The Stout System of mulch gardening will allow you to throw away your weeding tools, pesticides, and fertilizers, and will conserve and replenish the soil to make plants thrive. (6 X 9, 226 pages, illustrations)

    What plants to grow, how to nurture them, and where they do the very best--it's all here. You'll also find updated information on the Western climate zones, 30 Plant Selection Guides, plus a Practical Guide to Gardening with basic advice on plant care and essential gardening techniques. New plant lists reflect current trends, such as Mediterranean gardening and easy-care plants for beginners. For more than 70 years, Sunset has been the source for no-nonsense gardening advice, easy-to-follow diagrams, and encyclopedic knowledge of plant varieties. In this edition, we introduce an exciting new feature: gardening tips from well-known plant experts throughout the West. The Western Garden Book has never been better! Features:8th Edition of this perennial bestsellerMore than 8,000 plant listings, 500 new, keyed to climate zones30 Plant Selection Guides to find the perfect plant for every situationSpecial contributions from 40 eminent Western garden expertsIntroduction by Sunset garden editor Kathleen N. Brenzel, with a photographic tour of gardens that are truly the `Best of the West' gardens

    Her simple but inventive dishes focus on a passion for flavor and a reverence for locally produced, seasonal foods.With an essential repertoire of timeless, approachable recipes chosen to enhance and showcase great ingredients, The Art of Simple Food is an indispensable resource for home cooks. Here you will find Alice’s philosophy on everything from stocking your kitchen, to mastering fundamentals and preparing delicious, seasonal inspired meals all year long. Always true to her philosophy that a perfect meal is one that’s balanced in texture, color, and flavor, Waters helps us embrace the seasons’ bounty and make the best choices when selecting ingredients. Fill your market basket with pristine produce, healthful grains, and responsibly raised meat, poultry, and seafood, then embark on a voyage of culinary rediscovery that reminds us that the most gratifying dish is often the least complex.

    If the size of your space is bringing you back to reality, here's the best part: you don't need a big backyard to grow your own food. In fact, you don't need a yard at all. Andrea Bellamy, founder of the acclaimed blog Heavy Petal, gives you the dirt on growing gorgeous organic food with very little square footage. Simple, straightforward, design and growing advice can help you transform just a snippet of space into a stylish and edible oasis. Bellamy goes beyond the surface and shows you how to create and maintain healthy soil, decide what and when to plant, sow seeds and harvest, and most importantly, enjoy the process. So go ahead, picture that tiny nook, corner, strip, porch, alley, balcony, or postage-stamp-sized yard overflowing with fingerling potatoes, fragrant herbs, sugar snap peas, French breakfast radishes, and scarlet runner beans. Armed with luscious photography, encouraging tips, and sophisticated designs, you're sure to be inspired to join the grow-your-own revolution.

    That carbon is now floating in the atmosphere, and even if we stopped using fossil fuels today, it would continue warming the planet. In The Soil Will Save Us, journalist and bestselling author Kristin Ohlson makes an elegantly argued, passionate case for "our great green hope"—a way in which we can not only heal the land but also turn atmospheric carbon into beneficial soil carbon—and potentially reverse global warming.As the granddaughter of farmers and the daughter of avid gardeners, Ohlson has long had an appreciation for the soil. A chance conversation with a local chef led her to the crossroads of science, farming, food, and environmentalism and the discovery of the only significant way to remove carbon dioxide from the air—an ecological approach that tends not only to plants and animals but also to the vast population of underground microorganisms that fix carbon in the soil. Ohlson introduces the visionaries—scientists, farmers, ranchers, and landscapers—who are figuring out in the lab and on the ground how to build healthy soil, which solves myriad problems: drought, erosion, air and water pollution, and food quality, as well as climate change. Her discoveries and vivid storytelling will revolutionize the way we think about our food, our landscapes, our plants, and our relationship to Earth.

    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.

    Another riotous, moving, and entirely unique story of his attempt to tackle the next phase of life with his partner… on a goat farm in upstate New York.

    Here you will find answers to every food preservation question, including vacuum sealing and packing with the Tilia FoodSaver, as well as unique gift-giving ideas.

