This is the original book compilation of Foxfire material which introduces Aunt Arie and her contemporaries and includes log cabin building, hog dressing, snake lore, mountain crafts and food, and "other affairs of plain living."

    When Stein realized what her intensive efforts at making a garden had done, she set out to "ungarden". Her book interweaves an account of her efforts with an explanation of the ecology of gardens. Illustrations.

    About 75 percent of all flowering plants rely on pollinators in order to set seed or fruit, and from these plants comes one-third of the planet's food.Attracting Native Pollinators is a comprehensive guidebook for gardeners, small farmers, orchardists, beekeepers, naturalists, environmentalists, and public land managers on how to protect and encourage the activity of the native pollinators of North America. Written by staff of the Xerces Society, an international nonprofit organization that is leading the way in pollinator conservation, this book presents a thorough overview of the problem along with positive solutions for how to provide bountiful harvests on farms and gardens, maintain healthy plant communinities in wildlands, provide food for wildlife, and beautify the landscape with flowers.Full-color photographs introduce readers to more than 80 species of native pollinators -- including bees, flies, butterflies, wasps, and moths -- noting each one's range and habits. The heart of the book provides detailed garden plans and techniques showing how to create flowering habitat to attract a variety of these pollinators, help expand the pollinator population, and provide pollinators with inviting nesting sites. Readers will also find useful instructions for creating nesting structures, educational activities for involving children, and an extensive list of resources. Attracting Native Pollinators is an essential reference book and action guide for anyone who is involved in growing food or is concerned about the future of our food supply.

    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.

    The forests, meadows, streambanks, and even the weedy margins of neighborhoods are home to an abundance of delicious wild edible plants. Discover wild lilies with their peppery flowers, buds, and seeds and use them in your spring salads. Select sweet, succulent thistles or the shoots of invasive Himalayan blackberries and Japanese knotweed to add wonderful flavor to hearty soups. Douglas Deur, a lifetime Northwest forager and specialist in Native American plant traditions, shares his insights and experiences, showing you what to look for, when and where to look, and how to gather in a responsible way. For foragers in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and Southeast Alaska.

    After a disheartening week trying to live off wild plants from the streets and parks near her home, she learns the ways of the first people who lived there and, along with a quirky cast of characters, discovers an array of useful wild plants hiding in plain sight. As she harvests them for food, medicine, and just-in-case apocalypse insurance, Lerner delves into anthropology, urban ecology and sustainability, and finds herself looking at Nature in a very different way.  Humorous, philosophical, and informative, Dandelion Hunter has something for everyone, from the curious neophyte to the seasoned forager.

    Since the process takes place in a closed system, insects and smell are controlled, making it ideal for urban or business settings. The process is very fast, with compost usually ready to be integrated into your soil or garden in around two weeks.While bokashi has enjoyed great popularity in many parts of the world, it is still relatively unknown in North America. From scraps to soil, Bokashi Composting is the complete, step-by-step, do-it-yourself guide to this amazing process, with comprehensive information covering:Background—the history, development, and scientific basis of the techniqueGetting started—composting with commercially available products or homemade systemsMaking your own—system plans and bokashi bran recipes using common materials and locally sourced ingredientsGrowing—improving your soil with fermented compost and bokashi "juice"This essential guide is a must-read for gardeners, homeowners, apartment dwellers, traditional composters, and anyone who wants a safe, simple, and convenient way to keep kitchen waste out of the landfill.Adam Footer is a permaculture designer with a focus on soil building, food forestry, cover crops, water conservation and harvesting, and natural farming. He is a tireless promoter of bokashi to maximize the recycling of food waste and runs the website bokashicomposting.com.

    Visiting it almost daily for one year to trace nature’s path through the seasons, he brings the forest and its inhabitants to vivid life.Each of this book’s short chapters begins with a simple observation: a salamander scuttling across the leaf litter; the first blossom of spring wildflowers. From these, Haskell spins a brilliant web of biology and ecology, explaining the science that binds together the tiniest microbes and the largest mammals and describing the ecosystems that have cycled for thousands—sometimes millions—of years. Each visit to the forest presents a nature story in miniature as Haskell elegantly teases out the intricate relationships that order the creatures and plants that call it home.Written with remarkable grace and empathy, The Forest Unseen is a grand tour of nature in all its profundity. Haskell is a perfect guide into the world that exists beneath our feet and beyond our backyards.

    By talking through a hundred or so items, Mike Berners-Lee sets out to give us a carbon instinct for the footprint of literally anything we do, buy and think about. He helps us pick our battles by laying out the orders of magnitude. The book ranges from the everyday (foods, books, plastic bags, bikes, flights, baths...) and the global (deforestation, data centres, rice production, the World Cup, volcanoes, ...) Be warned, some of the things you thought you knew about green living may be about to be turned on their head. Never preachy but packed full of information and always entertaining.

