15 books like The Soul of Soil

By Joseph Smillie, Grace Gershuny,

Here are 15 books that The Soul of Soil fans have personally recommended if you like The Soul of Soil. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Botany for Gardeners

Daryl Beyers Author Of The New Gardener's Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Grow a Beautiful and Bountiful Garden

From my list on for new gardeners.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a gardening instructor and designer, I've been recommending these five books for years. They were the core texts of the Fundamentals of Gardening course I've been teaching at the New York Botanical Garden for over a decade. Since the publication of The New Gardener’s Handbook, which covers all these topics in a more abbreviated way, I still recommend these five books to my students if they want to dig deeper. These books are what I call “keeper texts.” I own fewer and fewer actual gardening books these days, but it's a fact that a copy of each of these excellent resources resides on my office bookshelf where I refer to them frequently. 

Daryl's book list on for new gardeners

Daryl Beyers Why did Daryl love this book?

I’ve been recommending Brian Capon’s Botany for Gardeners to my gardening students for years. Unlike your typical botany textbook, it’s written expressly for gardeners, which means it presents all you need to know about botany if you are a gardener, not a scientist or a botany student. The presentation is clear, concise, and conversational, so it feels like learning about botany from a friend…a really smart friend! This book will either take you as far as you need to go in botany, or it will open you up to the world of botany and inspire you to learn more. 

By Brian Capon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Botany for Gardeners as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For two decades readers around the world have been fascinated by Brian Capon's crystal-clear descriptions of how plants work. What happens inside a seed after it is planted? How do plants use each other - and animals - to survive? How do they reproduce, and how do they transform nutrients into growth? "Botany for Gardeners" is the most complete, compact, and accessible introduction to the world of botany available. The new edition has been expanded with dazzling scanning electron microscope photographs and even more amazing facts about plants. Especially timely are new essays on food plants: what makes plants edible,…


Book cover of The Plant Propagator's Bible: A Step-By-Step Guide to Propagating Every Plant in Your Garden

Daryl Beyers Author Of The New Gardener's Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Grow a Beautiful and Bountiful Garden

From my list on for new gardeners.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a gardening instructor and designer, I've been recommending these five books for years. They were the core texts of the Fundamentals of Gardening course I've been teaching at the New York Botanical Garden for over a decade. Since the publication of The New Gardener’s Handbook, which covers all these topics in a more abbreviated way, I still recommend these five books to my students if they want to dig deeper. These books are what I call “keeper texts.” I own fewer and fewer actual gardening books these days, but it's a fact that a copy of each of these excellent resources resides on my office bookshelf where I refer to them frequently. 

Daryl's book list on for new gardeners

Daryl Beyers Why did Daryl love this book?

One of the most exciting things new gardeners learn is how to make more plants, either by collecting seeds from the plants in their garden or learning how to clone the plants they own. Plant propagation is part science, part faith, and part plant wizardry, and Smith’s step-by-step presentation is the best I have found. With a recently published new edition, it’s easier than ever to have an illustrated guide at your side, showing you how to start seeds, take cuttings, or make grafts of all your favorite plants. 

By Miranda Smith,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Plant Propagator's Bible as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions, veteran horticulture teacher Miranda Smith provides a complete reference showing every step for cultivating new plants—whether from seed or cuttings or with techniques such as layering, grafting, and budding.

Propagating new plants from existing ones is not only sustainable but also rewarding for gardeners of all skill levels. The Plant Propagator’s Bible offers a solid and complete, go-to reference for expert gardeners but is also a perfect primer for the novice plant lover and horticulturalist.

Smith teaches readers, with the support of hundreds of 4-color photos and detailed illustrations, the natural process and conditions in which…


Book cover of The Pruning of Trees, Shrubs, and Conifers

Daryl Beyers Author Of The New Gardener's Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Grow a Beautiful and Bountiful Garden

From my list on for new gardeners.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a gardening instructor and designer, I've been recommending these five books for years. They were the core texts of the Fundamentals of Gardening course I've been teaching at the New York Botanical Garden for over a decade. Since the publication of The New Gardener’s Handbook, which covers all these topics in a more abbreviated way, I still recommend these five books to my students if they want to dig deeper. These books are what I call “keeper texts.” I own fewer and fewer actual gardening books these days, but it's a fact that a copy of each of these excellent resources resides on my office bookshelf where I refer to them frequently. 

