It gives a fascinating insight into the literary, historic, and world-wide application of the fifty common plants that it covers. It is the sort of book you can enjoy as an armchair reader or use to harvest and make your own herbal remedies from wild plants. Anyone who wants to improve his or her health in the same way that human-kind has done for centuries around the world, by using local wild plants and herbs, will find this book fascinating and useful.

    Creativity, fulfillment, connection, revolution--it all begins when we get our hands in the dirt.Food Not Lawns combines practical wisdom on ecological design and community-building with a fresh, green perspective on an age-old subject. Activist and urban gardener Heather Flores shares her nine-step permaculture design to help farmsteaders and city dwellers alike build fertile soil, promote biodiversity, and increase natural habitat in their own "paradise gardens."But Food Not Lawns doesn't begin and end in the seed bed. This joyful permaculture lifestyle manual inspires readers to apply the principles of the paradise garden--simplicity, resourcefulness, creativity, mindfulness, and community--to all aspects of life. Plant "guerilla gardens" in barren intersections and medians; organize community meals; start a street theater troupe or host a local art swap; free your kitchen from refrigeration and enjoy truly fresh, nourishing foods from your own plot of land; work with children to create garden play spaces.Flores cares passionately about the damaged state of our environment and the ills of our throwaway society. In Food Not Lawns, she shows us how to reclaim the earth one garden at a time.

    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."

    The key to that is managing the upkeep without feeling flustered. Until now, there has never been a comprehensive resource that not only tells how to care for your home and everything in it, but that also simplifies the process by explaining just when. With secrets from Martha Stewart for accomplishing the most challenging homekeeping tasks with ease, this detailed and comprehensive book is the only one you will need to help you keep your home looking its best, floor to ceiling, room by room.In Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook, Martha shares her unparalleled expertise in home maintenance and care. Readable and practical–and graced with charts, sidebars, illustrated techniques, and personal anecdotes from Martha’s decades of experience caring for her homes–this is far more than just a compendium of ways to keep your house clean. It covers everything from properly executing a living room floor plan to setting a formal table; from choosing HEPA filters to sealing soapstone countertops; from organizing your home office to polishing your silver and caring for family heirlooms.Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook is organized for clarity and maximum practicality:Room by Room covers the upkeep of the appliances, tools, furnishings, and surfaces found in each room, from the entryway to the kitchen, from the attic to the laundry room.Throughout the House instructs the reader on the proper ways to routinely clean and periodically maintain everything in the home, including dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, polishing, scrubbing, waxing and much more.Comfort and Safety focuses on techniques to ensure your home is running properly and safely, such as recognizing when to clean vents, fixing a leaky faucet, and eradicating pests.A-to-Z Materials Guide provides an invaluable resource that explains the unusual materials that many favorite objects are made of–from abalone to zinc–and how to care for them so they last.Encyclopedic yet friendly, Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook is a seminal work–a must-have for everyone who wants a well-cared-for home that will endure for generations.

    With the help of more than 200 beautiful color photos and drawings, permaculture designer and avid grower Michael Judd takes the reader on a step-by-step process to transform a sea of grass into a flourishing edible landscape that pleases the eye as well as the taste buds. With personality and humor, he translates the complexities of permaculture design into simple self-build projects, providing full details on the evolving design process, material identification, and costs.Chapters cover:Food Forests Raised-Bed Gardens Mushroom Cultivation Easy to Grow Fruits Herb Spirals Huglekultur Beds Earthen Ovens, and more . . . The book's colorful pages are filled with practical designs that Judd has created and built over years of workshops, homesteading, and running an edible landscaping business. The book's designs can be easily grafted to the micro-habits of the urban landscape, scaled up to the acreage of homesteads, or adapted to already flourishing landscapes. Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist is a tool to spark and inform the imagination of anyone with a desire to turn their landscape into a luscious and productive edible paradise.

    Plans and design ideas for kitchen gardens of all sizes, as well as easy-to-follow guidelines for composting, building raised beds, and more. Growing season details for all regions of the West, including Alaska and Hawaii. Timely tips from edibles experts around the West-British Columbia to New Mexico. More than 300 pages of color photographs, practical advice, and inspiration from the editors of Sunset magazine, the West's authority on gardening.

    Andrea Bellamy shares all the knowledge she’s gained from years of gardening small. You’ll learn how to find and assess a space, how to plan and build a garden, and how to sow, grow, and harvest the 60 best edible plants. This hardworking and enthusiastic guide will help you take advantage of the space you have—whether it’s a balcony, a patio, a plot in a community garden, or even a small yard—to create the food garden of your dreams.

    The Humanure Handbook, third edition, will amuse you, educate you, and possibly offend you, but it will certainly pertain to you--unless, of course, your bowels never move. This new edition of The Humanure Handbook is:The Tenth Anniversary EditionRichly illustrated with eye-candy artworkPerfect for reading while sitting on the "throne"Revised, improved, and updated256 pages of crap

    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.

