What's Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?): A Visual Guide to Easy Diagnosis and Organic Remedies


David Deardorff - 2009
    Required!What's Wrong With My Plant? provides an easy system for visually diagnosing any garden plant problem and matching it to the right cure. By offering organic solutions for over 400 plant maladies, this book is the go-to source whenever your plants are a little under the weather. This innovative and easy-to-use guide presents easy-to-follow, illustrated flow charts to accurately diagnose the problem. It also includers 100% organic solutions and photographs and drawings of stressed, damaged, and diseased plants to help with accurate comparison.

The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals


Fern Marshall Bradley - 1996
    End your worries about garden problems with safe, effective solutions from The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control!* Easy-to-use problem-solving encyclopedia covers more than 200 vegetables, fruits, herbs, flowers, trees, and shrubs* Complete directions on how, when, and where to use preventive methods, insect traps and barriers, biocontrols, homemade remedies, botanical insecticides, and more* More than 350 color photos for quick identification of insect pests, beneficial insects, and plant diseasesNewly revised with the latest, safest organic controls.A New York Times Best Gardening Book

Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!


Patricia Lanza - 1998
    A gardening system that works-- so you don't have to!Turn in your tiller for a stack of old newspapers! Replace your shovel with a layer of grass clippings! Let Pat Lanza show you how you can create lush, successful, easy-care gardens in practically any location without hours of backbreaking digging or noisy tilling.* Practical, first-person advice from an experienced gardener* Great ideas to let you spend more time enjoying your gardens and less time working in them* Specific "lasagna" techniques for the most popular vegetables, flowers, herbs, fruits, and more

The Earth-sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book: How to Build an Energy Free Year-round Greenhouse


Mike Oehler - 2007
    Book by Mike Oehler

Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening


Louise Riotte - 1975
    If you want to know whether it is kosher to plant onions between cabbage plants, this is the place to look.-- Oklahoma TodayFirst published in 1975, this classic companion planting guide has taught a generation of gardeners how to use plants' natural partnerships to produce bigger and better harvests.Over 500,000 in Print!

Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture


Toby Hemenway - 2001
    Key features include:- use of compatible perennials;- non-invasive planting techniques;- emphasis on biodiversity;- specifically adaptable to local climate, landscape, and soil conditions;- highly productive output of edibles.Now, picture your backyard as one incredibly lush garden, filled with edible flowers, bursting with fruit and berries, and carpeted with scented herbs and tangy salad greens. The visual impact is of Monet's palette, a wash of color, texture, and hue. But this is no still life. The flowers nurture endangered pollinators. Bright-featured songbirds feed on abundant berries and gather twigs for their nests.The plants themselves are grouped in natural communities, where each species plays a role in building soil, deterring pests, storing nutrients, and luring beneficial insects. And finally, you—good ol' homo sapiens—are an integral part of the scene. Your garden tools are resting against a nearby tree, and have a slight patina of rust, because this garden requires so little maintenance. You recline into a hammock to admire your work. You have created a garden paradise.This is no dream, but rather an ecological garden, which takes the principles of permaculture and applies them on a home-scale. There is nothing technical, intrusive, secretive, or expensive about this form of gardening. All that is required is some botanical knowledge (which is in this book) and a mindset that defines a backyard paradise as something other than a carpet of grass fed by MiracleGro.

Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, First Edition: A Project by Fritz Haeg


Fritz Haeg - 2008
    It was initiated by architect and artist Fritz Haeg on Independence Day, 2005, with the planting of the first regional prototype garden in the geographic center of the United States, Salina, Kansas. Since then three more prototype gardens have been created, in Lakewood, California; Maplewood, New Jersey and London, England. Edible Estates regional prototype gardens will ultimately be established in nine cities across the United States.Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn documents the first four gardens with personal accounts written by the owners, garden plans and photographs illustrating the creation of the gardens--from ripping up the grass to harvesting a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and herbs. Essays by Haeg, landscape architect Diana Balmori, garden and food writer Rosalind Creasy, author Michael Pollan and artist and writer Lesley Stern set the Edible Estates project in the context of larger issues concerning the environment, global food production and the imperative to generate a sense of community in our urban and suburban neighborhoods. This smart, affordable and well-designed book also includes reports and photographs from the owners of other edible front yards around the country, as well as helpful resources to guide you in making your own Edible Estate.

