Frey distills the vital lessons gardening into 100 simple rules that, if followed, will yield a gorgeous, healthy, and thriving home garden. New home gardeners will discover tips on garden design, care and maintenance, healthy soil, and the best ways to water. They’ll learn how to create a garden that encourages birds and butterflies, how to how to choose healthy plants at the garden center, how and when to re-pot a container, and much more. With bite-size chunks of expert information and nearly 100 inspiring photographs, Ground Rules packs a lot of value into its playful package and will be a go-to resource for gardeners everywhere.

    Cultivating these crops is surprisingly easy, and it takes less space than you might imagine — with just 1,000 square feet, for example, you can grow enough wheat for 50 loaves of fresh bread. The book includes delicious, simple recipes for cooking with whole grains (whether you grow them yourself or not) and features a gorgeous cover by renowned artist Nikki McClure that makes the book a wonderful gift for all the gardeners and cooks on your list.

    From brightening your whites by putting eggshells in your washing to making beeswax furniture polish to herbal hair rinses, Rachelle Blondel brings the crafty ways of our grandparents into modern times.

    A desirefor sustainable, clean, wholesome food and superior soil quality has ledmore and more suburban and city dwellers to keep laying hens in theirbackyards and gardens.Learn how you can: Be close to your food source with a continuous supply of fresh, heart-healthy eggs to feed yourself and others. Take the best care of your chickens and find out where to buy them. Learn how to be a chicken whisperer. Improve your garden soil for super yields, superior flavor, andoptimal nutrition. Recycle food, grass clippings and yard waste, make compostand help reduce trash going to landfills, saving millions ofmunicipal taxpayer dollars. Help save millions of municipal tax payer dollars by divertingfood and yard waste from landfills; instead create compost -with the help of your flock. Raise baby chicks with items you already have. Avoid getting roosters and why you don't want them. Learn how to be a Poultry Primary Health Care Practitioner. Make and use effective and inexpensive treatments for your flockas described in the Poultry's Pharmacy.Learn how others: Have built urban chicken tractors, hen huts, condos and chickenchateaus to blend in with neighborhood landscape and architecture. Join in urban eco-agro-tourism with annual coop & gardenhome tours for fund raising. Start or join local poultry clubs. Keep small flocks to help preserve endangered breeds of chickens. Draft and pass local laws allowing laying hens withintheir town's limits.By the co-author of Chicken Tractor, Backyard Market Gardening and DayRange Poultry. City Chicks is a remarkable trend-setting book for poultrylovers and urban agriculturists.The imaginative and entertaining style of writing is combined withhands-on, real-life experience to bring you one of the most complete andauthorative books on micro-flock management.

    Regarded simply as a history of flowers, it adds to the joys of the country." — B. E. Todd, SpectatorIf you want to know how pleurisy root, lungwort, and abscess root got their names, how poison ivy used to treat rheumatism, or how garlic guarded against the Bubonic Plague, consult A Modern Herbal. This 20th-century version of the medieval Herbal is as rich in scientific fact and folklore as its predecessors and is equally encyclopedic in coverage. From aconite to zedoary, not an herb, grass, fungus, shrub or tree is overlooked; and strange and wonderful discoveries about even the most common of plants await the reader.Traditionally, an herbal combined the folk beliefs and tales about plants, the medicinal properties (and parts used) of the herbs, and their botanical classification. But Mrs. Grieve has extended and enlarged the tradition; her coverage of asafetida, bearberry, broom, chamomile, chickweed, dandelion, dock, elecampane, almond, eyebright, fenugreek, moss, fern, figwort, gentian, Hart's tongue, indigo, acacia, jaborandi, kava kava, lavender, pimpernel, rhubarb, squill, sage, thyme, sarsaparilla, unicorn root, valerian, woundwort, yew, etc. — more than 800 varieties in all — includes in addition methods of cultivation; the chemical constituents, dosages, and preparations of extracts and tinctures, unknown to earlier herbalists; possible economic and cosmetic properties, and detailed illustrations, from root to bud, of 161 plants.Of the many exceptional plants covered in Herbal, perhaps the most fascinating are the poisonous varieties — hemlock, poison oak, aconite, etc. — whose poisons, in certain cases, serve medical purposes and whose antidotes (if known) are given in detail. And of the many unique features, perhaps the most interesting are the hundreds of recipes and instructions for making ointments, lotions, sauces, wines, and fruit brandies like bilberry and carrot jam, elderberry and mint vinegar, sagina sauce, and cucumber lotion for sunburn; and the hundreds of prescriptions for tonics and liniments for bronchitis, arthritis, dropsy, jaundice, nervous tension, skin disease, and other ailments. 96 plates, 161 illustrations.

