Renowned herbalist Rosemary Gladstar provides 175 proven therapies and herbal remedies that are easy to prepare and safe enough for children.  Offering a potent and effective alternative to commercial pharmaceuticals, Gladstar will inspire you to nurture yourself and those you love with nature’s healing herbs.

    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.

    She will also provide recipes that highlight these unique flavor combinations so you can make use out of every canned good! From jams, jellies and preserves to pickles and relishes to drunken fruit and pressure canning, this book has something for everyone. Some recipes will require the use of pressure canners, but not all.Make your mama proud but don't tell her you can can better than her!

    Gardening helps us collect ourselves, much as praying does. For rich and poor- it makes no difference- a garden is a place where body and soul are in harmony. In Inheriting Paradise Vigen Guroian offers an abundant vision of the spiritual life found in the cultivation of God's good creation. Capturing the earthiness and sacramental character of the Christian faith, these uplifting meditations bring together the experience of space and time through the cycle of the seasons in the garden and relate this fundamental human experience to the cycle of the church year and the Christian seasons of grace. The tilling of fresh earth; the sowing of seeds; the harvesting of rhubarb and roses, dillweed and daffodils-Guroian finds in the garden our most concrete connection with life and God's gracious giving. His personal reflections on this connection, complemented here by delicate woodcut illustrations, offer a compelling entry into Christian spirituality.

    Farming the Woods invites a remarkably different perspective: that a healthy forest can be maintained while growing a wide range of food, medicinal, and other non-timber products. While this concept of "forest farming" may seem like an obscure practice, history indicates that much of humanity lived and sustained itself from tree-based systems in the past; only recently have people traded the forest for the field. The good news is that this is not an either-or scenario; forest farms can be most productive in places where the plow is not: on steep slopes, and in shallow soils. It is an invaluable practice to integrate into any farm or homestead, especially as the need for unique value-added products and supplemental income becomes more and more important for farmers. Many already know that daily indulgences we take for granted such as coffee, chocolate, and many tropical fruits, all originate in forest ecosystems. But few know that such abundance is also available in the cool temperate forests of North America. Farming the Woods is the first in-depth guide for farmers and gardeners who have access to an established woodland and are looking for productive ways to manage it. Authors Ken Mudge and Steve Gabriel describe this process as "productive conservation," guided by the processes and relationships found in natural forest ecosystems. Farming the Woods covers in detail how to cultivate, harvest, and market high-value non-timber forest crops such as American ginseng, shiitake mushrooms, ramps (wild leeks), maple syrup, fruit and nut trees, ornamental ferns, and more. Comprehensive information is also offered on historical perspectives of forest farming; mimicking the forest in a changing climate; cultivation of medicinal crops; creating a forest nursery; harvesting and utilizing wood products; the role of animals in the forest farm; and how to design and manage your forest farm once it's set up. This book is a must-read for farmers and gardeners interested in incorporating aspects of agroforestry, permaculture, forest gardening, and sustainable woodlot management into the concept of a whole-farm organism.

    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.

    

    It allows you to maximize the use of space while taking advantage of the natural abilities of each plant. This guide to companion gardening covers the following topics: What companion planting is and how it can benefit you. How good companion plants are discovered. Organic gardening and companion planting. Companion planting strategies. Allelopathy: The chemical abilities of plants. Beneficial insects in the garden and how to draw them in. How to repel pest insects. Planning your garden using companion planting. Companion planting information on more than 70 fruits, vegetables and herbs, including good and bad neighbors. This book provides a strong basis for those looking to learn companion planting and is guaranteed to be a reference guide you turn to time and time again when looking for companion plants to grow in your garden. Buy this book now and get started growing a bigger and better garden through companion gardening.

    Commercial growers will want to consult this book regularly.The author tells us:which strains to plant when to fertilize when to plant when to prune flower stalks how to plant when to harvest Plus, how to store, market, and process the crop Growing Great Garlic makes a genuine contribution in the field of garlic classification that will help the public recognize several distinct varietal types of garlic.

    

    The Accidental Farmers reveals how the couple learned that hamburgers, bacon, and eggs don't come from the supermarket but from real animals that forge emotional bonds with their human caretakers. Seeking a middle path between a meatless lifestyle and the barbarism of factory food, Tim and Liz created Nature's Harmony Farm, a sustainable oasis where rare breed animals and humans live together searching for something nearly lost by both humans and the animals...how to live naturally off the land.

    Revised for an all new generation of gardeners, the 40th anniversary edition includes brand new information on the variety of heirloom vegetables available today and how to grow them the postage stamp way.      To accommodate today's lifestyles, a garden needs to fit easily into a very small plot, take as little time as possible to maintain, require a minimum amount of water, and still produce prolifically. That's exactly what a postage stamp garden does. Postage stamp gardens are as little as 4 by 4 feet, and, after the initial soil preparation, they require very little extra work to produce a tremendous amount of vegetables--for instance, a 5-by-5-foot bed will produce a minimum of 200 pounds of vegetables. When first published 40 years ago, the postage stamp techniques, including closely planted beds rather than rows, vines and trailing plants grown vertically to free up space, and intercropping, were groundbreaking. Now, in an ever busier world, the postage stamp intensive gardening method continues to be invaluable for gardeners who wish to weed, water, and work a whole lot less yet produce so much more.

    Share his 30 years' experience of growing vegetables as he takes you through the vegetable year and shows you when you should sow your seeds, dig your plot and harvest your crops.

    All the way to their ninth decades, the Nearings grew their own food, built their own buildings, and fought an eloquent combat against the silliness of America's infatuation with consumer goods and refined foods. They also wrote or co-wrote more than thirty books, many of which are now being brought back into print by the Good Life Center and Chelsea Green.Simple Food for the Good Life is a jovial collection of quips, quotes, and one-of-a-kind recipes meant to amuse and intrigue all of those who find themselves in the kitchen, willingly or otherwise. Recipes such as Horse Chow, Scott's Emulsion, Crusty Carrot Croakers, Raw Beet Borscht, Creamy Blueberry Soup, and Super Salad for a Crowd should improve the mood as well as whet the appetite of any guest.Here is an antidote for the whole foods enthusiast who is fed up with the anxieties and drudgeries of preparing fancy meals with stylish, expensive, hard-to-find ingredients. This celebration of salads, leftovers, raw foods, and homegrown fruits and vegetables takes the straightest imaginable route from their stem or vine to your table.The funniest, crankiest, most ambivalent cookbook you'll ever read, said Food & Wine magazine. This is more than a mere cookbook, said Health Science magazine: It belongs to the category of classics, destined to be remembered through the ages.Among Helen Nearing's numerous books is Chelsea Green's Loving and Leaving the Good Life, a memoir of her fifty-year marriage to Scott Nearing and the story of Scott's deliberate death at the age of one hundred. Helen and Scott Nearing's final homestead in Harborside, Maine, has been established in perpetuity as an educational progam under the name of The Good Life Center.

    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.