more information?

Even though I'd have liked to have that information included, the book is an excellent resources. I think every gardener would benefit from having a copy of this book in their gardening home library.

I give this book 9 out of 10 acorns. I really enjoyed reading a practical, friendly, and informative guide to growing more produce in less space (and less time) in an organic and soil-friendly way, and also learning more about growing super nutrient-dense food at the same time.

There is some fascinating information relating to the BRIX scale to determine how to test your (or someone else's) produce with a refractometer to gauge poor–excellent produce. Also, how to optimize your gardening processes - so that you can produce and preserve high-Brix fruit and veg that is healthy and robust.

The book has a good explanation of soil and the soil food web and explains the essentials of how this relates to an abundant and productive garden. I love learning about soil but - to be honest - I don't necessarily want an overly complex scientific deep dive, and Lynn's summary of this was the perfect balance for me. Lynn does go into some depth about it but her writing style and helpful illustrations made it easily digestible and very helpful without being overwhelming.

I really appreciated the format of the book and found it practical and solutions-focused whilst also offering explanations of why we would want to work in a certain way, taking care to dispel common myths surrounding organic gardening. I love Lynn's experienced voice in the text which is knowledgeable but also relaxed and encouraging.

I've had the pleasure of speaking to Lynn personally and her enthusiasm is infectious. I mention this as I think that enthusiasm and true passion for helping others with her high performance system really shines through in her writing and is a very authentic aspect of the book. She definitely practices what she preaches!

I'd recommend this book to beginner gardeners to set you up from the outset with a fantastic, easy-to-follow method. But I'd also recommend it to those who have been gardening for a lot longer and want to improve their garden and get more out of each season. I also think the book is particularly helpful for those with limited space, however, the system can be scaled up if space is not an issue. Essentially, it works well for a bunch of different circumstances and now I come to think of it, I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to read this book!

A read through the above 2 glowing testimonials above is making me think that I need your book! And that I might need to rethink my idea of starting a food forest this year. Maybe I don't need one after all. A 'food forest' seems much more daunting than just a 'garden'.