I’m a bit late in announcing the August-September selection for the Garden Bloggers’ Book Club, but there is still plenty of time! How about reading Weedless Gardening by Lee Reich with me?

Why did I pick this one? Because I’ve got a great big area along my fence that I want to prepare for planting, and the methods outlined in Reich’s book should help me build up my soil from the top down, instead of using the traditional method of digging it all up.

If I like his methods, and they seem to make sense, I’m going to try them.

I picked Reich’s book after Dee from Red Dirt Rambling sent me a list of some books on her own bookshelf, which included How to Have a Green Thumb Without An Aching Back by Ruth Stout.

As soon as I saw this book on Dee’s list, I was instantly drawn to it. Who hasn’t heard of Ruth Stout and her no-till method of gardening? I have. Who wants an aching back? Not me.

But there was just one tiny fifty-dollar problem… I like to choose books for the book club that are likely to be in a public library or readily available on Amazon, even if all the copies there are used or “like new”.

I don’t know if Stout’s book is readily available at the library, but I do know it is scare on Amazon. I saw just one used copy for sale on Amazon for $49.

I could buy a couple cubic yards of mulch or a new hoe for $49! So this will be an alternate choice in case someone besides Dee has it. And if you do have this one on your shelf, I’d love to read what you think about it. Would it be worth $50 to have your own copy? Did you know your copy might be worth that much?

Or, if you have Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding! by Patricia Lanza you can read and review it as your contribution to the Garden Bloggers’ Book Club. I know a few of you have this one and have written about it before, including Colleen at In The Garden Online.

Whether or not you have new beds to prepare for planting now, you are a gardener, so you naturally want to have the best dirt with the fewest weeds. And wouldn’t it be nice to feel more confident about using these no-till methods to get to that good dirt? Sure it would be! And it will be more fun to read and learn about them with other gardeners. So I hope you’ll join me in reading Weedless Gardening or one of these other books in August and September.

It’s easy to participate in the Garden Bloggers’ Book Club. Just read the selected book or one of the alternate choices, post about it on your blog, and then let me know you’ve posted. Then on the last day of the second month for the book, I’ll post a “virtual meeting” post with a link back to all the various review posts.

So put down your shovel, stop the tiller, and pick up one of these books. Let’s all figure out how to make this bed prep thing just a little bit easier, maybe.

All are welcome to join in!