Preserving Summer's BountySurefire techniques and great recipes for keeping the harvest!

    Eliot Coleman introduces the surprising fact that most of the United States has more winter sunshine than the south of France. He shows how North American gardeners can successfully use that sun to raise a wide variety of traditional winter vegetables in backyard cold frames and plastic covered tunnel greenhouses without supplementary heat. Coleman expands upon his own experiences with new ideas learned on a winter-vegetable pilgrimage across the ocean to the acknowledged kingdom of vegetable cuisine, the southern part of France, which lies on the 44th parallel, the same latitude as his farm in Maine.This story of sunshine, weather patterns, old limitations and expectations, and new realities is delightfully innovative in the best gardening tradition. Four-Season Harvest will have you feasting on fresh produce from your garden all through the winter.To learn more about the possibility of a four-season farm, please visit Coleman's website www.fourseasonfarm.com.

    They maintain the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. They nourish other living organisms and supply psychological benefits to humans as well, improving our moods and beautifying the landscape around us. But plants don't just passively provide. They also take action.Beronda L. Montgomery explores the vigorous, creative lives of organisms often treated as static and predictable. In fact, plants are masters of adaptation. They "know" what and who they are, and they use this knowledge to make a way in the world. Plants experience a kind of sensation that does not require eyes or ears. They distinguish kin, friend, and foe, and they are able to respond to ecological competition despite lacking the capacity of fight-or-flight. Plants are even capable of transformative behaviors that allow them to maximize their chances of survival in a dynamic and sometimes unfriendly environment.Lessons from Plants enters into the depth of botanic experience and shows how we might improve human society by better appreciating not just what plants give us but also how they achieve their own purposes. What would it mean to learn from these organisms, to become more aware of our environments and to adapt to our own worlds by calling on perception and awareness? Montgomery's meditative study puts before us a question with the power to reframe the way we live: What would a plant do?

    These remarkable, firsthand encounters with Jesus reveal the breathtaking compassion and love He has for us, and offer true encouragement for those facing life's darkest moments.

    This book provides a beautiful overview of the diversity that succulents have to offer, presenting a wide variety of popular plants to help you create striking, aesthetically pleasing compositions.This succulent guide includes information about: What each variety needs and where it thrivesPlant characteristics, with ratings on ease of growth and maintenance requirementsIdeas for group plantings and illustrated tips on indoor plantingStriking identification photos, rich in color and contrastThis succulent encyclopedia is a useful resource for everyone--from cacti beginners looking to decorate their living space to serious gardeners hoping to expand their succulent plantings.

    Could get heated for book groups.” —Booklist“The multilayered plot and deceptive characters makes this a strong crossover chick lit/mystery novel. Great for book club discussion groups.” —Library Journal"Alice Hyatt is trying to move on with her life after her husband’s disappearance; he took millions of dollars and a female accomplice with him. She finds solace and stability in her landscaping business, Green Acres. When nearby millionaire Graham Mackenzie asks her to design his garden, she can’t say no—not just because he promises to give a generous donation to her best friend’s charity, but because she wants to take on the challenge of creating the most beautiful garden in the Berkshires. Mackenzie doesn’t exactly have a spotless reputation, however—he earned his money in the hydraulic fracturing industry, and many residents aren’t happy about it. Alice’s controversial client soon causes her problems with many locals, including Tom Deaver, the environmental writer on whom she develops a crush. But Mackenzie doesn’t really cause trouble until he drops dead …‘Gardening thriller’ may seem an unlikely genre, but Gyllenhaal pulls it off.”— *Kirkus ReviewsConversation Guide included

    Andrea di Robilant’s tale takes us back to the time of Josephine Bonaparte, as well as into some of the most delightful rose gardens in Italy today, brought to colorful life on the page in the watercolors of artist Nina Fuga.   In his 2008 biography of the Venetian lady Lucia Mocenigo (his great-great-great-great- grandmother), di Robilant described a pink rose that grows wild on the family’s former country estate, mentioning its light peach-and-raspberry scent. This passing detail led to an invitation for an audience with a local rose doyenne, Eleonora Garlant. She and other experts wondered if di Robilant’s unnamed rose could possibly be one of the long-lost China varieties that nineteenth-century European growers had cultivated but which have since disappeared. On the hunt for the identity of his anonymous yet quietly distinctive rose, Di Robilant finds himself captivated by roseophiles through time––from Lucia and her friend Josephine Bonaparte to the gifted Eleonora, whose garden of nearly fifteen hundred varieties of old roses is one of the most significant in Europe––and by the roses themselves, each of which has a tale to tell. What starts out as a lighthearted quest becomes a meaningful journey as di Robilant contemplates the enduring beauty of what is passed down to us in a rose, through both the generosity of nature and the cultivating hand of human beings, who for centuries have embraced and extended the life of this mysterious flower.

