Heirloom Vegetable Gardening: A Master Gardener's Guide to Planting, Seed Saving, and Cultural History


William Woys Weaver - 1997
    This updated edition has been improved throughout with growing zones, advice, and new plant entries. Line art has been replaced with lush, full-color photography. Yet at the core, this book delivers on the same promise it made two decades ago: It’s a comprehensive guide based on meticulous first-person research to these 300+ plants, making it a book to come back to season after season.

Gardening in Miniature: Create Your Own Tiny Living World


Janit Calvo - 2013
    Gardening in Miniature is a complete guide to creating lush, living, small-scale gardens. It has everything you need to pick up this new hobby, including scaled down garden designs, techniques for creating tiny hardscapes, miniature garden care and maintenance, tips on choosing containers, how to buy the right plants, and where to find life-like accessories. Inspiring step-by-step projects feature basic skills that can be recreated in any number of designs, like a tiny patio, a trellis, a pond, and a secret garden.Whether you want to build a miniature fairy empire in your garden bed or design a private garden with a pebble patio for an indoor centerpiece, Gardening in Miniature is the primer for creating your own tiny, living world.

Planting the Dry Shade Garden: The Best Plants for the Toughest Spot in Your Garden


Graham Rice - 2011
    You'll also learn about more than 130 plants that accept reduced light and moisture levels-long-blooming woodland gems like epimediums and hellebores, and even lush foliage plants like evergreen ferns and hardy gingers, shrubs, climbers, perennials, ground covers, bulbs, annuals, and perennials- there is an entire palette to help you transform challenging spaces into rich, rewarding gardens.

Grow All You Can Eat in 3 Square Feet


Chauney Dunford - 2015
    Apartment dwellers, schoolteachers, and anyone else who wants to grow a lot of food in a little space will find a great small garden resource in Grow All You Can Eat in 3 Square Feet.Small-space gardeners, find your start in Grow All You Can Eat in 3 Square Feet, packed with information on window boxes, potted plants, patio gardening, raised beds, small square-foot gardening, container gardening, and everything else related to growing your own small garden. Whether you want to grow a full garden, grow tomatoes, grow an herb garden, or just pick up great tips for small gardens, Grow All You Can Eat in 3 Square Feet is the resource you need.Reviews:"Beautiful color photographs and step-by-step instructions distinguish this guide to growing vegetables, fruit, and herbs in small spaces." - Library Journal

Miniature Gardens: Design and Create Miniature Fairy Gardens, Dish Gardens, Terrariums and More--Indoors and Out


Katie Elzer-Peters - 2014
    A delightful, fun, and endlessly creative new trend is sweeping the gardening world: miniature gardening! With your imagination as the only limit to this infinitely customizable technique, miniature gardening showcases your individuality. Once you've learned how to design, create, and grow tiny plant combinations successfully, you'll be able to let your creativity loose indoors and out. In Miniature Gardens, gardening expert Katie Elzer-Peters demonstrates the latest in plant options and designs through her gorgeous color photography and laser-focused Do-It-Yourself advice. Plenty of great tips and idea-generating information on small-scale furnishings are included as well. Where other books on this popular subject offer run-of-the-mill images and only limited how-to information, Miniature Gardens gives you a thorough and beautiful window into this tiny world, from fairy gardening to dish gardening, terrariums, and even a miniature water garden project. From cute home tabletop designs to elaborate mini-villages and everything in between, miniature gardening is a pastime that can be enjoyed by hobbyists and families of all ages and in all sizes of living space. With Miniature Gardens, you're just a lightning strike of inspiration away from bringing to life the endless creations unique to your own imagination.

How to Houseplant: A Beginner's Guide to Making and Keeping Plant Friends


Heather Rodino - 2019
    Her accessible advice on handling pests and diseases, troubleshooting problems, and assessing your growing conditions, will give novices the confidence they need to begin nurturing their own collection. Tips and list detail everything from which plants are pet-friendly to the top five plants for frequent travelers.

