Tender: Volume II: A Cook's Guide to the Fruit Garden


Nigel Slater - 2010
    Combining reminiscences from a lifetime spent working with and enjoying food, along with cultivation tips for the growing season, Fruit shows you how to use seasonal fruits in simple suppers and indulgent desserts. Organised alphabetically, each fruit is carefully considered in Slater's inimitable, unhurried warm prose, to give you an instinctive understanding of our heritage garden fruits. From a weekday supper of pork chops with cider and apples to a Chinese Sunday roast with spiced plum sauce and old family favourites of a deeply appley apple crumble to traditional fruit ices, Slater shows how the delicious flavours of fruits offer far more than simply being the inspiration for the occasional pot of jam, but are really the hidden gems in imaginative meat dishes and the backbone of successful home baking.

Terrariums - Gardens Under Glass: Designing, Creating, and Planting Modern Indoor Gardens


Maria Colletti - 2015
    Growing collections of adorable miniature plants in glass vessels is a great way to bring the indoors out and get back in touch with nature—no matter where you live and what time of year it is. Whether you reside in a tiny apartment, spend the bulk of your hours at an office desk, or just want to be better connected to green, living things, terrariums are the ticket. A wondrous combination of nature, gardening, and home decor, terrarium building and tending is both therapeutic and inspirational. Terrarium expert and teacher Maria Colletti makes designing your very own interior gardens easy with step-by-step photos of over twenty of her own terrarium designs. Plus, you'll get all the information you need about popular terrarium plants, such as tillandsias (air plants), orchids, mosses, cacti, succulents, and ferns. Transform basic glass containers, including vases, jars, vertical planters, hanging globes, tabletop greenhouses, and more, into miniature worlds of green. Once you know the basics (the plants, the vessels, and a basic understanding of soil, water, and humidity), you can mix and match for an endless exploration of your own creativity!

And the Good Brown Earth


Kathy Henderson - 2004
    Sometimes they dig, sometimes they sow, and sometimes they just lie in the long green grass and sing - and all the while, the good brown earth gets on with doing what the good brown earth does best.

The Essential Garden Design Workbook


Rosemary Alexander - 2004
    This fully revised and updated second edition features new U.S. case studies and new photographs. Valuable tips on green gardening are new to this edition, and include how to harvest rainwater, how to design a green roof, tips on sustainable planting, and a guide to composting. Tailor-made for hands-on gardeners, the workbook approach is accessible, practical, and can be used to create a garden from scratch and to redesign an existing garden. Gardeners will find easy ways to measure large spaces, estimate the height of a tree, and find the right proportions for a deck. They'll also find tips on space, light, and color. Includes hundreds of easy-to-follow line drawings and diagrams.

Reinventing the Chicken Coop: 14 Original Designs with Step-by-Step Building Instructions


Matthew Wolpe - 2013
    One has a water-capturing roof; one is a great example of mid-Modern architecture; and another has a built-in composting system. Some designs are suitable for beginning builders, and some are challenging enough for experts. Complete step-by-step building plans are accompanied by full-color photographs and detailed construction illustrations.

Plantiful: Start Small, Grow Big with 150 Plants That Spread, Self-Sow, and Overwinter


Kristin Green - 2014
    Kristen Green highlights plants that help a garden quickly grow by self-sowing and spreading and teaches you how to expand the garden and extend the life of a plant by overwintering. The book features plant profiles for 50 self-sowers (including columbine, milkweed, and foxglove), 50 spreaders (such as clematis, snow poppy, and spearmint), and 50 plants that overwinter (including lemon verbena, begonia, and Chinese hibiscus). Additional gardening tips, design ideas, and inspirational photos will motivate and inspire gardeners of all levels.

Pleasant Valley


Louis Bromfield - 1945
    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.

Small-Plot, High-Yield Gardening: How to Grow Like a Pro, Save Money, and Eat Well by Turning Your Back (or Front or Side) Yard Into An Organic Produce Garden


Sal Gilbertie - 2010
     You’ll learn about the most effective natural fertilizers, drought-resistant cultivation methods, pest-repellent companion plantings, trends in heirloom herb and vegetable varieties, and raised-bed techniques for achieving maximum productivity in a limited space. You can even add a cutting garden so you’ll always have fresh flowers on a kitchen table that’s groaning under the weight of incomparably fresh vegetables seasoned with a variety of home-grown herbs.  Whether you’re filling a 10’ x 10’ sandbox or digging up your 3,000-square-foot tennis court, any yard has the potential to produce a multi-crop bonanza. And anyone with a little soil and a lot of heart can do it!