If you're still reading, then you're as much of a soil geek as I am.

But, really, if you're a gardener, and you're going to be a geek about something, it may as well be the soil. After all, great soil equals great plants, and great plants equal more enjoyment from your garden. I guess we could also say that great soil equals joy, but I don't want to seem like a fanatic or anything.

With that in mind, here are three great books for anyone interested in composting and learning about the soil beneath our feet. All of them are very well written, and, (dare I say it?) even entertaining.

1. Life in the Soil

   If you are interested in the vast and amazing world beneath your feet, you must read this book. Reading more like a novel than a biology text, Life in the Soil helps us understand the interconnectedness of soil organism -- making us a better gardener because of it.

2. Let It Rot!

   This book takes a lighthearted approach to teaching about composting. Great reading if you're thinking of starting your first compost pile.

3. The Complete Compost Gardening Guide

   I love this book. If you've been reading here for any length of time, you can probably guess that I'm all for composting, any possible way you can. This book offers plenty of creative suggestions for how to compost, no matter how much or how little space you have.

The Perennial Plant Association has recently announced its 2010 Perennial Plant of the Year: Baptisia australis, which is also known as blue false indigo or wild indigo. Baptisia grows well in zones 3 - 9, and prefers full sun but can grow in partial shade. It requires very little babying, will self-sow, and provides nectar for butterflies.

I like the Perennial Plant of the Year selections because they are chosen based on qualities that are integral to growing a healthy garden:

• They are suitable to a wide range of conditions.
• They have proven to be pest and disease resistant.
• They are low maintenance.
• They can be propagated easily.

The plants chosen as Perennial Plant of the Year are tough, dependable plants that you would do well to build a garden around. Past Plants of the Year include Geranium 'Rozanne,' Nepeta 'Walker's Low,' Phlox 'David,' and Penstemon digitalis 'Husker's Red.' The full list of winners can be found at the Perennial Plant Association's web site.

Photo courtesy of the Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder

You know about me and tomatoes. My fascination with this plant is almost (almost) absurd, but I just keep finding more reasons to love the tomato. If you've grown tomatoes for very long, you've probably already noticed that they seem to have the ability to trap insects, due to a slightly sticky substance on the "hairs" that grow along the stem. What researchers at the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew found was that the tomato plants weren't just trapping insects: they are actually able to use nutrients from the decomposing insects' bodies to self-fertilize. Researchers also concluded that we don't see this phenomenon all the time in our gardens because the domesticated plants are taking up plenty of nutrients from the soil (because we do baby our tomatoes when we plant them, don't we?) but that, in the wild, they probably trap insects much more frequently.

And it's not just tomatoes. Other formerly "innocent" plants have been found to have this same ability, including potatoes, nicotiana, and petunias.

I loved this quote from the researchers, who published their findings in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society: "We may be surrounded by many more murderous plants than we think."

Murderous tomatoes. Gotta love it!

Source: The Telegraph, December 4, 2009

  It's a question that every gardener mutters, probably hundreds of times over the course of a life spent in the garden: What's wrong with my plant? A new book, What's Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?) by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth (Timber Press, December 2009) aims to help gardeners answer just those questions.  Using a handy system of flow charts, accompanied by detailed color photos and step-by-step organic treatments, the book tries to make it simple to diagnose and treat plant problems.

I found What's Wrong With My Plant to be a very useful book (even putting it through a few tests of my own, just to make sure it lived up to its promises!) and one that would make an excellent gift for yourself or any other gardeners in your life. I hope you'll check out my review, and please let me know if you've read the book, and what your impressions are.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a review copy of this book by the publisher, with the understanding that the decision to review, as well as the contents of that review, are solely my own. The opinions expressed in the review are my own, and were not in any way affected by the fact that I received a copy of the book from the publisher.