Daryl's book list on for new gardeners

Daryl Beyers Why did Daryl love this book?

Pruning is an easy skill to learn but a difficult art to master, and what better way to learn the trick of the trade than from two renowned English gardening experts. The first edition is a classic, while the second edition brings the techniques presented up to date, based upon all the recent science. It covers every possible pruning technique, from basic cuts to pleaching and making espaliers. The best part of this book is the index of plants at the back which provides a list of every possible woody plant and the right way, or ways, to prune it. This is a book I still carry in my truck today, where I have it handy if I encounter an unfamiliar plant that needs some thoughtful cuts. 

By George Ernest Brown, Tony Kirkham,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Pruning of Trees, Shrubs, and Conifers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How, when, and where to prune? The questions that beset every gardener never change, but the solutions do. The Pruning of Trees, Shrubs and Conifers recommends the best pruning techniques and practices. This unique encyclopaedic treatment details the best pruning methods for more than 450 genera of trees, shrubs, conifers, and woody climbers. The A-Z format covers several thousand species, yet remains a manageable and practical reference. Kirkham clearly explains the reasons behind pruning techniques as well as how to apply them.


Book cover of Cass Turnbull's Guide to Pruning: What, When, Where & How to Prune for a More Beautiful Garden

Daryl Beyers Author Of The New Gardener's Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Grow a Beautiful and Bountiful Garden

From my list on for new gardeners.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a gardening instructor and designer, I've been recommending these five books for years. They were the core texts of the Fundamentals of Gardening course I've been teaching at the New York Botanical Garden for over a decade. Since the publication of The New Gardener’s Handbook, which covers all these topics in a more abbreviated way, I still recommend these five books to my students if they want to dig deeper. These books are what I call “keeper texts.” I own fewer and fewer actual gardening books these days, but it's a fact that a copy of each of these excellent resources resides on my office bookshelf where I refer to them frequently. 

Daryl's book list on for new gardeners

Daryl Beyers Why did Daryl love this book?

This book perfectly demystifies the art of pruning trees and shrubs for even the most apprehensive gardener. Turnbull’s conversational style and matter-of-fact presentation of all you need to know to do it right and not wreck your plants, has been a fan favorite for years. I recommend it to my gardening students that may find the Brown/Kirkham pruning book a bit on the dry side. Cass makes pruning sound fun, and important, blending her horticultural knowledge and skill with a keen political sensibility that stresses the ethics of doing things the right way for the health and well-being of your plants.  

By Cass Turnbull,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cass Turnbull's Guide to Pruning as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This 3rd Edition of Cass Turnbull's Guide to Pruning covers more than twenty additional plants in three new chapters. The result is the new definitive guide for the home gardener with friendly, expert advice from Cass Turnbull, founder of Seattle's PlantAmnesty, whose mission is "to end the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs caused by mal-pruning." Nothing about pruning is obvious. In fact, most of it is downright counterintuitive. People try to prune plants like they cut lumber or hair. But that doesn't work to get what they want. Your plants are actually telling you how they want…


Book cover of The Agricultural Dilemma: How Not to Feed the World

Chris Smaje Author Of Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future: The Case For an Ecological Food System and Against Manufactured Foods

From my list on why we must adopt low-impact local food systems.

Why am I passionate about this?

I started my career as an academic social scientist and seem set to end it as a gardener, small-scale farmer, and accidental ecological activist. I’ve learned a lot of things along the way from these different parts of my life that I channel in my writing. I don’t claim much expertise. In fact, I think claims to expert knowledge that can ‘solve’ modern problems are a big part of our modern problems. I’ve always been interested in how people and communities try to figure things out for themselves, often by picking up the pieces when big ideas have failed them. My writing arises out of that.

Chris' book list on why we must adopt low-impact local food systems

Chris Smaje Why did Chris love this book?

I’ve been reading, thinking about, and doing food and farming for a long time, but I still found this book an eye-opener in its rigorous understanding of how we’re getting the food system so wrong globally.

We’ve been spun a line that modern petrochemical-intensive agriculture, with its supposedly scientific and efficient methods, holds the line against poverty and hunger in our populous modern world. In scholarly but readable prose, Stone’s book demolishes this idea, showing how modern industrial farming makes too many of us ill, poor, and vulnerable.

