Designed by a professional and maintained by a crew, they are aspirational bits of beauty too difficult to attempt at home. Or are they?The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden makes a design-magazine-worthy garden achievable at home. The new, simplified approach is made up of hardy, beautiful plants grown on a 10x14 foot grid. Each of the 62 garden plans combines complementary plants that thrive together and grow as a community. They are designed to make maintenance a snap. The garden plans can be followed explicitly or adjusted to meet individual needs, unlocking rich perennial landscape designs for individualization and creativity.

    Small-scale, self-contained worm bins can be kept indoors, in a basement or even under the kitchen sink in an apartment — making vermicomposting a great option for city dwellers and anyone who doesn’t want or can’t have an outdoor compost pile. The fully revised 35th anniversary edition features the original’s same friendly tone, with up-to-date information on the entire process, from building or purchasing a bin (readily available at garden supply stores), maintaining the worms, and harvesting the finished compost.

    Now expanding exponentially on his bestselling Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre, Brett Markham gives you tips, tricks, and planning advice on how to make the most of your mini farm. New topics include: Soil and Fertility Tools and TechniquesPlanting Guides and SeedersEasy Trellising Weed Control TechniquesGreater Food Self-SufficiencyMaking Your Own Country WinesMaking Your Own Vinegars Making Cheese at HomeCooking for Self-Sufficiency Keep your costs down and production high with this complete guide to maximizing your mini farm—whether it’s a rooftop urban garden, a suburban backyard, or a more substantial plot of land. Materials, tools, and techniques are detailed with tables, diagrams, and 200 color illustrations and author photographs.

    If you want to know whether it is kosher to plant onions between cabbage plants, this is the place to look.-- Oklahoma TodayFirst published in 1975, this classic companion planting guide has taught a generation of gardeners how to use plants' natural partnerships to produce bigger and better harvests.Over 500,000 in Print!

    Herbal remedies. Your complete resource to start feeling better, naturally. When a headache, cough, or other common ailment hits, many people turn to over-the-counter medications for relief. But for those who prefer to use herbal medicine, it can be difficult and overwhelming to find an authoritative resource that’s also easy to understand.Join natural health author Anne Kennedy as she guides you on a journey towards discovering the right herbal medicine practice for you. Here in her fourth book, the author of The Portable Essential Oils, Essential Oils Natural Remedies, and Essential Oils for Beginners, has created an accessible, all-in-one collection of herbal medicine therapies to use in the comfort of your own home.Herbal Medicine Natural Remedies offers the most effective natural remedies that can be used to treat common ailments, without the risk of unpleasant or potentially harmful side effects that pharmaceuticals can cause. Inside these pages you’ll find: 150 HERBAL MEDICINE RECIPES to soothe and heal everyday illnesses and injuries naturally 50 OF THE MOST COMMONLY USED HERBS profiled and explained EXPERT HERBAL MEDICINE ADVICE on necessary ingredients and tools to set you up for success With simple organization and clear, concise instruction, Herbal Medicine Natural Remedies has you covered no matter what ails you, such as: Allergies, Bee sting, Bronchitis, Canker sore, Chapped lips, Constipation, Dandruff, Diaper rash, Eczema, Fever, Hair loss, Headache, Indigestion, Menopause, Mental Wellness, Poison ivy, Psoriasis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Sore throat, Tendinitis, Weight loss, and more

    Healthy soil is teeming with life — not just earthworms and insects, but a staggering multitude of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. When we use chemical fertilizers, we injure the microbial life that sustains healthy plants, and thus become increasingly dependent on an arsenal of artificial substances, many of them toxic to humans as well as other forms of life. But there is an alternative to this vicious circle: to garden in a way that strengthens, rather than destroys, the soil food web — the complex world of soil-dwelling organisms whose interactions create a nurturing environment for plants. By eschewing jargon and overly technical language, the authors make the benefits of cultivating the soil food web available to a wide audience, from devotees of organic gardening techniques to weekend gardeners who simply want to grow healthy, vigorous plants without resorting to chemicals.

