Review
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"When does gardening become farming? When are you no longer having dinner parties and running a restaurant instead? For
those who are ready to graduate beyond coffee-can retail, the incomparable Eliot Coleman is back with THE WINTER HARVEST
HANDBOOK: Year-Round Vegetable Production Using Deep- Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses (Chelsea Green, paper,
$29.95). I'm not one to quibble over the details of a "T-post anchor and homemade attaching bracket for securing the
corners of a new rolling greenhouse design." Suffice it to say that this serious, meticulous, inspiring farmer and
writer solves the problem of growing lettuce in Maine -- in January. Anyone living near Coleman's Four Season Farm is
thrice blessed -- 1) to live in intense denial of the back-breaking effort he or she is 2) being spared in order to
acquire what is surely 3) the tastiest, most wholesome and pure food available. Coleman's opus is as much a call to
action for town planners to embrace local farms as it is a bible for small farmers. This book is for people who know
what they're doing."-- The New York Times Book Review
"I just finished picking my first carrots, beets, and radishes from my new 'cold house' in Bedford, New York. It is so
rewarding to harvest fresh vegetables and salads in the middle of winter and I grow them following the techniques of
Eliot Coleman. I have been a devotee of Eliot's for years, fully agreeing with his methods for growing in winter,
spring, summer, and fall, tasty, tious produce with a minimum consumption of fossil fuels. Congratulations on
another volume of useful, practical, sensible, and enlightening information for the home gardener."--Martha Stewart
"'Attention to detail is the major secret to success in any endeavor, ' writes Eliot Coleman on page 156 of this
absorbing and happily detailed report on his ongoing efforts to grow flawless vegetables without hothouses on the frozen
'back side' of the year. In chapters covering everything from The Yearly Schedule and Greenhouse Design to Weed Control
and Marketing, Coleman tracks his own constant search for perfection, a quality that has led more than one young farmer
to excl 'I'd follow him anywhere.' Well worth reading even if you don't grow vegetables, just to watch a master's
mind at work."--Joan Dye Gussow, author of This Life
"The Winter Harvest Handbook is a treasure trove of practical, proven techniques for producing crops on a year-round
basis in any climate. Based on decades of on-farm research, this book is packed with useful ideas, tips and practices
that anyone can use in pursuing the increasingly vital dream of local, food production using a minimum of
precious resources. A masterful book from a master farmer. I wish I had had a copy 35 years ago!"--Amigo Bob
Cantisano, President, Ag Advisors
"How do you produce first-rate food all year-round in northern places? This is the big question facing the local food
movement, and Eliot Coleman, one of America's most innovative farmers, has come up with excellent answers. Brimming with
ingenuity, hope, and eminently practical advice, The Winter Harvest Handbook is an indispensable contribution."--Michael
Pollan
"Eliot Coleman is widely recognized as the 'master' of the master gardeners. His new book, The Winter Harvest
Handbook--which tells us how to produce local food even in winter in cold climates like Maine, without a lot of
energy--now joins his other delightful books as another lovely read, packed with powerful and practical ideas that every
gardener will treasure."--Frederick Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and
President of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture
"Eliot Coleman's books have been called Bibles for small farmers and home gardeners. I suspect that's because he writes
about not just gardening but about everything that connects to good food and pleasure; a Renaissance man for a new
generation, he'll quote Goethe in the same breath as Ghandi, and as a result, you'll dig, weed, eat, think, and live
more fully."--Dan Barber, Chef, Blue Hill and Blue Hill Stone Barns
"If we are going to create a good, clean, fair food system, we've got to learn how to grow affordable, local food
year-round and make a living at it. Eliot Coleman knows more about this than anyone I've met. Here he gives the detailed
information needed to make it work. The only way to learn it better would be to follow him around for a few seasons. And
he won't let you."--Josh Viertel, President, Slow Food USA
About the Author
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Eliot Coleman has over thirty years' experience in all aspects of farming, including field
vegetables, greenhouse vegetables, rotational grazing of cattle and sheep, and range poultry. He is the author of The
New Grower, Four-Season Harvest, and The Winter Harvest Handbook, as well as the instructional workshop DVD
Year-Round Vegetable Production with Eliot Coleman. Coleman and his wife, Barbara Damrosch, presently operate a
commercial year-round market garden, in addition to horticultural research projects, at Four Season Farm in Harborside,
Maine.