But in the midst of an economic crisis, it’s just as important to save money as it is to go green. As Gehring shows in this thorough but concise guide, being kind to Mother Earth can also mean being kind to your bank account! It doesn’t matter where your homestead is located—farm, suburb, or even city. Wherever you live, The Homesteading Handbook can help you:     • Plan, plant, and harvest your own organic home garden.      • Enjoy fruits and vegetables year-round by canning, drying, and freezing.      • Build alternate energy devices by hand, such as solar panels or geothermal heat pumps.      • Differentiate between an edible puffball mushroom and a poisonous amanita.      • Prepare butternut squash soup using ingredients from your own garden.      • Conserve water by making a rain barrel or installing an irrigation system.      • Have fun and save cash by handcrafting items such as soap, potpourri, and paper. Experience the satisfaction that comes with self-sufficiency, as well as the assurance that you have done your part to help keep our planet green. The Homesteading Handbook is your roadmap to living in harmony with the land.

    Each chapter is bursting with creative and classic ideas to make the day as meaningful as it is beautiful: Stationery: Save-the-date cards do double duty when printed on coasters or delicate handkerchiefs.Ceremonies: An auspicious bird’s nest adds a beautiful and rustic touch for carrying rings at a farm wedding.Dressing Up: A retro bride goes glam with a feathered veil and pearl button–accented gloves. A casual groom and his mates add a personality pop with chocolate-brown Keds to match their wedding chinos.Cocktail Hour: For a low-key affair, mini grilled cheeses dipped in shot glasses of tomato soup satisfy.Centerpieces: Fruit slices suspended in crystal vases overflowing with Crayola-bright poppies and orchids offer a cheery setting.Cakes: White lace frosting details that match the bride’s dress and the couple’s monogram turn a pale green cake into a chic masterpiece.From classic white-on-white palettes to floral themes to fun fantasy ideas, the choices are limitless. Purple, pink, red, robin’s egg blue—find inspiration at every turn in all the colors a bride can dream of! And The Knot Ultimate Wedding Lookbook is loaded with money-saving ideas that don’t sacrifice style. Expert advice and rich images add up to a delicious visual feast and essential resource to help you create an event as special as you are as a couple.

    If you are interested in maximizing this health strategy by incorporating highly medicinal and nutritive herbs and spices, then this book is for you. There exists a line between nutrition and herbal medicine that represents a very gray area when it comes to our diet. This book is about that line – and how to discover delicious foods that provide not only nutrition, but also many medicinal benefits. These cross-over foods, as I like to call them, include some of nature’s most potent herbal remedies. Not only do they offer herbal healing, but they also provide a high level of vitamins, minerals, healthy fats, amino acids, energy giving carbs and essential fatty acids. In modern society, our main food sources purchased at grocery stores and restaurants are often lacking in necessary Vitamins and Minerals, and are abundant in artificial ingredients, dangerous additives and excess fat and sodium. As a result, many of us are nutrient deficient and sick. The 12 recipes in this book all include herbs and foods that are nutrient dense and medicinally dynamic. Incorporating these amazingly sumptuous dishes into your diet can bring your level of natural wellness up to a higher level. “12 Healing Herbal Recipes: Herbal Medicine The Delicious Way” focuses on super foods and herbs like Basil, Cayenne, Dandelion, Thyme, and many more. Each recipe is complete with a nutritional summary and breakdown of the featured herbs. Enjoying herbal remedies and nutrient dense foods (sometimes they are one and the same!) as part of your regular meals translates into the best bang for your buck when it comes to eating healthy (and I don’t just mean money savings!). These are all recipes that I prepare regularly – they have all been developed by me over the years and have been personally taste tested by my family, my friends and me. Discover how herbal remedies and healthy spices can be integrated into your diet with these twelve easy recipes: Mango Cilantro Salad Passionflower Blend Tea Carob Flax Fudge Super Hummus Creamy Mushroom Soup Pickled Garlic Cold Curried Rice Salad Dandy Green Smoothie Spicy Guacamole Chaga Coffee Herbal Marinara Basil Pesto Download today and start making the most of these amazingly simple herbal healing recipes!