    In Designing the New Kitchen Garden, Jennifer Bartley shows how the traditional features of the classic kitchen garden, or potager, can be adapted to contemporary needs and conditions. Throughout, the book is informed by Bartley’s conviction that the nurturing, preparing, and eating of home-grown vegetables greatly enhances our connection to the natural world. Copiously illustrated with photographs and with the author's delightful watercolors, Designing the New Kitchen Garden is the perfect blend of inspiration and practical guidance.

    The most practical book that all gardeners have been waiting for, this fun and informative guide shows how to make the best compost using ingredients that are easily found around the house.

    Line drawings highlight family characteristics, and plant entries discuss medicinal uses, edibility, toxicity, and look-alike plants. A standard reference at herbal and wilderness schools across the country, this resource is essential for herbalists, gardeners, and naturalists.

    Drawing from years of hands-on experience, Paula Simmons and Carol Ekarius provide expert advice on breed selection, lambing, feeding, housing, pasture maintenance, and medical care. You’ll also find tips on profitably marketing your meat and fiber products, as well as information on obtaining organic certifications.

    Most techniques for growing what are commonly referred to as microgreens left him feeling overwhelmed and uninterested. There had to be a simpler way to grow greens for his family indoors. After some research and diligent experimenting, Burke discovered he was right there was a way! And it was even easier than he ever could have hoped, and the greens more nutrient packed. He didn t even need a south-facing window, and he already had most of the needed supplies just sitting in his pantry. The result: healthy, homegrown salad greens at a fraction of the cost of buying them at the market. The secret: start them in the dark.Growing Soil Sprouts Burke s own descriptive term for sprouted seeds grown in soil as opposed to in jars employs a method that encourages a long stem without expansive roots, and provides delicious salad greens in just seven to ten days, way earlier than any other method, with much less work. Indeed, of all the ways to grow immature greens, this is the easiest and most productive technique. Forget about grow lights and heat lamps! This book is a revolutionary and inviting guide for both first-time and experienced gardeners in rural or urban environments. All you need is a windowsill or two. In fact, Burke has grown up to six pounds of greens per day using just the windowsills in his kitchen! Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening offers detailed step-by-step instructions to mastering this method (hint: it s impossible not to succeed, it s so easy!), tools and accessories to have on hand, seeds and greens varieties, soil and compost, trays and planters, shelving, harvest and storage, recipes, scaling up to serve local markets, and much more."

    It shows you how to grow your tea from seeds, cuttings, or small plants, as well as which parts of the plant are used to make tea. Liversidge lays out when and how to harvest your plants, as well as information on how to prepare the plant, including how to dry tea leaves to make tea you can store to last you throughout the year. As a guide to using tea to make you feel better, there are nutritional and medicinal benefits. Finally, there is an illustrated guide to show how to make up fresh and dried teabags and how to serve a delicious homegrown tea. It is sustainable way to look at a beverage, which is steeped in history and tradition.Sample drinks include well-known plants such as rose hips, mint, sage, hibiscus, and lavender, as well as more obscure ones like chicory, angelica, apple geranium, and lemon verbena.

    But there is a burgeoning local food movement taking place in Canadian cities, farms and shops that is changing both the way we eat and the way we think about food. Locavore describes how foodies, 100-milers, urbanites, farmers, gardeners and chefs across Canada are creating a new local food order that has the potential to fight climate change and feed us all. Combining front-line reporting, shrewd analysis and passionate food writing to delight the gastronome, Locavore shows how the pieces of a post-industrial food system are being assembled into something infinitely better. We meet city-dwellers who grow crops in their backyards and office workers who have traded their keyboards for pitchforks. We learn how a group of New Brunswick farmers saved the family farm, why artisanal cheese in Quebec is so popular and how a century-old farm survives in urban British Columbia, bordered by the ocean on one side and by a new housing development on the other. We follow food culture activists as they work to preserve the genetic material of heritage plants to return once-endangered flavours to our tables. In recounting the stories of its diverse cast of characters, Locavore lays out a blueprint for a local food revolution.