The Complete Book of Cacti & Succulents


Terry Hewitt - 1997
    The Complete Book of Cacti & Succulents is a feast of in-depth information and over 600 eye-catching photographs. This book has everything you need to make your plant arrangements healthy and spectacular no matter what kinds of succulents you use. Using this guide, you will quickly discover just how bold and creative you can be with these arrangements, and understand why so many decorators can recommend succulents for almost every occasion.Whether you're just thinking about decorating with these beautiful, easy-to-care-for plants, or you've been a sucker for succulents for a good long while, this book contains ideas and inspiration for beginners and masters alike. Through step-by-step full-color sequences and expert guidance, this book gives in-depth information on the history, cultivation, and creative use of hundreds of strikingly handsome specimens of cacti and provides practical information for use in both house and garden.

Gardening with Less Water: Low-Tech, Low-Cost Techniques; Use up to 90% Less Water in Your Garden


David A. Bainbridge - 2015
    With illustrated step-by-step instructions, David Bainbridge shows you how to install buried clay pots and pipes, wicking systems, and other porous containers that deliver water directly to a plant’s roots with little to no evaporation. These systems are available at hardware stores and garden centers; are easy to set up and use; and work for garden beds, container gardens, and trees.

The Tao of Vegetable Gardening: Cultivating Tomatoes, Greens, Peas, Beans, Squash, Joy, and Serenity


Carol Deppe - 2014
    In her latest book, groundbreaking garden writer Carol Deppe (The Resilient Gardener, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties) focuses on some of the most popular home garden vegetables--tomatoes, green beans, peas, and leafy greens--and through them illustrates the key principles and practices that gardeners need to know to successfully plant and grow just about any food crop. Deppe's work has long been inspired and informed by the philosophy and wisdom of Tao Te Ching, the 2,500-year-old work attributed to Chinese sage Lao Tzu and the most translated book in the world after the Bible. The Tao of Vegetable Gardening is organized into chapters that echo fundamental Taoist concepts: Balance, Flexibility, Honoring the Essential Nature (your own and that of your plants), Effortless Effort, Non-Doing, and even Non-Knowing. Yet the book also offers a wealth of specific and valuable garden advice on topics as diverse as: - The Eat-All Greens Garden, a labor- and space-efficient way to provide all the greens a family can eat, freeze, and dry--all on a tiny piece of land suitable for small-scale and urban gardeners.- The growing problem of late blight and the future of heirloom tomatoes--and what gardeners can do to avoid problems, and even create new resistant varieties.- Establishing a Do-It-Yourself Seed Bank, including information on preparing seeds for long-term storage and how to -dehybridize- hybrids.- Twenty-four good places to not plant a tree, and thirty-seven good reasons for not planting various vegetables. Designed for gardeners of all levels, from beginners to experienced growers, The Tao of Vegetable Gardening provides a unique frame of reference: a window to the world of nature, in the garden and in ourselves.

Tiny World Terrariums: A Step-by-Step Guide to Easily Contained Life


Michelle Inciarrano - 2012
    In Tiny World Terrariums, authors Katy and Michelle of Brooklyn’s celebrated Twig Terrariums offer step-by-step instructions for building your own, from selecting glass containers to layering soil and filtration to adding moss, succulents, and other plants. To give each terrarium a whimsical, personal touch, Katy and Michelle demonstrate how to use tiny figurines and toys to create to-scale scenes, such as a couple at their wedding, a CSI crime scene, and Central Park in springtime. Photos of gorgeous finished terrariums and detailed instructions will empower anyone—whether green-thumbed or not—to create their own Lilliputian worlds. Praise for Tiny World Terrariums: "Terrariums have been popular with adults since Victorian times. But Katy Maslow and Michelle Inciarrano, authors of Tiny World Terrariums, make a case for younger enthusiasts too . . . Their enclosed gardens range from sophisticated to silly, with dinosaurs, unicorns and an array of other figurines telling enchanting stories in mossy tableaux. Their wonderful book provides detailed instructions to guide you through the process." —Chicago Tribune “[The authors] provide all the information needed to create the five layers of a terrarium . . . inspiration for readers who want to make their own mini world.” —Better Homes & Gardens Country Gardens (Spring 2013 issue) "I've been reading my fair share of how-to books on [terrariums] but I have a brand new favorite. Hands down . . . The tips on plant selection, preparation, and planting are the best I’ve seen (I learned a lot!)." —Babble.com "The book provides all the necessary instructions to create successfully healthy terrariums . . . But illustrations are the real delight. They show all sorts of tiny world photos labeled with container types, plant names, and more so you can more easily create contained life exactly as you envision it.” —Wired.com "If you love terrariums as much as we do, this is going to rock your world: Brooklyn-based Twig Terrariums will be selling a photographic collection of their finest miniature green gardens . . . with a step-by-step guide to creating tiny themed worlds that even the least green-thumbed person will be able to make and maintain.” —Inhabitat.com