    Now, with this beautifully illustrated book, Cadfael fans can spend a typical year with their favorite monk, following him on his rounds as Shrewsbury's apothecary and healer, visiting his garden', and learning more about hundreds of herbs -- many of which are still cultivated today. Here is a succinct history of herbal remedies and monastic herb gardens like Cadfael's, as well as a complete A-to-Z guide to the medical uses for every herb and plant mentioned in the Ellis Peters books. For anyone intrigued by Brother Cadfael's medieval universe -- or interested in the recent boom in herbal remedies -- Brother Cadfael's Herb Garden is a marvelous guide to greater knowledge.

    There, Henry Brockman and his family — five generations of farmers, including sister Terra — farm in a way that produces healthy, nutritious food without despoiling the land. Terra Brockman tells their story in the form of a yearlong diary/memoir — with recipes — that takes readers through each season of life on the farm. Studded with vignettes, photographs, family stories, and illustrations of the farm's vivid plant life, the book is a one-of-a-kind treasure that will appeal to readers of Michael Pollan, E. B. White, Gretel Ehrlich, and Sandra Steingraber. The book opens a window into what sustainable farming really entails and why it is vital and relevant to everyone who eats. Though rooted in the rolling oak-hickory hills and fertile fields and flood plains of the Mackinaw River Valley, the book ranges widely, incorporating literary, scientific, and culinary reflections occasioned by the week-by-week events of farm life.

    It grows wild in twenty-six states, gracing Eastern forests each fall with sweet-smelling, tropical-flavored abundance. Historically, it fed and sustained Native Americans and European explorers, presidents, and enslaved African Americans, inspiring folk songs, poetry, and scores of place names from Georgia to Illinois. Its trees are an organic grower’s dream, requiring no pesticides or herbicides to thrive, and containing compounds that are among the most potent anticancer agents yet discovered.So why have so few people heard of the pawpaw, much less tasted one? In Pawpaw, author Andrew Moore explores the past, present, and future of this unique fruit, traveling from the Ozarks to Monticello; canoeing the lower Mississippi in search of wild fruit; drinking pawpaw beer in Durham, North Carolina; tracking down lost cultivars in Appalachian hollers; and helping out during harvest season in a Maryland orchard. Along the way, he gathers pawpaw lore and knowledge not only from the plant breeders and horticulturists working to bring pawpaws into the mainstream (including Neal Peterson, known in pawpaw circles as the fruit’s own “Johnny Pawpawseed”), but also regular folks who remember eating them in the woods as kids, but haven’t had one in over fifty years.As much as Pawpaw is a compendium of pawpaw knowledge, it also plumbs deeper questions about American foodways―how economic, biologic, and cultural forces combine, leading us to eat what we eat, and sometimes to ignore the incredible, delicious food growing all around us. If you haven’t yet eaten a pawpaw, this book won’t let you rest until you do.

    . . . an optimistic call to action.” —Chicago Tribune Over time, with industrialization and urban sprawl, we have driven nature out of our neighborhoods and cities. But we can invite it back by designing landscapes that look and function more like they do in the wild: robust, diverse, and visually harmonious. Planting in a Post-Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West is an inspiring call to action dedicated to the idea of a new nature—a hybrid of both the wild and the cultivated—that can flourish in our cities and suburbs. This is both a post-wild manifesto and practical guide that describes how to incorporate and layer plants into plant communities to create an environment that is reflective of natural systems and thrives within our built world.

    Compiled from the information in Storey Publishing's landmark series of "Country Wisdom Bulletins," this book is the most thorough and reliable volume of its kind. Organized by general topic including animals, cooking, crafts, gardening, health and well-being, and home, it is further broken down to cover dozens of specifics from "Building Chicken Coops" to "Making Cheese, Butter, and Yogurt" to "Improving Your Soil" to "Restoring Hardwood Floors." Nearly 1,000 black-and-white illustrations and photographs run throughout and fascinating projects and trusted advice crowd every page.

    Unwittingly, we've been selecting plants that are high in starch and sugar and low in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants for more than 400 generations.EATING ON THE WILD SIDE reveals the solution--choosing modern varieties that approach the nutritional content of wild plants but that also please the modern palate. Jo Robinson explains that many of these newly identified varieties can be found in supermarkets and farmer's market, and introduces simple, scientifically proven methods of preparation that enhance their flavor and nutrition. Based on years of scientific research and filled with food history and practical advice, EATING ON THE WILD SIDE will forever change the way we think about food.Winner of the 2014 IACP Cookbook Award in the category of "Food Matters."