Updated with the latest biointensive tips and techniques, this is an essential reference for gardeners of all skill levels seeking to grow some or all of their own food.

    Now, in this expanded edition, there's even more to learn from and enjoy. This is the first, and still the most thorough, book to detail essential practices of perennial care such as deadheading, pinching, cutting back, thinning, disbudding, and deadleafing, all of which are thoroughly explained and illustrated. More than 200 new color photographs have been added to this revised edition, showing perennials in various border situations and providing images for each of the entries in the A-to-Z encyclopedia of important perennial species. In addition, there is a new 32-page journal section, in which you can enter details, notes, and observations about the requirements and performance of perennials in your own garden. Thousands of readers have commented that The Well-Tended Perennial Garden is one of the most useful and frequently consulted books in their gardening libraries. This new, expanded edition promises to be an even more effective ally in your quest to create a beautiful, healthy, well-maintained perennial garden.

    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.

    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.

    But in the midst of an economic crisis, it’s just as important to save money as it is to go green. As Gehring shows in this thorough but concise guide, being kind to Mother Earth can also mean being kind to your bank account! It doesn’t matter where your homestead is located—farm, suburb, or even city. Wherever you live, The Homesteading Handbook can help you:     • Plan, plant, and harvest your own organic home garden.      • Enjoy fruits and vegetables year-round by canning, drying, and freezing.      • Build alternate energy devices by hand, such as solar panels or geothermal heat pumps.      • Differentiate between an edible puffball mushroom and a poisonous amanita.      • Prepare butternut squash soup using ingredients from your own garden.      • Conserve water by making a rain barrel or installing an irrigation system.      • Have fun and save cash by handcrafting items such as soap, potpourri, and paper. Experience the satisfaction that comes with self-sufficiency, as well as the assurance that you have done your part to help keep our planet green. The Homesteading Handbook is your roadmap to living in harmony with the land.

    With Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner's Guide, Gladstar offers a fresh introduction for a new generation of gardeners and natural health and self-sufficiency enthusiasts.Thirty-three of the most common and versatile healing plants are profiled in depth to get the budding herbalist off on the right foot. Readers will learn how to grow, harvest, prepare, and use each herb. Step-by-step instructions explain how to prepare herbal teas, salves, syrups, tinctures, oils, and liniments to stock the home medicine chest. Simple recipes explore each plant's healing qualities - aloe lotion for poison ivy, dandelion-burdock tincture for sluggish digestion, and lavender-lemon balm tea for stress relief. Gladstar shows how easy it is to make safe, all-natural, low-cost healing remedies for common ailments.

    In this first-ever complete guide to hunting—from hunting wild game to butchering and cooking it—the host of the popular hunting show MeatEater shares his own expertise with us, and imparts strategies and tactics from many of the most experienced hunters in the United States as well.   This invaluable book includes • recommendations on what equipment you will need—and what you can do without—from footwear to cutlery to camping gear to weapons • basic and advanced hunting strategies for all North American small game, including drive techniques, solo and group hunting, ambush hunting, the use of hunting dogs, and techniques for decoying and calling • how to find hunting locations, on both public and private land; how to locate areas that other hunters aren’t using; and how to make competition work in your favor • detailed sections on furred small game, upland birds, and waterfowl, covering the biology and best hunting methods for a total of thirty small game species  • comprehensive information about hunting wild turkeys in both the spring and fall seasons • how to master the arts of wingshooting and rifle marksmanship, and detailed information about shot placement, ammunition selection, and field maintenance of firearms and archery equipment • instructions on how to field dress and butcher your own small game animals for a variety of preparations • techniques and recipes for both indoor and outdoor wild game cookingFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

    An internationally renowned herbalist, teacher, and certified organic grower, Hartung has filled this indispensable reference with a wide range of information gathered from her 30 years of studying and working hands-on with these amazing plants. Homegrown Herbs is a step-by-step primer for gardeners of every level. It includes in-depth profiles of 101 cultivars, including information on seed selection, planting, maintenance and care, harvesting, drying, and uses in the kitchen, home pharmacy, crafting, and body care. Hartung supports these profiles with an array of herb garden designs, illustrations, and at-a-glance charts. Sensational four-color photographs by Saxon Holt bring the information to life, and an introduction by renowned herbalist Rosemary Gladstar highlights the importance of the book to both individuals and the planet as a whole. Packed with valuable information, Homegrown Herbs is much more than an encyclopedia of herbs—Hartung shares her passionate and compelling vision for a world that is filled with greater abundance, pleasure, joy, and compassion. With Hartung as a guide, readers will find that growing herbs is more than simply a practical act; it is also an inspired one that brings beauty, flavor, and healing to the everyday... and to the world at large.