The Intelligent Gardener: Growing Nutrient Dense Food


Steve Solomon - 2012
    As a result, the broccoli you consume today may have less than half of the vitamins and minerals that the equivalent serving would have contained a hundred years ago. This is a matter for serious concern, since poor nutrition has been linked to myriad health problems including cancer, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. For optimum health we must increase the nutrient density of our foods to the levels enjoyed by previous generations.To grow produce of the highest nutritional quality the essential minerals lacking in our soil must be replaced, but this re-mineralization calls for far more attention to detail than the simple addition of composted manure or NPK fertilizers. The Intelligent Gardener demystifies the process while simultaneously debunking much of the false and misleading information perpetuated by both the conventional and organic agricultural movements. In doing so, it conclusively establishes the link between healthy soil, healthy food, and healthy people.This practical step-by-step guide and the accompanying customizable web-based spreadsheets go beyond organic and are essential tools for any serious gardener who cares about the quality of the produce they grow.Steve Solomon is the author of several landmark gardening books including Gardening When it Counts and Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades. The founder of the Territorial Seed Company, he has been growing most of his family's food for over thirty-five years.

Storey's Guide to Raising Meat Goats


Maggie Sayer - 2007
    With expert advice on selecting the best breed for your needs, maintaining facilities, and providing necessary medical attention, this guide covers all aspects of successfully keeping meat goats. Offering plenty of tips for creating an economically viable operation and identifying niche markets for your products, Storey’s Guide to Raising Meat Goats shows you how to care for a thriving and productive herd full of healthy and happy animals.

The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country


Peter Bane - 2012
    Imagine how much more self-reliant our communities would be if thirty million acres of lawns were made productive again. Permaculture is a practical way to apply ecological design principles to food, housing, and energy systems, making growing fruits, vegetables, and livestock easier and more sustainable.The Permaculture Handbook is a step-by-step, beautifully illustrated guide to creating resilient and prosperous households and neighborhoods, complemented by extensive case studies of three successful farmsteads and market gardens. This comprehensive manual casts garden farming as both an economic opportunity and a strategy for living well with less money. It shows how, by mimicking the intelligence of nature and applying appropriate technologies such as solar and environmental design, permaculture can:Create an abundance of fresh, nourishing local produce Reduce dependence on expensive, polluting fossil fuels Drought-proof our cities and countryside Convert waste into wealthPermaculture is about working with the earth and with each other to repair the damage of industrial overreach and to enrich the living world that sustains us. The Permaculture Handbook is the definitive practical North American guide to this revolutionary practice, and is a must-read for anyone concerned about creating food security, resilience, and a legacy of abundance rather than depletion.Peter Bane is a permaculture teacher and site designer who has published and edited Permaculture Activist magazine for over twenty years. He helped create Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina, and is now pioneering suburban farming in Bloomington, Indiana.

The Encyclopedia of Country Living


Carla Emery - 1977
    It is the most complete source of step-by-step information about growing, processing, cooking, and preserving homegrown foods from garden, orchard, field, or barnyard. This book is so basic, so thorough, so reliable, that it deserves a place in every home whether country, city, or in between. Carla Emery started writing The Encyclopedia of Country Living in 1969 during the back-to-the-land movement of that time. She continued to add content and refine the information over the years ad the book went from a self-published mimeographed document to a book published by Bantam and then Sasquatch. The 10th Edition reflects the most up-to-date and the most personal version of the book that became Carla Emery’s life work. It is the original manual of basic country skills that have proved essential and necessary for people living in the country and the city, and everywhere in between. The practical advice in this exhaustive reference tool includes how to cultivate a garden, buy land, bake bread, raise farm animals, make sausage, can peaches, milk a goat, grow herbs, churn butter, build a chicken coop, catch a pig, cook on a wood stove, and much, much more.

