Gaias Garden 2nd Edition a Guide to Home Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway
Publisher Comments The first edition of Gaia's Garden, sparked the imagination of America's home gardeners, introducing permaculture's central message: Working with Nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. This extensively revised and expanded second edition broadens the reach and depth of the permaculture approach for urban and suburban growers. Many people mistakenly think that ecological gardening — which involves growing a wide range of edible and other useful plants — can take place only on a large, multiacre scale.
As Hemenway demonstrates, it's fun and easy to create a "backyard ecosystem" by assembling communities of plants that can work cooperatively and perform a variety of functions, including:
- Building and maintaining soil fertility and structure
- Catching and conserving water in the landscape
- Providing habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and animals
- Growing an edible "forest" that yields seasonal fruits, nuts, and other foods
This revised and updated edition also features a new chapter on urban permaculture, designed especially for people in cities and suburbs who have very limited growing space. Whatever size yard or garden you have to work with, you can apply basic permaculture principles to make it more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful. Best of all, once it's established, an ecological garden will reduce or eliminate most of the backbreaking work that's needed to maintain the typical lawn and garden. Your price $29.95 New Trade Paperback
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Gardening When It Counts Growing Food in Hard Times by Steve Solomon
Publisher Comments The decline of cheap oil is inspiring increasing numbers of North Americans to achieve some measure of backyard food self-sufficiency. In hard times, the family can be greatly helped by growing a highly productive food garden, requiring little cash outlay or watering. Currently popular intensive vegetable gardening methods are largely inappropriate to this new circumstance. Crowded raised beds require high inputs of water, fertility and organic matter, and demand large amounts of human time and effort. But, except for labor, these inputs depend on the price of oil. Prior to the 1970s, North American home food growing used more land with less labor, with wider plant spacing, with less or no irrigation, and all done with sharp hand tools. But these sustainable systems have been largely forgotten. Gardening When It Counts helps readers rediscover traditional low-input gardening methods to produce healthy food. Designed for readers with no experience and applicable to most areas in the English-speaking world except the tropics and hot deserts, this book shows that any family with access to 3-5,000 sq. ft. of garden land can halve their food costs using a growing system requiring just the odd bucketful of household waste water, perhaps two hundred dollars worth of hand tools, and about the same amount spent on supplies andmdash; working an average of two hours a day during the growing season. Steve Solomon is a well-known west coast gardener and author of five previous books, including Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades which has appeared in five editions. Your price $15.95 Used Trade Paperback
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Food Not Lawns How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden & Your Neighborhood Into a Community by H C Flores
Publisher Comments Gardening can be a political act. Creativity, fulfillment, connection, revolution--it all begins when we get our hands in the dirt. Food Not Lawns combines practical wisdom on ecological design and community-building with a fresh, green perspective on an age-old subject. Activist and urban gardener Heather Flores shares her nine-step permaculture design to help farmsteaders and city dwellers alike build fertile soil, promote biodiversity, and increase natural habitat in their own "paradise gardens." But Food Not Lawns doesn't begin and end in the seed bed. This joyful permaculture lifestyle manual inspires readers to apply the principles of the paradise garden--simplicity, resourcefulness, creativity, mindfulness, and community--to all aspects of life. Plant "guerilla gardens" in barren intersections and medians; organize community meals; start a street theater troupe or host a local art swap; free your kitchen from refrigeration and enjoy truly fresh, nourishing foods from your own plot of land; work with children to create garden play spaces. Flores cares passionately about the damaged state of our environment and the ills of our throwaway society. In Food Not Lawns, she shows us how to reclaim the earth one garden at a time. Trade Paperback
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Perennial Vegetables From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro by Eric Toensmeier
Publisher Comments There is a fantastic array of vegetables you can grow in your garden, and not all of them are annuals. In Perennial Vegetables the adventurous gardener will find information, tips, and sound advice on less common edibles that will make any garden a perpetual, low-maintenance source of food.
Imagine growing vegetables that require just about the same amount of care as the flowers in your perennial beds and borders — no annual tilling and potting and planting. They thrive and produce abundant and nutritious crops throughout the season. It sounds too good to be true, but in Perennial Vegetables author and plant specialist Eric Toensmeier (Edible Forest Gardens) introduces gardeners to a world of little-known and wholly underappreciated plants. Ranging beyond the usual suspects (asparagus, rhubarb, and artichoke) to include such "minor" crops as ground cherry and ramps (both of which have found their way onto exclusive restaurant menus) and the much sought after, anti-oxidant-rich wolfberry (also known as goji berries), Toensmeier explains how to raise, tend, harvest, and cook with plants that yield great crops and satisfaction.