    Beautifully illustrated. If you are interested in the countryside, rural life, growing things and craft skills, an engrossing book.

    Learn how to safely dehydrate and store the food you grow, catch and buy. Food drying is made simple using the techniques laid out in this book.Topics covered in this book include the following:- The benefits of food drying.- The nutritional value of dried foods.- How to keep dried foods safe by following the Golden Rules of Food Dehydration.- All of the safe food drying methods are covered, including oven-drying, sun-drying, commercial dryers and freeze-drying.- How to pre-treat food before you dry it for best results.- How to dry fruits, vegetables, meats, fish and herbs and spices.Regardless of whether you're a food drying novice or a seasoned vet, there's something in this book for you. Buy it now and learn everything you need to know to get started drying foods.

    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.

    But nothing is moreconvenient than grocery shopping in the backyard. A vegetable garden offers the best defense againstrising food prices, the most environmentally sound way to eat, and better exercise than any gym. It willturn anyone into a wonderful cook, since nothing tastes more vibrant than homegrown. And it can takeless time every week than a trip to the supermarket.In Grow the Good Life, Michele Owens, an amateur gardener for almost two decades, makes an entertaining and persuasive case for vegetable gardens. She starts with two simple but radical ideas: Growing food on a small scale is easy, and it is absurdly rewarding.With her wry, funny, and accessible approach, Owens helps beginning gardeners overcome obstacles that keep them from planting a few seedlings every spring. She explains why dirt isn't dirty; the health benefits of growing one's own food; and that vegetable gardens are not antithetical to the frantic pace of modern life, but simple and undemanding if intelligently managed.Grow the Good Life is not just another how-to. Instead, it will teach you the true fundamentals of vegetable growing: how to fit a garden into your life and why it's worth the trouble.

    Eaten alone, as a salad, or added to soups, entrees, sandwiches, burgers, or anything else, these tiny greens of nutrition will enhance everyday food and life!Only a small amount of space is needed to grow microgreens—a porch, patio, deck, or balcony, indoors or outdoors, will do. This allows anyone to easily incorporate microgreens into their daily meals, and the greens' nutritional potency make them a must-eat in a healthy diet, any time of the year!

    In the preface to this book, author Keith Delaplane says of his first book on beekeeping, "Its pages opened to me a golden world of honey bees and beekeeping and guided my stumbling steps that first spring season. My story is but one of thousands who have passed through the door opened by Dadant's little book."

    If you want to grow your own fresh garden tomatoes, lettuce, peas, herbs and more without the summer long effort of a traditional garden, then a Raised Bed Garden could be your answer. Raised beds are perfect for growing lots of vegetables in small spaces. They're also ideal for anyone who doesn't want to sit or bend down to pull weeds every day. Raised beds even look better than regular gardens because you can customize the bed boxes to fit the aesthetics of your landscaping. If all of those reasons aren't enough consider this; you can grow more healthy vegetables with less of your own effort which means more produce will make it to your dinner table, and you'll have more time and energy to enjoy it. This book covers everything you need to know to create your own raised bed garden and grow your own vegetables this season. It includes: - Garden Design tips to get the most out of your garden - How to build your raised beds, from fancy beds to free ones - Improving your soil to grow the healthiest plants - What to plant - When to plant it - Low-maintenance tips to make weeds almost non-existent If you are excited to put some plants in the ground and start your own garden paradise then I am excited to show you how!

    Twenty Instructables illustrate just how simple it can be to make your own backyard chicken coop, or turn a wine barrel into a rainwater collector.Illustrated with dozens of full-color photographs per project accompanying easy-to-follow instructions, this Instructables collection utilizes the best that the online community has to offer, turning a far-reaching group of people into a mammoth database churning out ideas to make life better, easier, and in this case, greener, as this volume exemplifies.

    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.