The Self-Fed Farm and Garden

A Return to the Roots of the Organic Method

By: Eliot Coleman

Narrated by: Madison Niederhauser

In his first all-new book in 15 years, Eliot Coleman returns organic farming to its ethical roots, exploring the very soul of organic growing. In The Self-Fed Farm and Garden, he presents the organic method as a self-sustaining system rooted in soil health care and shows listeners how they can shift to a self-fed model that continually recharges the soil with organic matter, thus allowing the soil food web to provide all the nutrients crops need for healthy growth and excellent yields.

Based on his long study of his library of classic farming and gardening books, Eliot re-engineered the way he managed soils and crops at Four Season Farm so that he would never need to purchase off-farm inputs of compost or fertilizer. The self-fed approach combines classic techniques practiced by the pioneers of organic farming: growing green manure crops year-round and shallowly tilling them into the soil, growing leguminous plants to add nitrogen, and devising effective crop rotation systems for disease and weed control. Once you implement a self-fed system, Coleman explains, then you alone—and not the farm and garden products industry—are master of your destiny.

A self-fed system is safe from contamination by pollutants, which is a key point in this era of widespread contamination of soil and water by PFAS and other forever chemicals. The self-fed system also has the benefit of far lower expenses than those that rely on purchased fertilizers from off the farm.

The book also delves into the underlying causes in the shifts in the organic movement, calling out the erosion of standards in the National Organic Program and the greenwashing of the new trend of regenerative agriculture. Eliot includes specific examples, such as how large corporate interests acted to lobby against those who sought to protect the need for pure ingredients in composts for organic farms.

In the book’s conclusion, Eliot describes the next chapter in the life of Four-Season Farm as he and his wife, awarding-winning garden book author Barbara Damrosch, step away from the farm-scale production, making space for a new farming couple to steward the land.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2025 Eliot Coleman (P)2025 Chelsea Green Publishing Company

Tops! essential

86 when he did this book, reminded me of the long life of Scott Nearing. once I found it was driving along the road in (Harborside) right next to the now Good Life Center.
Words from Elliot Coleman deepen my appreciation for soil and plants, even after my 50 yrs of gardening.

So happy to read your work again.

What a system! Used to buy a couple of yards of compost till a bug started to spread around Chicago from compost yards. What a perfect replacement your green manure system seems to be. Thanks for the book.

Practical sound advice! “Outstanding book”

This is my first Elliot Coleman book- it was outstanding! I am a Horticulturalist / Permaculturist with a speciality in Soil Science. This book is for every Gardener, practical advice and citations to back up information. I will be putting many of these practices in play this season and for years to come.

Good Info but Redundant

New gardeners will get good information but the first few chapters are repetitive. I hoped for a deeper dive into some areas instead of a different way to say the same thing. I feel Mr Coleman's resume carries more weight than many quotes simply due to the age of the source material. The detailed breakdown on what and why of each green manure used was very helpful.

Mr Coleman gives us our tillers back, but would Elaine Ingrahm or Ray Arculleta agree?