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.

    Drawing on insights gained from years of growing vegetables in Nova Scotia, Niki Jabbour shares her simple techniques for gardening throughout the year. Learn how to select the best varieties for each season, the art of succession planting, and how to build inexpensive structures to protect your crops from the elements. No matter where you live, you’ll soon enjoy a thriving vegetable garden year-round.

    Faced with climate change, dwindling resources, and species extinctions, most Americans understand the fundamental steps necessary to solve our global crises-drive less, consume less, increase self-reliance, buy locally, eat locally, rebuild our local communities. In essence, the great work we face requires rekindling the home fires.Radical Homemakers is about men and women across the U.S. who focus on home and hearth as a political and ecological act, and who have centered their lives around family and community for personal fulfillment and cultural change. It explores what domesticity looks like in an era that has benefited from feminism, where domination and oppression are cast aside and where the choice to stay home is no longer equated with mind-numbing drudgery, economic insecurity, or relentless servitude.Radical Homemakers nationwide speak about empowerment, transformation, happiness, and casting aside the pressures of a consumer culture to live in a world where money loses its power to relationships, independent thought, and creativity. If you ever considered quitting a job to plant tomatoes, read to a child, pursue creative work, can green beans and heal the planet, this is your book.

    You've had thoughts of running another 5K, but faster. You've probably thought about training for a 10K race in your hometown to see if you could run the full 6.2 miles.    The thought may have even crossed your mind about someday running a Half-Marathon as a stretch goal. 13.1 miles is a long way to run, but you're pretty sure if you work hard enough, it can be accomplished.   It's even possible that you have come to love running so much that you've thought about going all the way: running a full Marathon...26.2 miles!   No matter which of these statements is true, one thing is for certain: You are a runner, and you are ready to take the next steps: Beyond The 5K!    Everything you need to start distance running is included in this book!   Topics Covered Include: Proper Nutrition Stretching Warm-Ups and Cool Down Common Running Injuries Fartleks (Speed Running) Core Strength Cross Training Target Heart Rate Training Full training plans for 10K, Half, and Marathon Races!!   Personal Note From The Author: This book blends years of personal experience gained from my successes and failures. I show you my unique approach to running that took me from a complete couch potato to running multiple marathons. I understand the challenges and frustrations of transitioning from being a beginning runner because I went through it personally. I lost over 60 pounds, and I am in the best shape of my life due to the techniques used in this book.   This is why I've put together this step-by-step guide to learning distance running. I'm confident that the techniques I used to turn myself from an out of shape non-runner into a healthy, fit, and efficient runner will work for you as well!   In an effort to provide my readers exceptional value, I also promise a response to all reader emails. All running related questions will be answered with a quick personal reply!   I thoroughly hope you enjoy this book. Happy Running! ~Michael

    A forest garden imitates young natural woodland, with a wide range of crops grown in vertical layers. Species are chosen for their beneficial effects on each other, creating a healthy system that maintains its own fertility, with little need for digging, weeding or pest control. The result of this largely perennial planting is a tranquil, beautiful and productive space.This book is a bible for permaculture and forest gardening, with practical advice on how to create a forest garden, from planning and design to planting and maintenance. It explains how a forest garden is designed from the top down: the canopy layer first,then the shrub layer,the perennial ground-cover layer,the annuals & biennialsnext, the climbers and nitrogen fixersand finally the clearings, living spaces and paths.Whether in a small back garden or in a larger plot, the environmental benefits of growing this way are great. Forest Gardens are a viable solution to the challenge of a changing climate: we can grow food sustainably in them without compromising soil health, food quality or biodiversity.Forest gardens:store carbon dioxide in the soil and in the woody biomass of the trees and shrubs.enable the soil to store more water after heavy rains, minimizing flooding and erosion.boost the health of the ecosystem, ensuring a balance of predators and beneficial insects because mixed planting is crucial to the scheme.allows the soil to thrive because it is covered with plants all year round.Creating a Forest Garden includes a detailed directory of over 500 trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials, annuals, root crops and climbers. As well as more familiar plants such as fig and apple trees, blackcurrants and rosemary shrubs, you can grow your own chokeberries, goji berries, yams, heartnuts, bamboo shoots and buffalo currants.Forest gardens produce fruits, nuts, vegetables, seeds, salads, herbs, spices, firewood, mushrooms, medicinal herbs, dye plants, soap plants, and honey from bees.This book tells you everything you need to create your own forest garden with beautiful illustrations and helpful tips throughout.

    You’ll learn their secrets for preparing the soil, selecting and rotating your crops, and mapping out a specific customized plan to make the most of your space and your growing season. Packed with the charts, tables, schedules, and worksheets you need — as well as record-keeping pages so you can repeat your successes next year — this book is an essential tool for the serious gardener.

    From learning how to incorporate herbs and essential oils around your home, to learning how to enhance your family's health and well-being, this book is the go-to resource for those wishing to live a more natural homesteading lifestyle. This book takes readers through the basics of herbalism, including the different types of herbs and their uses. It also breaks down how herbs are used in tinctures, salves, essential oils, and infused oils. You'll learn how to efficiently incorporate herbs into your lifestyle, creating your own herbal remedy cabinet for yourself and for your livestock as well. And through encouragement and evidence-based information, you'll be confident using herbs, cooking with herbs, and sharing your herbal products with your friends and family. With an array of beautiful photos and easy to read terminology, just about any homesteader, new or seasoned, can learn from The Homesteader's Herbal Companion, and finally feel comfortable incorporating the many wonderful qualities of herbs around their homes and homesteads.

