Book picks similar to
The After-Dinner Gardening Book by Richard W. Langer


gardening
non-fiction
plants
permaculture-horticulture

Garden Anywhere: How to grow gorgeous container gardens, herb gardens, kitchen gardens, and more, without spending a fortune


Alys Fowler - 2009
    Garden Anywhere shows how anyone can create an oasis in the smallest of spaces. We're not talking just a simple pot of marigolds, here. Garden Anywhere outlines everything an aspiring gardener needs to know to sow a bounteous, thriving garden. Alys Fowler, trained at the New York Botanical Garden, guides readers through the process from the ground up—from planning the garden to composting, pruning, harvesting, and propagating. Stylish photos illustrate the how-tos while Alys shares tips on creating gorgeous container gardens, herb gardens, kitchen gardens and more, without spending a fortune.

Martha Stewart's Gardening: Month by Month


Martha Stewart - 1991
    Martha Stewart's Gardening is the perfect book for longtime gardeners, new gardeners--and everyone looking for a thoughtful and useful gift. Illustrations.

Tartine Bread (Artisan Bread Cookbook, Best Bread Recipes, Sourdough Book)


Chad Robertson - 2010
    At 5 P.M., Chad Robertson's rugged, magnificent Tartine loaves are drawn from the oven. The bread at San Francisco's legendary Tartine Bakery sells out within an hour almost every day.Only a handful of bakers have learned the bread science techniques Chad Robertson has developed: To Chad Robertson, bread is the foundation of a meal, the center of daily life, and each loaf tells the story of the baker who shaped it. Chad Robertson developed his unique bread over two decades of apprenticeship with the finest artisan bakers in France and the United States, as well as experimentation in his own ovens. Readers will be astonished at how elemental it is.Bread making the Tartine Way: Now it's your turn to make this bread with your own hands. Clear instructions and hundreds of step-by-step photos put you by Chad's side as he shows you how to make exceptional and elemental bread using just flour, water, and salt.If you liked Tartine All Day by Elisabeth Prueitt and Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish, you'll love Tartine Bread!Additional categories for this book include:Baking BooksBaking Recipe BooksBaking Cook BooksBread Recipe Books

100 Plants to Feed the Bees: Provide a Healthy Habitat to Help Pollinators Thrive


The Xerces Society - 2016
    The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation offers browsable profiles of 100 common flowers, herbs, shrubs, and trees that support bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds. The recommendations are simple: pick the right plants for pollinators, protect them from pesticides, and provide abundant blooms throughout the growing season by mixing perennials with herbs and annuals! 100 Plants to Feed the Bees will empower homeowners, landscapers, apartment dwellers — anyone with a scrap of yard or a window box — to protect our pollinators.

Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening: How I Learned the Unexpected Joy of a Green Thumb and an Open Heart


Carol Wall - 2014
    Carol Wall, a white woman living in a lily-white neighborhood in Middle America, was at a crossroads in her life. Her children were grown; she had successfully overcome illness; her beloved parents were getting older. One day she notices a dark-skinned African man tending her neighbor's yard. His name is Giles Owita. He bags groceries at the supermarket. He comes from Kenya. And he's very good at gardening. Before long Giles is transforming not only Carol's yard, but her life. Though they are seemingly quite different, a caring bond grows between them. But they both hold long-buried secrets that, when revealed, will cement their friendship forever.

Many-Storied House


George Ella Lyon - 2013
    She has since published many more books in multiple genres and for readers of all ages, but poetry remains at the heart of her work. Many-Storied House is her fifth collection. While teaching aspiring writers, Lyon asked her students to write a poem based on memories rooted in a house where they had lived. Working on the assignment herself, Lyon began a personal

Deep in the Green: An Exploration of Country Pleasures


Anne Raver - 1995
    Even non-gardeners will find this book of essays a source of profound pleasure, for Raver is a writer who transcends her subject even as she illuminates it, writing with such passion, wisdom and stylishmess that her book will enchant anyone who reads it.

There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom's Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids (from Friluftsliv to Hygge)


Linda Åkeson McGurk - 2017
    In Sweden children play outside all year round, regardless of the weather, and letting young babies nap outside in freezing temperatures is not only common—it is a practice recommended by physicians. In the US, on the other hand, she found that the playgrounds, which she had expected to find teeming with children, were mostly deserted. In preschool, children were getting drilled to learn academic skills, while their Scandinavian counterparts were climbing trees, catching frogs, and learning how to compost. Worse, she realized that giving her daughters the same freedom to play outside that she had enjoyed as a child in Sweden could quickly lead to a visit by Child Protective Services. The brewing culture clash finally came to a head when McGurk was fined for letting her children play in a local creek, setting off an online firestorm when she expressed her anger and confusion on her blog. The rules and parenting philosophies of her native country and her adopted homeland were worlds apart. Struggling to fit in and to decide what was best for her children, McGurk turned to her own childhood for answers. Could the Scandinavian philosophy of “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes” be the key to better lives for her American children? And how would her children’s relationships with nature change by introducing them to Scandinavian concepts like friluftsliv (“open-air living”) and hygge (the coziness and the simple pleasures of home)? McGurk embarked on a six-month-long journey to Sweden to find out. There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather is a fascinating personal narrative that highlights the importance of spending time outdoors, and illustrates how the Scandinavian culture could hold the key to raising healthier, resilient, and confident children in America.