    Born of necessity and ingenuity and honed through years of “trowel and error,” these helpful hints include environmentally friendly ammunition against weeds and pests, shortcuts for cultivation and propagation, and clever uses for curious household items. And every page is charmingly illustrated with Sharon Lovejoy's watercolor art.Find tips such as:Take a shower with your houseplantsCure plant viruses with milkRecycle an old wheelbarrow into a movable flower bedUse empty citrus fruit rinds as seedling pots

    Amateur gardeners wondering how to get started and veteran gardeners looking for new ideas will be inspired by Houbein’s practical, often charming, and always optimistic advice. One Magic Square includes:Earth-friendly tips, tricks, and solutions for establishing and maintaining an organic gardenIllustrated, annotated plans for 30 plots with different themes—including perennials and “pick-and-come-again” plants, anti-cancer and anti-oxidant-rich vegetables, and salad, pizza, pasta, and stir-fry ingredientsComprehensive information about every plant in every plotColor photographs of the author’s own garden—plus helpful illustrationsHoubein family recipes for making the most of your bounty—including salad dressings, fruit and vegetable juices, stir-fries, and more.

    Archeologists have found evidence of beekeeping, or apiculture, in the Middle East dating back more than five thousand years. If you've ever tasted good clover honey, it's not hard to understand why. But it's not just for the honey that more than 125,000 people (and growing) in the United States, alone, keep hives. Anyone interested in nature can't help but be fascinated by those buzzing yellow bundles of energy and the exotic world they inhabit, with all its weird rituals and incredible efficiency. Also, dedicated gardeners appreciate the extra bounty that pollinating bees bring to their fruits, flowers, and vegetable gardens. In this easy-to-follow guide, Howland Blackiston, one of the nation's most respected authorities on the subject, takes the mystery (and the sting) out of beekeeping. Taking a step-by-step approach to successful backyard beekeeping, he gets you up and running with all the information you need to:Build a hive Establish your first colony Inspect your hives with confidence Maintain healthy colonies Deal with pests and fix common problems Harvest and enjoy fresh homemade honey Bottle and market your honey Howland Blackiston covers all the bases, from bee anatomy, society, and behavior, to identifying and healing common illnesses afflicting bees. He also offers inventive solutions to most common and many uncommon problems you're likely to run into. Among other things, you'll discover:Where to put your hive, basic equipment you'll need, and how to assemble a hive The best and safest way to inspect and enjoy your bees Year-round tasks a beekeeper must perform to maintain a healthy colony How to recognize and deal with common problems with brood production and the precious queen How to harvest honey and decide what kind of honey you'd like to make Making products from beeswax and propolis For both fun and profit, beekeeping has become a booming enterprise. A real honey of a book, Beekeeping For Dummies gets you on the road to enjoying this ancient, highly-rewarding, and oh-so-tasty hobby.

    Dandruff. Split Ends. When your hair reaches rock bottom it's time for a little rehab. While we can't permanently undo the damage of the past, Hair Care Rehab: The Ultimate Hair Repair and Reconditioning Manual will give you the blueprint and tools you need to salvage and work with your stressed out hair. Who is this book for? Everyone! Brunette, blonde, straight, wavy, curly, thick, fine-- no matter your hair situation, rehab has you covered! This book takes readers through three phases of rehab: The Intervention: Discusses hair structure, type and form. Also defines hair damage, and teaches you how to work with overworked hair! The Detox: Presents a 5-Step strategy for hair repair that WORKS! Hair Therapy: Offers tips and solutions for 30+ common scalp and hair care issues. If your relationship with your hair is on the rocks, get the rehab you need today with Hair Care Rehab. Contents: Unit I: The Intervention Chapter 1: Let's Start Off With What Is Not True Chapter 2: Hair & Scalp: Just the Basics Chapter 3: Damage Defined Chapter 4: What s Your Drug of Choice? Unit II: The Detox Chapter 5: Getting Damage under Control Unit III: Hair Therapy & Treatment Chapter 6: The Hair Repair Manual Special Topics Alopecia (Hair Loss) Basic Hair Breakage Burns (Appliances) Chemical Burns Chlorine & Pool Water Damage Color Fading Contact Dermatitis Cradle Cap Crown-Area Hair Breakage Damaged, Highly Porous Hair Dandruff & Dry Scalp Dry, Brittle Hair Eczema Red, Itchy Scalp Fine, Limp Hair Frizzy Hair Graying Hair Green Hair Hair Loss & Thinning Head Lice Heat Damage Oily Hair Psoriasis Ringworm Seborrheic Dermatitis Shedding Single-Strand Knots Sluggish Hair Growth Split Ends Sun & Surf Damage Tangly Hair Thinning Hair Edges Thin Ends Unit IV: Outpatient Therapy Chapter 7: Special Hair Conditioning & Restoration Treatments Chapter 8: On the Shelf!

