Have you checked out amazon.com to read the reviews and post questions?

I got the books from Amazon and read some of the reviews, but I really wanted to know if any of my gardenweb fb friends had opinions.

I liked Solomon's book very much and read it about as soon as it came out. As many may know he kind of pivoted towards the importance of properly balancing the primary minerals in the soil after being advised (correctly) by Michael Astera (author of The Ideal Soil) on the problem he was facing.

Because human and animal health is so dependent on plant health, and because plant health is so dependent upon good soil Solomon spent quite a few years putting together an online Soil & Health Library, which I believe he turned over to others not long ago. Just mentioning this because he has long had this approach to gardening and the recent focus on remineralizing your garden soil (if possible) seems to be a logical development.

Solomon recommends doing the remineralizing with the help of regular (annual) soil tests. We had our garden soil tested when we first started the garden and then again 5 or 6 years later. But that was 25 years ago. Solomon advises testing every year at least until balance is reached and then periodically after that. According to him, gardening the way we have done for 30 years, with tons of sawdust, oak leaves and wood chips as well as wood ashes can create an imbalance with too much potassium. Our garden hasn't been limed for years as we have relied on wood ash to keep the pH up. We are also not strictly organic, using sythetic fertilizers at times in a hit or miss way. We do use a lot of organics though, making compost with garden trimmings and chicken manure (mixed with pine shavings), and using blood meal, fish meal and kelp meal. But having read his book, I definitely see a soil test in our future. Has anyone here used his approach of having frequent, regular soil tests done? How often?

I have never had one done.