The Lavender Lover's Handbook: The 100 Most Beautiful and Fragrant Varieties for Growing, Crafting, and Cooking


Sarah Berringer Bader - 2012
    But the horticultural reasons for choosing lavender go far beyond its beauty. Lavender attracts beneficial insects, requires little water once established, and is deer resistant.In The Lavender Lover's Handbook, lavender grower Sarah Bader teaches gardeners how they can successfully grow this beloved plant. Featuring the 100 easiest, most stunning lavenders available today, this beginner's guide provides a complete checklist of the color, fragrance, size, and foliage of each plant, in addition to basic pruning, spacing, and planting requirements. The text is rounded out with tips on how to harvest, cook, and craft with this wonderful herb.Its abundant variety, hardiness, fragrance, and culinary uses make lavender one of the most popular and versatile plants. And now, with this practical and accessible guide in hand, it's easier than ever to grow at home.

Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life


Jenna Woginrich - 2008
    Learn a few basic country skills, she reasoned, and she would be able to produce at least some of the food and resources she used every day.Goodbye, fast food and Wonder Bread; hello, homesteading. With enthusiasm and joy for the tasks at hand, Woginrich embarked on a journey that has been sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking and always soul satisfying.From the fulfilling work of planting a garden and installing honeybees, to the bliss of gathering fresh eggs for an omelet or playing an old-time ballad on the fiddle, Made from Scratch shares the honest satisfaction of doing for oneself, and brings the reader to a deep appreciation for the value of simple skills performed well.

The Forgotten Pollinators


Stephen L. Buchmann - 1996
    Buchmann, one of the world's leading authorities on bees and pollination, and Gary Paul Nabhan, award-winning writer and renowned crop ecologist, explore the vital but little-appreciated relationship between plants and the animals they depend on for reproduction -- bees, beetles, butterflies, hummingbirds, moths, bats, and countless other animals, some widely recognized and other almost unknown.Scenes from around the globe -- examining island flora and fauna on the Galapagos, counting bees in the Panamanian rain forest, witnessing an ancient honey-hunting ritual in Malaysia -- bring to life the hidden relationships between plants and animals, and demonstrate the ways in which human society affects and is affected by those relationships. Buchmann and Nabhan combine vignettes from the field with expository discussions of ecology, botany, and crop science to present a lively and fascinating account of the ecological and cultural context of plant-pollinator relationships.More than any other natural process, plant-pollinator relationships offer vivid examples of the connections between endangered species and threatened habitats. The authors explain how human-induced changes in pollinator populations -- caused by overuse of chemical pesticides, unbridled development, and conversion of natural areas into monocultural cropland-can have a ripple effect on disparate species, ultimately leading to a "cascade of linked extinctions."

Moong Over Microchips


Venkat Iyer - 2018
    Disheartened by his stressful existence in the city, he decided to give it all up and take up organic farming in a small village near Mumbai. But it wasn't easy. With no experience in agriculture, his journey was fraught with uncertainty. He soon went from negotiating tough clients, strict deadlines and traffic to looking forward to his first bumper crop of moong. As he battled erratic weather conditions and stubborn farm animals, he discovered a world with fresh air and organic food, one where he could lead a more wholesome existence. At times hilarious, and other times profound, this book follows his extraordinary story.

The New Plant Parent: Develop Your Green Thumb and Care for Your House-Plant Family


Darryl Cheng - 2019
    He teaches the art of understanding a plant’s needs and giving it a home with the right balance of light, water, and nutrients. After reading Cheng, the indoor gardener will be far less the passive follower of rules for the care of each species and much more the confident, active grower, relying on observation and insight. And in the process, the plant owner becomes a plant lover, bonded to these beautiful living things by a simple love and appreciation of nature. The New Plant Parent covers all of the basics of growing house plants, from finding the right light, to everyday care like watering and fertilizing, to containers, to recommended species. Cheng’s friendly tone, personal stories, and accessible photographs fill his book with the same generous spirit that has made @houseplantjournal, his Instagram account, a popular source of advice and inspiration for thousands of indoor gardeners.