Grow Organic Vegetables Using A Modern Planting Method

Note: I own this manual and am using the plans. All links to the product are affiliate links, and if you buy this book through me, I will get a commission. I believe in this product 100%, which is why I am confident enough to recommend it for money.
If the affiliate link bothers you because you question this review’s integrity, just use this non-affiliate link here: Food4Wealth. My primary purpose isn’t to earn money, but to put up an honest review of a great manual that I believe will help you. The money is a side benefit and supports the development of this site.

What is Food4Wealth?

A guide to planting a productive vegetable garden with a modern — but completely common-sense — growing method. This method maximizes space, minimizes effort, and uses no chemicals. So, it results in organic produce, but it’s not traditional organic planting.
The Food4Wealth manual is probably best for people who just the end product of a vegetable garden — the veggies! It’s friendly both to beginning gardeners, and people who have tried / struggled with more traditional row planting and want to try something new or not as much work.

The format.
The format is a concise 80-page ebook plus a lot of video demonstrations of all the stuff he talks about, like planting seedlings, spreading compost, and harvesting. This is essential for a beginner like me — I have absolutely no experience, and watching the videos give you “virtual experience,” especially if you learn by imitation, as I do.

Every page in the book is both easy to read and useful. Though the author is a scientist, he skips the jargon in favor of hands-on instruction. He’s an excellent teacher and his method is so common-sense, everyone can understand it.

Cost.
Is it worth buying a manual when there are so many forums, articles, etc? I think it is — I have a toddler and am a single parent, so I just don’t have time to browse the web. Even if the required information is “out there somewhere,” I am not spending 100 hours to find it!

Though I’ve looked on forums, anyone can and does post on Gardenweb (popular gardening forum). You have no idea of the thread poster’s real expertise. Everyone loves to give advice, and you don’t know if it’s good or bad if you’re a total beginner like me.

The cost of the book is quite reasonable, anyway ($40.) I bought it without hesitation, knowing that I’m probably going to spend $100 – $200 more in seeds, seedlings, composting equipment, premade compost to start with, fences, fertilizer, and related materials.

The cost is all in the first year, though, which is why I don’t mind spending it. The low-maintenance style of the garden ensures that you won’t have to put much more money into it in the years to come.

What’s different from traditional vegetable planting?

Lower effort, higher yield.

The promise of this growing method is low effort, high yield. After reading the book, it makes total sense. This style is way more foolproof than any other gardening method I’ve investigated — low weeding, less watering, no chemicals, no insect pests, no pH balancing (yikes, that’s a little beyond me), and only using compost after the initial setup.

Grow winter crops!
Part of the higher yield is the ability to realistically grow winter crops, like broccoli and Brussels sprouts. Because the garden is laid out in a specific way, the garden stays productive longer. I can’t wait to make my cream-braised Brussels sprouts with homegrown baby sprouts! I really look forward to the winter vegetables, since they are so freaking expensive in the market (especially organic vegetables.)

The only thing I’m a little wary of is having to harvest every day… I’m going to have to get my neighbor to help me, since I’m not a creature of habit and may forget. Harvesting every day keeps plants producing longer, and the tender “baby” veggies are delicious.

Saves money, even with the startup costs.

Though saving money isn’t my primary purpose in doing this, I love to cook and eat. I’m sure this will knock off at least $30 a week in grocery bills, since the produce is the most expensive part of my bill! Seriously, $2.50 for a measly bundle of swiss chard?

You have to spend $10 to get a decent amount of sauteed greens for a family of 4. But chard is plentiful, delicious, and absolutely fresh when you grow it yourself. (And it’s supposed to be easy to grow.) I’m looking forward to it, since I just got into chard this year.  If you don’t know what chard is, see the picture of the red-veined leaf.  Highly recommended — sautees quickly, and is high in nutrients.

I am using the Food4Wealth method this spring for my first vegetable garden. His method and manual tidily resolves all my issues, like:
Not having much space.
We have a backyard and a front yard, but they’re tiny. Food4Wealth style planting will work for me, though — you can even do it in containers, though it’s not optimal. I am actually going to do some containers, too, just to make the most of my space.
Not having a ton of sun.
We have sunny spots, but mostly, it’s indirect sun. Chicago is also overcast often during the summer. But Jonathan White’s recommendations for Top 10 plants grow well even in indirect sun (of course, it’s not optimal, either, but you have to work with what you got.)
Getting the most produce out of the space.
Traditional row planting wastes a lot of space and water, but his “ecological gardening” method makes the most out of every square inch.
Crappy soil is not an issue.
We have terrible urban soil. It’s packed hard and covered with crabgrass — has been for probably 40 years. I was wondering how I would have to deal with this, and I got visions of a lot of digging and raking. Not so. This method makes any soil problems obsolete — you don’t even have to kill the grass where you want to put your site.

More ecology-friendly even than organic growing.

How is this possible? Isn’t organic farming and gardening the best?
Well, as I learned, it isn’t. Organic growing means chemical-free produce, which is great. But organic vegetable gardens are still quite labor intensive. The huge advantage organic has over conventional is the lack of pesticides — but you still have to do pest control.

The Food4Wealth method doesn’t even require insect pest control, which is really cool. It does result in chemical-free and intensely nutritious vegetables, but without the intense labor.

In addition, the garden is allowed to reseed itself, while row-and-hoe gardens have to be dug up and replanted every year. This is the coolest aspect for me — I really want to see my second-year plants come up randomly all over my little plot.

The Excellent Living Guide stamp of approval.

This manual gets my stamp of approval. Since I am a beginner with very little time, I am all about getting the best results with least effort, using modern methods and leverage. Food4Wealth is definitely a modern method compared to the traditional hoe-and-row style of vegetable planting, and it leverages the natural growing tendencies of plants for a lower-effort garden.

Yes, I know it sounds obvious (what, plants grow? you’re kidding…) but that’s exactly what the author, Jonathan White, teaches us to do.

Learn more about Food4Wealth on the author’s website.