Ideal for first-time foragers, this book features 70 edible weeds, flowers, mushrooms, and ornamental plants typically found in urban and suburban neighborhoods. Full-color photographs make identification easy, while tips on common plant locations, pesticides, pollution, and dangerous flora make foraging as safe and simple as stepping into your own backyard.

    He begins by lamenting a modern society that not only throws away both animal and human manure—worth billions of dollars in fertilizer value—but that spends a staggering amount of money to do so. This wastefulness makes even less sense as the supply of mined or chemically synthesized fertilizers dwindles and their cost skyrockets. In fact, he argues, if we do not learn how to turn our manures into fertilizer to keep food production in line with increasing population, our civilization, like so many that went before it, will inevitably decline.With his trademark humor, his years of experience writing about both farming and waste management, and his uncanny eye for the small but important details, Logsdon artfully describes how to manage farm manure, pet manure and human manure to make fertilizer and humus. He covers the field, so to speak, discussing topics like:• How to select the right pitchfork for the job and use it correctly• How to operate a small manure spreader• How to build a barn manure pack with farm animal manure• How to compost cat and dog waste• How to recycle toilet water for irrigation purposes, and• How to get rid ourselves of our irrational paranoia about feces and urine.Gene Logsdon does not mince words. This fresh, fascinating and entertaining look at an earthy, but absolutely crucial subject, is a small gem and is destined to become a classic of our agricultural literature.

    Every single human society that has relied on annual crops for staple foods has collapsed. Restoration Agriculture explains how we can have all of the benefits of natural, perennial ecosystems and create agricultural systems that imitate nature in form and function while still providing for our food, building, fuel and many other needs - in your own backyard, farm or ranch. This book, based on real-world practices, presents an alternative to the agriculture system of eradication and offers exciting hope for our future.

    A new literary classic, Second Nature has become a manifesto not just for gardeners but for environmentalists everywhere. "As delicious a meditation on one man's relationships with the Earth as any you are likely to come upon" (The New York Times Book Review), Second Nature captures the rhythms of our everyday engagement with the outdoors in all its glory and exasperation. With chapters ranging from a reconsideration of the Great American Lawn, a dispatch from one man's war with a woodchuck, to an essay about the sexual politics of roses, Pollan has created a passionate and eloquent argument for reconceiving our relationship with nature.

    What to plant, when to plant it, and when to harvest are unique decisions based on climate, weather, and first and last frost."The Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening: Pacific Northwest" is a growing guide that truly understands the unique eccentricities of the Northwest growing calendar. The month-by-month format makes it perfect for beginners and accessible to everyone -- you can start gardening the month you pick it up. Starting in January? The guide will show you how to make a seed order, plan crop rotations and succession plantings, and plant a crop of microgreens. No time to start until July? You can start planting beets, carrots, chard, kale, parsnips. And spinach for an early fall harvest.Features an A-Z section that profiles the 50 vegetables, fruits, and herbs that grow best in the region and provides basic care and maintenance for each. Introductory material provides valuable information on gardening basics and garden planning.

    David Holmgren brings into sharper focus the powerful and still evolving Permaculture concept he pioneered with Bill Mollison in the 1970s. It draws together and integrates 25 years of thinking and teaching to reveal a whole new way of understanding and action behind a simple set of design principles. The 12 design principles are each represented by a positive action statement, an icon and a traditional proverb or two that captures the essence of each principle.Holmgren draws a correlation between every aspect of how we organize our lives, communities and landscapes and our ability to creatively adapt to the ecological realities that shape human destiny. For students and teachers of Permaculture this book provides something more fundamental and distilled than Mollison's encyclopedic "Designers Manual." For the general reader it provides refreshing perspectives on a range of environmental issues and shows how permaculture is much more than just a system of gardening. For anyone seriously interested in understanding the foundations of sustainable design and culture, this book is essential reading. Although a book of ideas, the big picture is repeatedly grounded by reference to Holmgren's own place, Melliodora, and other practical examples.

    The Hidden Half of Nature reveals why good health—for people and for plants—depends on Earth’s smallest creatures. Restoring life to their barren yard and recovering from a health crisis, David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé discover astounding parallels between the botanical world and our own bodies. From garden to gut, they show why cultivating beneficial microbiomes holds the key to transforming agriculture and medicine.

    Home canning puts the pleasures of eating natural, delicious produce at your fingertips year round. Preserving food is as modern and practical as the latest food trend, and its really quite simple. Easy-to-understand detailed instructions provide all the information you need before you begin a project. Enjoy the rewards of numerous homemade meals and snacks, created from just one preserving session.

