It's like thinking the unthinkable. After all, the farm population is dwindling. It takes too much capital to start. The pay is too low. The working conditions are dusty, smelly and noisy: not the place to raise a family. This is all true, and more, for most farmers. But for farm entrepreneurs, the opportunities for a farm family business have never been greater. The aging farm population is creating cavernous niches begging to be filled by creative visionaries who will go in dynamic new directions. As the industrial agriculture complex crumbles and our culture clambers for clean food, the countryside beckons anew with profitable farming opportunities. While this book can be helpful to all farmers, it targets the wannabes, the folks who actually entertain notions of living, loving and learning on a piece of land. Anyone willing to dance with such a dream should be able to assess its assets and liabilities; its fantasies and realities. "Is it really possible for me?" is the burning question this book addresses.

    There are now more than 170 titles in this series, and their remarkable popularity reflects the common desire of country and city dwellers alike to cultivate personal independence in everyday life.

    Plant lists, step-by-step instructions, and at-a-glance symbols of growing requirements make each of the 40 projects easy to tackle.

    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.

    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!

    This has cut down her expenditure of hard work and has given her excellent fruit, vegetables and flowers...a new method of mulch gardening.

    In her latest book, groundbreaking garden writer Carol Deppe (The Resilient Gardener, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties) focuses on some of the most popular home garden vegetables--tomatoes, green beans, peas, and leafy greens--and through them illustrates the key principles and practices that gardeners need to know to successfully plant and grow just about any food crop. Deppe's work has long been inspired and informed by the philosophy and wisdom of Tao Te Ching, the 2,500-year-old work attributed to Chinese sage Lao Tzu and the most translated book in the world after the Bible. The Tao of Vegetable Gardening is organized into chapters that echo fundamental Taoist concepts: Balance, Flexibility, Honoring the Essential Nature (your own and that of your plants), Effortless Effort, Non-Doing, and even Non-Knowing. Yet the book also offers a wealth of specific and valuable garden advice on topics as diverse as: - The Eat-All Greens Garden, a labor- and space-efficient way to provide all the greens a family can eat, freeze, and dry--all on a tiny piece of land suitable for small-scale and urban gardeners.- The growing problem of late blight and the future of heirloom tomatoes--and what gardeners can do to avoid problems, and even create new resistant varieties.- Establishing a Do-It-Yourself Seed Bank, including information on preparing seeds for long-term storage and how to -dehybridize- hybrids.- Twenty-four good places to not plant a tree, and thirty-seven good reasons for not planting various vegetables. Designed for gardeners of all levels, from beginners to experienced growers, The Tao of Vegetable Gardening provides a unique frame of reference: a window to the world of nature, in the garden and in ourselves.

    But earth gardens are a lot of work. They require a plot of plantable land and a significant time commitment to sowing, watering, weeding, and tending each plant. Is there a solution? Self-watering containers allow vegetable gardeners—from the casual weekender interested in a tomato plant or two to the very dedicated gardener with limited space—to grow richly producing plants in a controlled, low-maintenance environment. Lifelong gardener Ed Smith became fascinated with the possibilities of self-watering containers and began testing dozens of vegetables in various containers, experimenting with nutrients, soil mixtures, plant varieties, and container positioning. Now Smith is here to tell gardeners that anyone can grow and enjoy wonderful organic vegetables, using pots with continuous- flow watering systems. Smith shares advice on choosing appropriate containers, how to provide balanced nutrition using his secret soil formula, and what additional tools benefit the container gardener. The reader will also find advice on starting from seed versus buying plants, which vegetables thrive in containers and which might be a bit more challenging, along with space-saving tips on pairing plants in single containers. After the last green tomato has been picked and is ripening on the windowsill, Smith wraps everything up with a chapter on fall clean-up and preparing for next spring. Now there’s really no excuse for store-bought tomatoes!

    Provies basic theoretical discussions of the principles of biopharmaceutics and pharmacokinetics, along with illustrative examples and practice problems and solutions to help the student gain skill in practical problem solving.

    If you need to fit homesteading into a few hours each weekend and would like to have fun while doing it, these projects will be right up your alley, whether you live on a forty-acre farm, a postage-stamp lawn in suburbia, or a high rise. The May volume includes the following projects: * Plant your summer garden * Decipher nutrition * Choose the right mulch for each plant * Make homesteading easy with teamwork The second edition has been revised and expanded to match the paperback, with extra photos and feedback from weekend homesteaders just like you, plus permaculture-related avenues for the more advanced homesteader to explore.

    And Bromfield skillfully portrays that marriage between dream and reality that is so necessary in working the land as he writes, "Wait until Spring comes!" This beautiful new edition of Pleasant VAlley is as useful now, maybe even more so. than when it was first published in the early 1940s.

     Do you want to learn to turn food scraps into valuable compost? Do you believe in taking responsibility for the food waste we create? Worm Composting is the Solution! People all over the world are using worm farming to turn their food scraps into nutrient-rich vermicompost by starting their own worm compost bin. Check out a few of the reviews for “How to Start a Worm Bin” to see what readers say about the book. ”How to Start a Worm Bin” will teach you how to: Start a Worm Compost Bin Care for Composting Worms Harvest the Worm Compost (vermicompost) Use Worm Compost in your garden soils Scroll back up and click ‘Buy Now’ to Start your Worm Bin today! “How to Start a Worm Bin” also includes: A FREE gift from the author: “Inside my Worm Composting Toolbox” Vermicomposting FAQ Worm Compost Bin Troubleshooting

    Jasko and Biggs are committed to turning you into a healthy, happy farmer even if you live in a big city high-rise. Built around eight comprehensive sections (Know, Start, Grow, Plant, Plan, Make, Eat, and Store), this wonderful 128-page guide walks you through all the steps of successfully nurturing a crop of delicious, healthy vegetables. Everyone from the base beginner to the seasoned farmhand will find something for them in these pages. (The recipe section alone is enough to keep you comin' back to this gem for years!) Narrated in a friendly, helpful tone by Jasko and buoyed by Biggs's great illustrations, this book is the definition of awesomely useful. Super, super, SUPER inspiring. Grow your own everything!

    Though names like jujube, juneberry, maypop, and shipova may seem exotic at first glance, these fruits offer ample rewards to the gardener willing to go only slightly off the beaten path at local nurseries. Reliable even in the toughest garden situations, cold-hardy, and pest- and disease-resistant, they are as enticing to the beginner as to the advanced gardener. This expanded sequel to the author's celebrated Uncommon Fruits Worthy of Attention offers new fruits, new varieties, and new photos and illustrations to entice the reader into an exciting world of garden pleasure.

    Worms are the latest (as well as, of course, perhaps the oldest!) trend in earth-friendly gardening, and in this handy guide, the authors of DEAD SNAILS LEAVE NO TRAILS demystify the world of worm wrangling, with everything you need to know to build your own worm bin, make your garden worm-friendly, pamper your soil, and much much more.