Breathing new life into the much-maligned model of the labour-intensive small ‘peasant’ or family farm, he points the way to more local and human-scale agriculture for the future. 

By Glenn Davis Stone,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Agricultural Dilemma as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

provides a new analysis of population and agricultural growth. argues that we can't make sense of population and food production without recognizing the drivers of three fundamentally different types of agriculture: Malthusian (expansion), industrialization (external-input-dependent) and intensification (labour-based). upends entrenched misconceptions such as that we are running out of land for food production and that our only hope is development of new agricultural technologies written in an engaging style, containing vignettes, short histories and global case studies will not only be of interest to students and scholars of agriculture, land management and development, but also those more widely interested in…


Book cover of The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole Systems Design Approach

Anna Hess Author Of The Ultimate Guide to Soil

From my list on for beyond-organic gardeners.

Why am I passionate about this?

If I'm honest, I became a gardener because I like getting dirty. Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Tom Kitten is the story of my childhood (and my adulthood too, only now I don't have to pretend I'm going to stay clean). Of course, high-quality soil leads to high-quality produce, and I deeply adore the flavors of strawberries growing in deep, dark soil. Biting into a juicy, homegrown tomato still warm from the summer sun is bliss.

Anna's book list on for beyond-organic gardeners

Anna Hess Why did Anna love this book?

This book has all of the same selling points as Carol Deppe's but is geared a bit more toward those with larger homesteads rather than a simple backyard plot. Even if you're an urban homesteader, though, the title is well worth a read to drum up outside-the-box ideas.

By Ben Falk,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Resilient Farm and Homestead as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A practical, comprehensive, and essential how-to manual with information on growing perennial crops, soil fertility, water security, nutrient dense food, and more!

"Essential reading for the serious prepper as well as for everyone interested in creating a more resilient lifestyle."-Carol Deppe, author of The Resilient Gardener

The Resilient Farm and Homestead is for readers ready to not just survive, but thrive in changing, unpredictable times. It offers the tools to develop durable, beautiful, and highly functional human habitat systems anchored by preparation, regeneration, and resiliency.

Ben Falk is a land designer and site developer whose research farm has drawn national…


Book cover of Consulting the Genius of the Place: An Ecological Approach to a New Agriculture

Catherine Zabinski Author Of Amber Waves: The Extraordinary Biography of Wheat, from Wild Grass to World Megacrop

From my list on to contemplate food systems.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a plant and soil ecologist, and have spent my working life researching and teaching within the university system. I am also a reader of poetry and literature, and particularly drawn to authors who write so well that you are pulled into a topic that you didn’t know was of interest. I wrote a biography of wheat because I really like plants, and I thought that writing about one of our crop plants could attract readers who like to eat. Along the way, I got fascinated by the layered complexities of our food system. Reading about it is another way to reflect on our relationship with the planet. 

Catherine's book list on to contemplate food systems

Catherine Zabinski Why did Catherine love this book?

Jackson has devoted his career to reforming agriculture by applying ecological principles garnered from prairie lands of the Bread Basket of North America. Based in Kansas, Jackson has worked toward generating perennial crops that don’t need to be seeded annually, and could be grown in mixtures (a grain, an oil seed, and a legume), to support healthy soils that will sustain food production for many generations. This book lays out the arguments for his approach and challenges the basis of our agricultural systems. 

By Wes Jackson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Consulting the Genius of the Place as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Locavore leaders such as Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, and Barbara Kingsolver all speak of the need for sweeping changes in how we get our food. A longtime leader of this movement is Wes Jackson, who for decades has taken it upon himself to speak for the land, to speak for the soil itself. Here, he offers a manifesto toward a conceptual revolution: Jackson asks us to look to natural ecosystems—or, if one prefers, nature in general—as the measure against which we judge all of our agricultural practices.

Jackson believes the time is right to do away with annual monoculture grains,…


Book cover of Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet

Zoe Weil Author Of The Solutionary Way: Transform Your Life, Your Community, and the World for the Better

From my list on people who want to build a better future.

Why am I passionate about this?

I want to live in a future where all life can thrive. Toward that end, I spend my days teaching and writing about how we can solve the problems we face in our communities and world and build such a future. No surprise then that I read extensively about solutions to problems, looking for those that are visionary while being practical and which truly strive to do the most good and least harm for everyone. As a systems thinker, I’m always looking for books that recognize how interconnected our political, economic, production, food, legal, energy, and other systems are and that offer ideas that will have the fewest unintended negative consequences. 