    Even experienced houseplant enthusiasts will benefit from Pleasant’s expansive knowledge of indoor gardening, which includes personality profiles, growing needs, and troubleshooting tips for 160 blooming and foliage varieties. Create a greener world, one houseplant at a time.

    Whether you want to grow better-tasting fruit and vegetables untainted by chemicals, find natural methods of pest and weed control, or create a garden that is safer for your children, pets and wildlife, Organic Gardening is your practical, easy-to-follow guide to gardening with, rather than against, nature.

    Sturdy and deep-rooted, perennials can weather climate extremes more easily than annuals. They can thrive without chemical fertilizers and pesticides. And they don’t need as much water, either. These long-lived plants also help build healthy soil, turning the very ground we stand on into a carbon sponge.In this book, Tucker lays the groundwork for tending an organic, sustainable garden. She includes practical growing guides for 34 popular perennials, among them, basil, blueberries, grapes, strawberries, artichokes, asparagus, garlic, radicchio, spinach, and sweet potatoes, and wraps in a recipe for each of the plants profiled. Growing Perennial Foods is for gardeners who want more resilient plants. It’s for people who want to do something about climate change and the environment. It’s for anyone who has ever wanted to grow food, and is ready to begin.

    With easy recipes ethnobotanist James Wong shows how to make simple creams, salves, teas and much, much more from the stuff growing in your window box, the local garden centre or in the hedgerows. Using the flowers, fruit, roots, trees, vegetables and herbs that are all around us James provides preparations to help relieve a whole range of common conditions, including acne, anxiety, cold sores and general aches and pains - plus great ideas for beauty treats such as bath bombs and shampoos. Inspired by his grandmother in Malaysia who taught him about the health-giving properties of plants, James uses his top class academic knowledge to show how easy - and cheap - it is to make creams, lotions, lozenges and more which can help relieve the symptoms of a variety of common complaints. He reveals how many plants contain the same active ingredients as over-the-counter drugs and chooses his Top 100 plants to grow or buy, complete with ideas for a whole range of uses.So unleash the power of plants and soothe the symptoms of everyday ailments the natural way.

    On the other hand, gardening itself could be the culprit: elaborate, traditional perennial borders; water-hungry or disease-prone plants; needy lawns; and high-maintenance plants that require staking or clipping all suck up precious hours. Simply put, we need to start gardening in a whole new way. In this inspiring book, Val Easton shows exactly how to have a low-maintenance garden that doesn't sacrifice style. You won't have to give up your favorite plants or settle for expanses of ugly bark nuggets. You just have to unlearn some bad old habits and pick up some good new ones. So, how do you go about making a "new" low-maintenance garden? First, design your garden with maintenance in mind—good-looking hardscape will both save weeding time and showcase your favorite plants. Second, simplify your garden routines—learn the most efficient planting and maintenance techniques and don't get stressed if everything isn't letter-perfect. Third, learn how to work with nature rather than against it. And finally, embrace home-grown fruits, herbs, and vegetables; well planted containers; and thoughtfully chosen plants.The New Low-Maintenance Garden doesn't just tell you how to garden in a whole new way—it shows you, through profiles and beautiful photographs of real gardens that embody low-maintenance techniques. The pressures of life are not likely to ease up anytime soon, but the lessons of this timely book will help you banish guilt over undone garden chores and revel in your garden successes.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Creativity, fulfillment, connection, revolution--it all begins when we get our hands in the dirt.Food Not Lawns combines practical wisdom on ecological design and community-building with a fresh, green perspective on an age-old subject. Activist and urban gardener Heather Flores shares her nine-step permaculture design to help farmsteaders and city dwellers alike build fertile soil, promote biodiversity, and increase natural habitat in their own "paradise gardens."But Food Not Lawns doesn't begin and end in the seed bed. This joyful permaculture lifestyle manual inspires readers to apply the principles of the paradise garden--simplicity, resourcefulness, creativity, mindfulness, and community--to all aspects of life. Plant "guerilla gardens" in barren intersections and medians; organize community meals; start a street theater troupe or host a local art swap; free your kitchen from refrigeration and enjoy truly fresh, nourishing foods from your own plot of land; work with children to create garden play spaces.Flores cares passionately about the damaged state of our environment and the ills of our throwaway society. In Food Not Lawns, she shows us how to reclaim the earth one garden at a time.