How to Grow Perennial Vegetables: Low-maintenance, Low-impact Vegetable Gardening


Martin Crawford - 2012
    Whereas traditional vegetable plots are largely made up of short-lived, annual vegetable plants, perennials are edible plants that live longer than three years. Grown as permaculture plants, they take up less of your time and effort than annual vegetables do.Martin Crawford’s book outlines the benefits of growing perennial vegetables:Perennials provide crops throughout the year, so there’s always something that can be used in the kitchen. You avoid the hungry gap between the end of the winter harvest and the start of the summer harvest of annual vegetables.Perennial vegetables are less work. Once planted, they stay in the ground for many years. They are the classic plants for no-dig gardeners.Unlike annual vegetables, perennial vegetables cover and protect the soil all year round. This maintains the structure of the soil and helps everything growing in it.Humous levels build up and nutrients don’t wash out of soil. (Cultivating the soil for annuals exposes this humous to air on the surface, causing the carbon to be released as carbon dioxide.)Mycorrhizal fungi, critical for storing carbon within the soil, are preserved. (They are killed when soil is constantly dug for annual vegetables.)Perennial plants contain higher levels of mineral nutrients than annuals because perennial vegetables have larger, permanent root systems, capable of using space more efficiently, and they take up more nutrients.How to grow perennial vegetables gives comprehensive advice on all types of perennial vegetable, from ground-cover plants and coppiced trees to plants for bog gardens and edible woodland plants:In Part One Martin Crawford outlines why we should grow perennials. He then explains where and how to grow them in perennial polycultures, in forest garden or aquatic garden settings. He outlines how to propagate them, how to look after them for maximum health and how to harvest them.Part Two is a plant-by-plant reference of over 100 perennial edibles in detail, from familiar ones like rhubarb, Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes), horseradish and asparagus to less common ones such as skirret, nodding onions, red chicory, Babbington’s leek, scorzonera, sea kale and wild rocket. With beautiful colour photographs and illustrations and plenty of cooking tips throughout, this book offers inspiration and information for all gardeners, whether experienced or beginner.

Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden


Lee Reich - 2004
    Though names like jujube, juneberry, maypop, and shipova may seem exotic at first glance, these fruits offer ample rewards to the gardener willing to go only slightly off the beaten path at local nurseries. Reliable even in the toughest garden situations, cold-hardy, and pest- and disease-resistant, they are as enticing to the beginner as to the advanced gardener. This expanded sequel to the author's celebrated Uncommon Fruits Worthy of Attention offers new fruits, new varieties, and new photos and illustrations to entice the reader into an exciting world of garden pleasure.

Aquaponic Gardening: A Step-By-Step Guide to Raising Vegetables and Fish Together


Sylvia Bernstein - 2011
    A combination of aquaculture and hydroponics, aquaponic gardening is an amazingly productive way to grow organic vegetables, greens, herbs, and fruits, while providing the added benefits of fresh fish as a safe, healthy source of protein. On a larger scale, it is a key solution to mitigating food insecurity, climate change, groundwater pollution, and the impacts of overfishing on our oceans.Aquaponic Gardening is the definitive do-it-yourself home manual, focused on giving you all the tools you need to create your own aquaponic system and enjoy healthy, safe, fresh, and delicious food all year round. Starting with an overview of the theory, benefits, and potential of aquaponics, the book goes on to explain:System location considerations and hardware components The living elements—fish, plants, bacteria, and worms Putting it all together—starting and maintaining a healthy systemAquaponics systems are completely organic. They are four to six times more productive and use ninety percent less water than conventional gardens. Other advantages include no weeds, fewer pests, and no watering, fertilizing, bending, digging, or heavy lifting—in fact, there really is no downside! Anyone interested in taking the next step towards self-sufficiency will be fascinated by this practical, accessible, and well-illustrated guide.Sylvia Bernstein is the president and founder of The Aquaponic Source. An internationally recognized expert on aquaponic gardening, Sylvia speaks, writes, and blogs extensively about this revolutionary technique.

Plant Propagator's Bible: A Step-by-Step Guide to Propagating Every Plant in Your Garden


Miranda Smith - 2007
    But to many, the idea of propagating plants seems like a feat that only the most experienced gardeners can master. The Plant Propagator's Bible strips away the mystique and makes multiplying plants easy even for the novice.Drawing on her many years as a horticulture teacher, Miranda Smith explains the natural process and conditions in which plants grow and reproduce, and shows gardeners how to use these systems to propagate any plant that grows in their garden or greenhouse—or even on their windowsill. The book features:• an A to Z directory of more than 1,000 individual plant species—with appropriate propagation techniques for aquatics, ornamental plants, houseplants, shrubs, trees, vegetables, and wildflowers• "What Can Go Wrong" advice for each type of plant, explaining potential problems and how to prevent or fix them• detailed, step-by-step illustrations and annotated photographsIncluding information on essential tools and equipment, this is an indispensable addition to every gardener's bookshelf.