Zoe's book list on people who want to build a better future

Zoe Weil Why did Zoe love this book?

When I read nonfiction books about the challenges we face in our communities, nations, and world, I want to know not just what the problems are but how to solve them. In other words, I want the book to be solutionary.

This book begins by articulating the problems with our agricultural systems, but the lion’s share of the book is about how we address those problems effectively. Monbiot’s ideas are both visionary and practical. I found myself thrilled to read someone so powerfully explore the steps we can and must take to build a regenerative future. 

By George Monbiot,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Regenesis as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Sunday Times bestseller
*Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize*
A New Statesman and Spectator Book of the Year

'This book calls for nothing less than a revolution in the future of food' Kate Raworth

From the bestselling author of Feral, a breathtaking first glimpse of a new future for food and for humanity

Farming is the world's greatest cause of environmental destruction - and the one we are least prepared to talk about. We criticise urban sprawl, but farming sprawls across thirty times as much land. We have ploughed, fenced and grazed great tracts of the planet, felling forests, killing…


Book cover of Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web

Anna Hess Author Of The Ultimate Guide to Soil

From my list on for beyond-organic gardeners.

Why am I passionate about this?

If I'm honest, I became a gardener because I like getting dirty. Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Tom Kitten is the story of my childhood (and my adulthood too, only now I don't have to pretend I'm going to stay clean). Of course, high-quality soil leads to high-quality produce, and I deeply adore the flavors of strawberries growing in deep, dark soil. Biting into a juicy, homegrown tomato still warm from the summer sun is bliss.

Anna's book list on for beyond-organic gardeners

Anna Hess Why did Anna love this book?

This is a different type of book than the ones listed above but is nonetheless essential for the gardener who wants to enrich rather than deplete their soil. Once you learn about the beneficial fungi, bacteria, and other critters that make up the soil food web, you'll think twice about tearing up their landscape with a rototiller.

By Jeff Lowenfels, Wayne Lewis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Teaming with Microbes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Smart gardeners know that soil is anything but an inert substance. Healthy soil is teeming with life not just earthworms and insects, but a staggering multitude of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. When we use chemical fertilizers, we injure the microbial life that sustains healthy plants, and thus become increasingly dependent on an arsenal of artificial, often toxic, substances. But there is an alternative to this vicious cycle. We can garden in a way that strengthens the soil food web the complex world of soil-dwelling organisms whose interactions create a nurturing environment for plants. "Teaming with Microbes" extols the benefits…


Book cover of Dirt Cheap

Cathy Ballou Mealey Author Of Sloth and Squirrel in a Pickle

From my list on entrepreneurship and jobs for kids.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have never picked a peck of pickles, but I have been a crossing guard, pet-sitter, and professional gift-wrapper. I’ve worked in department stores, banks, libraries, colleges, and even a middle school cafeteria. Every job has taught me about the value of hard work, allowed me to pursue a passion, and inspired me to connect with all kinds of people. My current job - picture book author - is my favorite! I write to empower and inspire readers with new ideas and encourage them, like my characters, to succeed by maintaining a positive attitude and a growth mindset!

Cathy's book list on entrepreneurship and jobs for kids

Cathy Ballou Mealey Why did Cathy love this book?

Birdie really wants a special soccer ball, the XR1000 Super Extreme. She starts selling dirt at 25 cents per bag, and soon has plenty of customers. While she does earn enough to buy the ball, she inadvertently creates a big problem. She has no yard left for playing soccer! What can she sell next in order to buy new soil for her lawn? This determined, creative soccer star’s story will inspire readers to persevere and amend for any oversights in their entrepreneurial ventures.

By Mark Hoffmann,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dirt Cheap as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A young entrepreneur sets out to earn some money and discovers the value of a dollar (and of dirt)! Perfect for fans of Lemonade in Winter, The Most Magnificent Thing, and Rosie Revere, Engineer.

Birdie doesn't know much about money. All she knows is that she wants a new soccer ball that costs $24.95. The fastest way to that $24.95 is going into sales, but what to sell?

All her belongings?
Not much of a market for those.

Birdie needs something that she has in abundance and that everyone needs. So when she sees everyone in her neighborhood working on…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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