    Title: Play Ukulele Today! Level 1 Binding: Paperback Author: Tagliarino, Barrett Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation

    The Stout System of mulch gardening will allow you to throw away your weeding tools, pesticides, and fertilizers, and will conserve and replenish the soil to make plants thrive. (6 X 9, 226 pages, illustrations)

    And with only one exception-watering-container gardening is a whole lot easier. Beginning with the down-to-earth basics of soil, sun and water, fertilizer, seeds and propagation, The Bountiful Container is an extraordinarily complete, plant-by-plant guide.Written by two seasoned container gardeners and writers, The Bountiful Container covers Vegetables-not just tomatoes (17 varieties) and peppers (19 varieties), butharicots verts, fava beans, Thumbelina carrots, Chioggia beets, and sugarsnap peas. Herbs, from basil to thyme, and including bay leaves, fennel, and saffron crocus. Edible Flowers, such as begonias, calendula, pansies, violets, and roses. And perhaps most surprising, Fruits, including apples, peaches, Meyer lemons, blueberries, currants, and figs-yes, even in the colder parts of the country. (Another benefit of container gardening: You can bring the less hardy perennials in over the winter.) There are theme gardens (an Italian cook's garden, a Four Seasons garden), lists of sources, and dozens of sidebars on everything from how to be a human honeybee to seeds that are All America Selections.

    He also offers a comprehensive guide to the various pests and diseases of tomatoes and explains how best to avoid them. No other book offers such a detailed look at the specifics of growing tomatoes, with beautiful photographs and helpful tomato profiles throughout.

    Chalker-Scott offers invaluable advice to gardeners gardeners who have wondered:Are native plants the best choice for sustainable landscaping?Should you avoid disturbing the root ball when planting?Are organic products better or safer than synthetic ones?What is the best way to control weeds-fabric or mulch?Does giving vitamins to plants stimulate growth?Are compost teas effective in controlling diseases?When is the best time to water in hot weather?If you pay more, do you get a higher-quality plant?How can you differentiate good advice from bad advice?The answers may surprise you. In her more than twenty years as a university researcher and educator in the field of plant physiology, Linda Chalker-Scott has discovered a number of so-called truths that originated in traditional agriculture and that have been applied to urban horticulture, in many cases damaging both plant and environmental health. The Informed Gardener is based on basic and applied research from university faculty and landscape professionals, originally published in peer-reviewed journals.After reading this book, you will:Understand your landscape or garden plants as components of a living systemSave time (by not overdoing soil preparation, weeding, pruning, staking, or replacing plants that have died before their time)Save money (by avoiding worthless or harmful garden products, and producing healthier, longer-lived plants)Reduce use of fertilizers and pesticidesAssess marketing claims objectivelyThis book will be of interest to landscape architects, nursery and landscape professionals, urban foresters, arborists, certified professional horticulturists, and home gardeners.For more information go to: http: //www.theinformedgardener.com

    They're tried and tested home remedies that have been used over the years and that work! If you're realising that doctors and their drugs aren't always the best medicine and you're looking for a better, cheaper way to take care of your health and the health of your family then this book is a great start.

    There’s nothing more local than an egg freshly laid right in your own yard. But what should you expect when you’re adopting a couple of day-old chicks? In Chick Days, Jenna Woginrich, award-winning author of Made from Scratch, the homesteading memoir for the twenty-something generation, offers a highly entertaining and informative photographic guide for today’s fledgling chick parent. Fun for the complete newbie and for families with young children, Chick Days chronicles the journey of three chickens from newly hatched fluffy butterballs to grown hens laying eggs. Day by day and week by week, readers watch the three starring chickens grow and change, learning about chicken behavior, feeding requirements, housing, hygiene, and health-care essentials, and fun facts on all things poultry. As Jenna herself says, “Chickens are more than 12-piece buckets, country diner kitsch, and egg whites. They’re your backyard ambassadors to healthier eating and basic husbandry. Keeping chickens is a crash course in local eating. When you start collecting eggs you’ll be eating so local you’ll know the amount of cracked corn in the feeder at ground zero of your breakfast . . . ” Jenna’s witty commentary is accompanied by the photography of Mars Vilaubi, who raised the three chickens himself, along with his wife and son. Their accompanying “chick diary” notes particular things this family learned and did along the way to make chicken raising fun. Presenting just the essential information in a highly visual and inviting format, Chick Days makes every stage of chicken life fun, entertaining, and, most of all, doable. It’s sure to give any chicken lover or wannabe owner the confidence and enthusiasm to join the flock!

    Authors Lewis Hill and Leonard Perry provide everything you need to know to successfully grow delicious organic fruit at home, from choosing the best varieties for your area to planting, pruning, and harvesting a bountiful crop. With tips on cultivating strawberries, raspberries, grapes, pears, peaches, and more, this essential reference guide will inspire year after year of abundantly fruitful gardening.