    The incidence of diet-related diseases, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and heart disease, has skyrocketed to unprecedented levels. Whether you have forty acres and a mule or a condo with a balcony, you can do more than you think to safeguard your health, your money, and the planet.Homegrown and Handmade shows how making things from scratch and growing at least some of your own food can help you eliminate artificial ingredients from your diet, reduce your carbon footprint, and create a more authentic life. Whether your goal is increasing your self-reliance or becoming a full-fledged homesteader, it's packed with answers and solutions to help you:Take control of your food supply from seed to plate Raise small and medium livestock for fun, food, and fiber Rediscover traditional skills to meet more of your family's needs than you ever thought possibleThis comprehensive guide to food and fiber from scratch proves that attitude and knowledge is more important than acreage. Written from the perspective of a successful self-taught modern homesteader, this well illustrated, practical, and accessible manual will appeal to anyone who dreams of a simpler life.Deborah Niemann is a homesteader, writer, and self-sufficiency expert who presents extensively on topics including soapmaking, bread baking, cheesemaking, composting, and homeschooling. She and her family raise sheep, pigs, cattle, goats, chickens, and turkeys for meat, eggs, and dairy products, while an organic garden and orchard provides fruit and vegetables.

    Yet here is a book that goes back to the future--celebrating traditional but little-known French techniques for storing and preserving edibles in ways that maximize flavor and nutrition.Translated into English, and with a new foreword by Deborah Madison, this book deliberately ignores freezing and high-temperature canning in favor of methods that are superior because they are less costly and more energy-efficient.As Eliot Coleman says in his foreword to the first edition, "Food preservation techniques can be divided into two categories: the modern scientific methods that remove the life from food, and the natural 'poetic' methods that maintain or enhance the life in food. The poetic techniques produce... foods that have been celebrated for centuries and are considered gourmet delights today.""Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning" offers more than 250 easy and enjoyable recipes featuring locally grown and minimally refined ingredients. It is an essential guide for those who seek healthy food for a healthy world.

    Imagine how much more self-reliant our communities would be if thirty million acres of lawns were made productive again. Permaculture is a practical way to apply ecological design principles to food, housing, and energy systems, making growing fruits, vegetables, and livestock easier and more sustainable.The Permaculture Handbook is a step-by-step, beautifully illustrated guide to creating resilient and prosperous households and neighborhoods, complemented by extensive case studies of three successful farmsteads and market gardens. This comprehensive manual casts garden farming as both an economic opportunity and a strategy for living well with less money. It shows how, by mimicking the intelligence of nature and applying appropriate technologies such as solar and environmental design, permaculture can:Create an abundance of fresh, nourishing local produce Reduce dependence on expensive, polluting fossil fuels Drought-proof our cities and countryside Convert waste into wealthPermaculture is about working with the earth and with each other to repair the damage of industrial overreach and to enrich the living world that sustains us. The Permaculture Handbook is the definitive practical North American guide to this revolutionary practice, and is a must-read for anyone concerned about creating food security, resilience, and a legacy of abundance rather than depletion.Peter Bane is a permaculture teacher and site designer who has published and edited Permaculture Activist magazine for over twenty years. He helped create Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina, and is now pioneering suburban farming in Bloomington, Indiana.

    Cheese. Wine. Beer. Coffee. Chocolate. Most people consume fermented foods and drinks every day. For thousands of years, humans have enjoyed the distinctive flavors and nutrition resulting from the transformative power of microscopic bacteria and fungi. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods is the first cookbook to widely explore the culinary magic of fermentation."Fermentation has been an important journey of discovery for me," writes author Sandor Ellix Katz. "I invite you to join me along this effervescent path, well trodden for thousands of years yet largely forgotten in our time and place, bypassed by the superhighway of industrial food production."The flavors of fermentation are compelling and complex, quite literally alive. This book takes readers on a whirlwind trip through the wide world of fermentation, providing readers with basic and delicious recipes-some familiar, others exotic-that are easy to make at home.The book covers vegetable ferments such as sauerkraut, kimchi, and sour pickles; bean ferments including miso, tempeh, dosas, and idli; dairy ferments including yogurt, kefir, and basic cheesemaking (as well as vegan alternatives); sourdough bread-making; other grain fermentations from Cherokee, African, Japanese, and Russian traditions; extremely simple wine- and beer-making (as well as cider-, mead-, and champagne-making) techniques; and vinegar-making. With nearly 100 recipes, this is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging fermentation cookbook ever published.

    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.

    Permaculture teacher Christopher Shein highlights everything you need to know to start living off the land lightly, including how to create rich, healthy, and low-cost soil, blend a functional food garden and decorative landscape, share the bounty with others, and much more.

    And he’s never stopped studying, because he wants to give the best, most up-to-date information to the listeners of his nationally-syndicated Public Radio show, “You Bet Your Garden.” He offers the fruits of his labors in this illustrated guide that reveals why compost is the answer to virtually every garden question. McGrath explains why compost improves soil structure; why it provides the perfect amount of food for every plant; how it fights plant diseases more safely and effectively than any chemical fungicide; and how to make your own. This is a must-have on every gardener’s bookshelf!