Backyard Medicine: Harvest and Make Your Own Herbal Remedies


Julie Bruton-Seal - 2009
    It gives a fascinating insight into the literary, historic, and world-wide application of the fifty common plants that it covers. It is the sort of book you can enjoy as an armchair reader or use to harvest and make your own herbal remedies from wild plants. Anyone who wants to improve his or her health in the same way that human-kind has done for centuries around the world, by using local wild plants and herbs, will find this book fascinating and useful.

Container Gardening Season by Season (The Weekend Gardener Series)


Gloria Daniels - 2013
    Whether you are growing plants in hanging baskets, tubs, window boxes or other containers this hobby is immensely gratifying.  If you are new to container gardening and buy your containers pre-planted, you get a sense of instant gratification and fulfillment.  It won't be long however, before you are hit with the gardening virus and you'll find yourself expanding to one more pot and then again, one more container.  Before you know it, the urge to plant and nurture will take over. At this point, you need a garden plan for your container garden. Use this monthly container gardening checklist to keep your containers at peak performance. When do I plant spring bulbs in containers? When do I perk up my annual plantings with some new varieties? What do I do with container plants I want to save over winter? These and many other questions are answered in this container gardening book. At the beginning of the month, check out the tasks and tips on the schedule.  You may find items you never thought of and may also learn techniques used by professional gardeners and landscapers that will make your container gardens the envy of the neighborhood. Scroll up and pick up this book today and give your patio, pool, and porch just the pizzazz it needs to perk up your landscaping plans.

Food for Free (Collins Gem)


Richard Mabey - 1972
    Over 100 edible plants are listed, fully illustrated and described, together with recipes and other fascinating details on their use throughout the ages.Practical advice on how to pick along with information on countryside laws and regulations on picking wild plants helps you to plan your foray with a feast in mind.This is the ideal book for both nature lovers and cooks keen to enjoy what the countryside has to offer.

Don't Throw It, Grow It!: 68 Windowsill Plants From Kitchen Scraps


Deborah Peterson - 2008
    From the common carrot to the exotic cherimoya, you’ll be amazed at the gardening possibilities hidden in the foods you eat.

Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front


Joel Salatin - 2007
    From child labor regulations to food inspection, bureaucrats provide themselves sole discretion over what food is available in the local marketplace. Their system favors industrial, global corporate food systems and discourages community-based food commerce, resulting in homogenized selection, mediocre quality, and exposure to non-organic farming practices. Salatin's expert insight explains why local food is expensive and difficult to find and will illuminate for the reader a deeper understanding of the industrial food complex.

Garden Revolution: How Our Landscapes Can Be a Source of Environmental Change


Larry Weaner - 2016
    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.

Lawns into Meadows: Growing a Regenerative Landscape


Owen Wormser - 2020
    This is a how-to book on meadow-making that's also about sustainability, regeneration, and beauty.In a world where lawns have wreaked havoc on our natural ecosystems, meadows offer a compelling solution. It is garden landscaping that is beautiful, all year round. Meadows establish wildlife and pollinator habitats, are low-maintenance and low-cost, have a built-in resilience that helps them weather climate extremes, and can draw down and store far more carbon dioxide than any manicured lawn. Wormser describes how to plant an organic meadow garden or traditional meadow, that’s right for your site. His book includes guidance on:-Preparing your plot-Designing your meadow-Planting without using synthetic chemicals-Growing 21 starter native grasses and wildflowers, including butterfly weed, smooth blue aster, purple coneflower, wild bergamot, and many more.He also includes tips on building support in neighborhoods where a tidy lawn is the standard, and how to become a meadow activist. To illuminate the many joys of meadow-building, Wormser draws on his own stories, including how growing up off the grid in northern Maine, with no electricity or plumbing, prepared him for his work."It’s time to rebuild meadows wherever we can, including the deadscape we call lawn. Owen Wormser explains why, and how to do this, with oodles of highly readable, ecologically sound advice." -Douglas W. Tallamy, Professor of Entomology, author of Bringing Nature Home and Nature's Best Hope"The author tells us how to grow a meadow, and become a positive force on behalf of the planet. I highly recommend this book." -Dr. John Todd, Ecologist, author of Healing Earth