    35,000 first printing.

    Are heirloom vegetables more difficult to grow than conventional hybrids? The Beginner's Guide to Growing Heirloom Vegetables debunks this myth by highlighting the 100 heirloom vegetables that are the easiest to grow and the tastiest to eat.Marie Iannotti makes it simple for beginning gardeners to jump on the heirloom trend by presenting an edited list based on years of gardening trial and error. Her plant criteria is threefold: The 100 plants must be amazing to eat, bring something unique to the table, and—most importantly—they have to be unfussy and easy to grow. Her list includes garden favorites like the meaty and mellow 'Lacinato' Kale, the underused and earthy 'Turkish Orange' Eggplant, and the unexpected sweetness of 'Apollo' Arugula.

    Imagine serving a home-cooked meal highlighted with beet, arugula, and broccoli microgreens grown right in your kitchen, accompanied by sautéed winecap mushrooms grown in a box of sawdust in your basement. If you have never tasted microgreens, all you really need to do is envision all the flavor of an entire vegetable plant concentrated into a single tantalizing seedling. If you respond to the notion of nourishing your guests with amazing, fresh, organic produce that you've grown in your own house, condo, apartment, basement, or sunny downtown office, then you'll love exploring the expansive new world of growing and eating that can be discovered with the help of Indoor Kitchen Gardening. Inside, author and Bossy Acres CSA co-owner Elizabeth Millard teaches you how to grow microgreens, sprouts, herbs, mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, and more-- all inside your own home, where you won't have to worry about seasonal changes or weather conditions. Filled with mouthwatering photography and more than 200 pages of Do-It-Yourself in-home gardening information and projects, Indoor Kitchen Gardening is your gateway to this exciting new growing method--not just for garnishes or relishes, but wholesome, nutritious, organic edibles that will satisfy your appetite as much as your palate.

    Drawn from the author's wide knowledge of plants as well as from the lore of native Americans and early settlers, the information is supplemented by nutritionists at Pennsylvania State University who worked with Gibbons on analysis of the entries.

    Make anise hyssop into a refreshing iced tea and turn apricots into a facial mask. Crabapple branches can be used to create stunning floral arrangements, oregano flowers to infuse vinegar, and edible chrysanthemum to liven up a salad. With the remarkable, multi-purpose plants in Harvest, there is always something for gardeners to harvest from one growing season to the next.

    "From primitive times the term "Herbal Simple" has been applied to any homely curative remedy consisting of one ingredient only, and that of a vegetable nature."

    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.

    The revised and updated edition of the classic guide praised by Library Journal as "a highly successful demystification of an increasingly popular art." The perfect book for a new generation of environmentally aware gardeners.

    She wants nothing less than to reconnect us all with the food we eat and the heritage of farming that belongs to all of us, and nothing more than to empower and encourage rural women everywhere ... she is cultivating not just a farm but a philosophy of living. " -- Body & Soul "Carpenter, waitress, janitor, upholsterer, secretary, milkmaid, wilderness ranger, environmental activist, entrepreneur-the founder of "MaryJanesFarm" has worn many hats in her day, but none more proudly than that of modern-day farmgirl. Speaking to the farmgirl in all of us, MaryJane Butters offers a captivating introduction to the organic lifestyle, resurrects forgotten domestic arts, and shares lessons gleaned from her diverse background and two decades of life as an Idaho farmer. Whether you simply need encouragement to embrace a more authentic, wholesome lifestyle or you're looking for guidance on building a greenhouse, chopping firewood, hosting a town event, caring for a flock of chickens, making your own butter, growing a winter salad, or choosing a water filter, "MaryJane's Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook" is both an inspiration and a practical road map for farmgirls of all stripes." "Dreams are MaryJane Butters' business, and she has always pursued them without pausing to consult conventional wisdom. "-- House & Garden "MaryJane Butters, a natural teacher, has a gift for simplification, and makes it seem that everything she does is easy and attainable. "-- The New Yorker"

    With her engaging storytelling and gorgeous full-color photos, Shaye brings to life how to entertain simply yet beautifully without mortgaging the farm. Simple recipes, decorating advice, and projects make this an inspirational and aspirational sequel to her beloved previous books.