    The oldest of four kids, she tried to protect them from their violent father until one day he murdered their mother and got sent down.What was left of the family rattled through the care system, bouncing from foster placement to care home. Liberty would have probably ended up on drugs, or dead, or worse if it hadn't been for a ballsy solicitor who told her to get her act together.So that's what she did. She kept her nose clean, got an education.And look at her now. New name, new accent, new town. The past is far behind her and she's concentrating on her own legal career. She has a Porsche, a house in Hampstead... and then one morning her boss asks her to do a favour. He wants her to go to Leeds, to get an important client's son off an assault charge.But Leeds is in Liberty's past. And once she hits town, the past slaps her in the face... and pulls her back into what she worked so hard to leave behind.

    Both personally and globally, change drives our lives. Despite the new opportunities change can bring, many of us resist and fear it, even as we long for a healthier lifestyle or agree we need a more sustainable culture. Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential turns this unavoidable condition of life from something fearsome to something empowering by revealing a new perspective on reality. The way we were taught to think of the world is not the way it really is. We are not a mosaic of separate beings in competition for resources. Instead, each of us is an integral part of a whole that encompasses all creation. We are an intrinsic driver behind the force of change. As such, our creative potential is limitless. That potential comes from what author Ilchi Lee discovered over the course of his inner explorations that each of us has a beautiful mind that desires to benefit all beings. This inherent nature is our true greatness and the true power to solidify the changes we envision in our personal lives and the world. Change is urgently needed; the current course of our civilization is no longer tenable. But major changes are not feasible, Lee says, unless we begin with changing ourselves. He says we can start a big change, no matter how daunting it is, with changing our personal attitudes and energy. Change tells you how.

    Provides a complete introduction to raising a cornucopia of cut flowers for home use and for sale to retail customers, florists, and other markets.

    Give your landscape a vibrant new palette that is both sustainable and low-maintenance through plantings of herbs, shrubs, mosses, and more. Barbara W. Ellis provides a variety of full-color lawn designs and professional planting advice to get you started. You’ll be amazed as your ordinary lawn transforms into a striking display of color and texture.

    On Good Land, an engrossing read, chronicles the life of the 100-year-old farm -- from its history to Ableman's first glimpse of the land to the current struggle to save it from development. Blending photographs, philosophy, humor, and practical knowledge, Ableman brings the reader into the everyday world of a small farm. With him we prune peach trees, harvest peppers, journey to the farmer's market, and fight city hall. Part memoir, part photojournalistic montage, On Good Land reveals one man's love of the land and his struggle to protect it, and to spread the word about the importance of practicing sustainable agriculture and preserving our farms in an increasingly urban world.

    The constant tilling, weeding, irrigating, and fertilizing create perpetual disturbance in a plot's ecology--and waste countless hours in a dubious struggle against nature.In Gardening Revolution, Weaner offers a radically new approach based on the ways plants and wildlife behave in nature. He advocates for a more fluid style, choosing plants that are adapted to the soil and climate and then capitalizing on positive developments as they occur. This lushly photographed reference is for anyone looking for a better, smarter way to garden.

    In this essential guide, Bruce Rogers, "The Orchid Whisperer," shares his expert tips from more than three decades of breeding and growing orchids. The book demystifies the growing process and features more than 100 lush color photographs of breathtaking plants. Best of all, it reveals professional secrets not found anywhere else for blooming, repotting, spotting hazards and pests, grooming, decorating, and much more. Perfect for beginners as well as orchid experts looking for new tricks, The Orchid Whisperer provides everything readers need to know to keep healthy orchids that will flower again and again!

    A young man well known in their small town of Hardys Walk, Texas, Bo seems fine, even if Lauren’s intuition says otherwise. Since the accident two years ago that left her brain in a fragile state, she can’t trust her own instincts—and neither can her family. Then Bo vanishes, and as the search for him ensues, the police question whether she’s responsible. Lauren is terrified, not of what she remembers but of what she doesn’t.Unable to trust herself and unwilling to trust anyone else, Lauren begins her own investigation into the mystery of Bo’s disappearance. But the truth can prove to be as shocking as any lie, and as Lauren exposes each one, from her family, from her friends, she isn’t the only one who will face heart-stopping repercussions.