Perennial vegetables are perfect as part of an edible landscape plan or permaculture garden. Profiling more than 100 species, illustrated with dozens of color photographs and illustrations, and filled with valuable growing tips, recipes, and resources, Perennial Vegetables is a groundbreaking and ground-healing book that will open the eyes of gardeners everywhere to the exciting world of edible perennials. Your price $24.00 Used Trade Paperback
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Resilient Gardener Food Production & Self Reliance in Uncertain Times by Carol Deppe
Publisher Comments Winner of About.com's Reader's Choice Award: Best Garden Book Since 2010Selected by Amazon.com as one of the Top 10 Books of 2010 in the Home and Gardening Category!CREATIVE, PRODUCTIVE GARDENING FOR GOOD TIMES AND BAD.In an age of erratic weather and instability, people's interest in growing their own food is skyrocketing. The Resilient Gardener presents gardening techniques that stand up to challenges ranging from health problems, financial problems, and special dietary needs to serious disasters and climate change.Scientist and expert gardener Carol Deppe draws from emerging science in many fields to develop the general principles of gardening for resilience. Gardeners will learn through Deppe's detailed instructions on growing, storing, and using the five crops central to self-reliance: potatoes, corn, beans, squash, and eggs.Learn how to: - Grow food in an era of wild weather and climate change
- Garden with little to no irrigation or "store-bought" inputs
- Garden efficiently and comfortably (even with a bad back)
- Customize your garden to deal with special dietary needs or a need for weight control
- Make breads and cakes from home-grown corn using original gluten-free recipes (with no other grains, artificial binders, or dairy products)
- Keep a laying flock of ducks or chickens, integrate them with your gardening, and grow most of their feed
And more . . . The Resilient Gardener is both a conceptual and a hands-on gardening book for all levels of experience. Optimistic as well as realistic, Deppe offers invaluable advice for gardeners (and their communities) to flourish. Your price $35.00 New Trade Paperback
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Growing Great Garlic The Definitive Guide for Organic Gardeners & Small Farmers by Ron Engeland
Publisher Comments The first garlic book written specifically for organic gardeners and small-scale farmers Growing Great Garlic is the definitive grower's guide written by a small scale farmer who makes his living growing over 200 strains of garlic. Commercial growers will want to consult this book regularly. The author tells us:
which strains to plant when to fertilize when to plant when to prune flower stalks how to plant when to harvest Plus, how to store, market, and process the crop. Growing Great Garlic makes a genuine contribution in the field of garlic classification that will help the public recognize several distinct varietal types of garlic. Your price $22.95 New Trade Paperback
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Planting the Future Saving Our Medicinal Herbs by Rosemary Gladstar
Publisher Comments Voted one of the Top 10 books in 2000 by the Vermont Book Publishers Association. A collective endeavor by United Plant Savers, featuring America's most respected and well-known herbalists. Contributors include Don Babineau, Tim Blakley, Mark Blumenthal, Jane Bothwell, Stephen Harrod Buhner, David Bunting, Richo Cech, Tane Datta, Shatoiya and Rick de la Tour, Ryan Drum, Doug Elliott, Steven Foster, Cascade Anderson Geller, Kate Gilday, Rosemary Gladstar, James Green, Pamela Hirsch, Christopher Hobbs, Sara Katz, Kathi Keville, Robyn Klein, Richard Liebmann, Brigitte Mars, Pam Montgomery, Nancy and Michael Phillips, Janice J. Schofield, Joanne Marie Snow, Deb Soule, Paul Strauss, Gregory L. Tilford, Krista Thie, Susun S. Weed, David Winston, Martin Wall, Matthew Wood. While the renaissance in the U.S. botanical market is positive in many respects, medicinal plant populations are suffering from loss of habitat and overharvesting, and many bestselling herbs are now at risk including echinacea, American ginseng, goldenseal, Hawaiian wild kava, and wild yam. The authors share their extensive experience with using and growing thirty-three of these popular herbs and include suggestions for creating your own private herbal sanctuary--whether a city balcony, suburban backyard, or rural retreat. Full-color photographs will inspire experienced and novice herb users alike to protect and cultivate these remarkable healing plants. Readers will also find out how to use herbal analogues for at-risk plants--other medicinal herbs that provide the same benefits and exist in plentiful amounts--and learn ways to make their herbal purchases a vote for sustainability. Planting the Future shows us how we can participate in the land stewardship, habitat protection, and eco-friendly consumption that will ensure an abundant, renewable supply of medicinal plants for future generations. All author royalties will be used for replanting native medicinal herbs on a 370-acre botanical sanctuary in Ohio. Your price $29.95 New Trade Paperback
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Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades The Complete Guide to Organic Gardening 6th Edition by Steve Solomon
Publisher Comments This is the updated 6th edition of Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades, which has evolved from a self-published pamphlet to the master guide to organic vegetable gardening over the past 28 years. Steve Solomon, who was a founder of the Territorial Seed Company, was one of the early proponents of organic gardening, and the first to codify and refine the best practices of small-plot vegetable gardening in the Pacific Northwest. The approaches to understanding and preparing soils, composting, chemical-free fertilizers, efficient uses of water, and garden planning are universal to any climate or region. Solomon gets specific in his extensive advice on growing specific crops in the gentle maritime Northwest climate. This update includes his latest findings on seed sources, refinements in growing and cultivation techniques, and other organic gardening best practices. Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades lays out the principles, but the author advocates that readers think for themselves and grow their gardens as they see fit. Your price $14.95 Used Trade Paperback
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Permaculture Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren
Publisher Comments David Holmgren brings into sharper focus the powerful and still evolving Permaculture concept he pioneered with Bill Mollison in the 1970s. It draws together and integrates 25 years of thinking and teaching to reveal a whole new way of understanding and action behind a simple set of design principles. The 12 design principles are each represented by a positive action statement, an icon and a traditional proverb or two that captures the essence of each principle.Holmgren draws a correlation between every aspect of how we organize our lives, communities and landscapes and our ability to creatively adapt to the ecological realities that shape human destiny. For students and teachers of Permaculture this book provides something more fundamental and distilled than Mollison's encyclopedic Designers Manual. For the general reader it provides refreshing perspectives on a range of environmental issues and shows how permaculture is much more than just a system of gardening. For anyone seriously interested in understanding the foundations of sustainable design and culture, this book is essential reading. Although a book of ideas, the big picture is repeatedly grounded by reference to Holmgren's own place, Melliodora, and other practical examples. Trade Paperback
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