    New plants, techniques, materials, and lifestyles are constantly broadening the choices you have and reshaping the way you garden in the West. In response to this natural evolution, the editors of Sunset-the West's most trusted source of gardening information for more than 80 years-have completely redesigned and updated The Western Garden Book in this new 2012 Ninth Edition. Following the best-selling success of the previous editions of The Western Garden Book, this edition includes a fresh new look, thousands of color photographs, fresh illustrations, and an easy-to-follow format. Written by experts for gardeners in the West, this book is an indispensable reference for beginning and expert gardeners alike.The New Western Garden Book features include:A photo gallery shows the West's most innovative gardens, from all-edibles front yards to stylish water-wise and fire-wise gardens to living walls and green roofs-all with ideas you can use.Climate Zone Maps and growing-season graphs for all regions of the West including Alaska and Hawaii.A new "Plant Finder" section helps you choose plants for their garden's problem areas or for special effects."A to Z Plant Encyclopedia" lists some 8,000 plants that thrive in the West, including more than 500 new ones. Gorgeous color photographs illustrate all plant entries-for the first time ever in The Western Garden Book."Gardening From Start to Finish" is a new visual guide that leads readers through all steps of making a garden, from soil prep through planting, growing and care, with special sections on natives, veggies, grasses and more.

    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.

    Color photographs and line drawings help you identify and learn about the fascinating plants of the Pacific Northwest coast. Engaging notes on each species describe aboriginal and other local uses of plants for food, medicine and implements, along with the unique characteristics of each plant and name origins.

    Here are entries on hundreds of plants that are extraordinarily useful in cooking, homeopathy, and more; dozens of recipes and DIY projects; and beautifully styled photographs so you know just what you're growing.With more than 900 entries, each accompanied by brand new photography and helpful growing advice, The New American Herbal takes the study of herbs to an exciting new level. Orr covers the entire spectrum of herbaceous plants, from culinary to ornamental to aromatic and medicinal, presenting them in an easy to use A to Z format packed with recipes, DIY projects, and stunning examples of garden design highlighting herbal plantings. Learn about the herbs you've always wanted to grow (chervil, chamomile, and lovage), exotic herbs (such as Artemisia, the bitter herb used in Absinthe, or the anti-inflammatory Meadowsweet), and ornamental varieties (Monkshood and Perilla). For cooks there is indispensable guidance on planting and maintaining a bountiful kitchen garden and crafters will delight in dozens of exciting new uses for fresh, dried, and distilled herbs. Here, too, are 40 delicious recipes such as Ragu Bolognese with Fennel and Lemon Semolina Cake with Lavender, as well easy steps for projects such as a hanging herb garden and instructions on how to plant, dry, and preserve your garden’s bounty. Meticulously researched and exhaustive in its scope, The New American Herbal is an irresistible invitation to explore the versatility of herbs in all their beauty and variety.

    Increasingly disillusioned by mainstream medicine's mechanistic approach to healing and fascinated by the farming revolution that is changing the way we think about our relationship to the earth, Miller left her medical office and traveled to seven innovative family farms around the country, on a quest to discover the hidden connections between how we care for our bodies and how we grow our food. Farmacology, the remarkable book that emerged from her travels, offers us a compelling new vision for sustainable health and healing—and a wealth of farm-to-body lessons with immense value in our daily lives.Miller begins her journey with a pilgrimage to the Kentucky homestead of renowned author and farming visionary Wendell Berry. Over the course of the following year, she travels to a biodynamic farm in Washington state, a ranch in the Ozarks, two chicken farms in Arkansas, a winery in California, a community garden in the Bronx, and finally an aromatic herb farm back in Washington. While learning from forward-thinking farmers, Miller explores such compelling questions as: What can rejuvenating depleted soil teach us about rejuvenating ourselves? How can a grazing system on a ranch offer valuable insights into raising resilient children? What can two laying-hen farms teach us about stress management? How do vineyard pest-management strategies reveal a radically new approach to cancer care? What are the unexpected ways that urban agriculture can transform the health of a community? How can an aromatic herb farm unlock the secret to sustainable beauty?Throughout, Miller seeks out the perspectives of noted biomedical scientists and artfully weaves in their insights and research, along with stories from her own medical practice. The result is a profound new approach to healing, combined with practical advice for how to treat disease and maintain wellness.

    Amateur gardeners wondering how to get started and veteran gardeners looking for new ideas will be inspired by Houbein’s practical, often charming, and always optimistic advice. One Magic Square includes:Earth-friendly tips, tricks, and solutions for establishing and maintaining an organic gardenIllustrated, annotated plans for 30 plots with different themes—including perennials and “pick-and-come-again” plants, anti-cancer and anti-oxidant-rich vegetables, and salad, pizza, pasta, and stir-fry ingredientsComprehensive information about every plant in every plotColor photographs of the author’s own garden—plus helpful illustrationsHoubein family recipes for making the most of your bounty—including salad dressings, fruit and vegetable juices, stir-fries, and more.