    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.

    You’ll learn how vertical gardening works, how to prepare for sowing your garden, and how to care for your beloved plants! Read this book for FREE on Kindle Unlimited – Download Now! With the right tools, tips, and techniques, you can grow delicious and nutritious vegetables, the natural way. You’ll learn why compost is the only fertilizer you’ll ever need, how to identity and control garden pests, and which plants keep the bugs away! You’ll even find out how to make your own organic pesticide! Remember – You don’t need a Kindle device to read this book – Just download a FREE Kindle Reader for your computer, smartphone, or tablet! Don’t wait another minute – Download Vertical Gardening: The Beginner's Guide To Organic & Sustainable Produce Production Without A Backyardright away and enjoy this lifestyle today! You’ll be so glad you did!

    Yet here is a book that goes back to the future--celebrating traditional but little-known French techniques for storing and preserving edibles in ways that maximize flavor and nutrition.Translated into English, and with a new foreword by Deborah Madison, this book deliberately ignores freezing and high-temperature canning in favor of methods that are superior because they are less costly and more energy-efficient.As Eliot Coleman says in his foreword to the first edition, "Food preservation techniques can be divided into two categories: the modern scientific methods that remove the life from food, and the natural 'poetic' methods that maintain or enhance the life in food. The poetic techniques produce... foods that have been celebrated for centuries and are considered gourmet delights today.""Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning" offers more than 250 easy and enjoyable recipes featuring locally grown and minimally refined ingredients. It is an essential guide for those who seek healthy food for a healthy world.

    Eliot Coleman introduces the surprising fact that most of the United States has more winter sunshine than the south of France. He shows how North American gardeners can successfully use that sun to raise a wide variety of traditional winter vegetables in backyard cold frames and plastic covered tunnel greenhouses without supplementary heat. Coleman expands upon his own experiences with new ideas learned on a winter-vegetable pilgrimage across the ocean to the acknowledged kingdom of vegetable cuisine, the southern part of France, which lies on the 44th parallel, the same latitude as his farm in Maine.This story of sunshine, weather patterns, old limitations and expectations, and new realities is delightfully innovative in the best gardening tradition. Four-Season Harvest will have you feasting on fresh produce from your garden all through the winter.To learn more about the possibility of a four-season farm, please visit Coleman's website www.fourseasonfarm.com.

    In Grow Great Grub, Gayla Trail, the founder of the leading online gardening community (YouGrowGirl.com), shows you how to grow your own delicious, affordable, organic edibles virtually anywhere.                    Grow Great Grub packs in tips and essential information about: - Choosing a location and making the most of your soil (even if it’s less than perfect)- Building a raised bed, compost bin, and self-watering container using recycled materials- Keeping pests and diseases away from your plants—the toxin-free way- Growing bountiful crops in pots and selecting the best heirloom varieties- Cultivating hundreds of plants, from blueberries to Thai basil, to the best tomatoes you’ll ever taste - Canning, and preserving to make the most of your garden’s generosity - Green-friendly, cost-saving, growing, and building projects that are smart and stylish- And much more! Whether you’re looking to eat on a budget or simply experience the pleasure of picking tonight’s meal from right outside your door, this is the must-have book for small-space gardeners—no backyard required.  GAYLA TRAIL is the creator of the acclaimed top gardening website yougrowgirl.com. Her work as a writer and photographer has appeared in publications including The New York Times, Newsweek, Budget Living, and ReadyMade. A resident of Toronto who has grown a garden on her rooftop for more than 10 years, she is the author of You Grow Girl: The Groundbreaking Guide to Gardening.

    This book explains in detail exactly how to build one, then how to use it in a range of applications. We discuss materials: where to find them, what to pay and how to make use of found and recycled parts. The section on fire and fuels is thorough but simple; we tried to keep away from numbers wherever possible. There are success stories, case studies, references and where to find further information, all heavily illustrated. Home heating can be expensive both in capital equipment and in running costs. If we heat by gas, oil or electricity we are supporting a big corporation and impoverishing ourselves. By building an extra efficient heating system you will be one more big step off the treadmill and your move to self-sufficiency and true wealth. Good luck with your stove! From the Introduction by Ianto Evans

    In Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation, Cotter not only offers readers an in-depth exploration of best organic mushroom cultivation practices; he shares the results of his groundbreaking research and offers myriad ways to apply your cultivation skills and further incorporate mushrooms into your life--whether your goal is to help your community clean up industrial pollution or simply to settle down at the end of the day with a cold Reishi-infused homebrew ale. The book first guides readers through an in-depth exploration of indoor and outdoor cultivation. Covered skills range from integrating wood-chip beds spawned with king stropharia into your garden and building a "trenched raft" of hardwood logs plugged with shiitake spawn to producing oysters indoors on spent coffee grounds in a 4�4 space or on pasteurized sawdust in vertical plastic columns. For those who aspire to the self-sufficiency gained by generating and expanding spawn rather than purchasing it, Cotter offers in-depth coverage of lab techniques, including low-cost alternatives that make use of existing infrastructure and materials. Cotter also reports his groundbreaking research cultivating morels both indoors and out, "training" mycelium to respond to specific contaminants, and perpetuating spawn on cardboard without the use of electricity. Readers will discover information on making tinctures, powders, and mushroom-infused honey; making an antibacterial mushroom cutting board; and growing mushrooms on your old denim jeans. Geared toward readers who want to grow mushrooms without the use of pesticides, Cotter takes "organic" one step further by introducing an entirely new way of thinking--one that looks at the potential to grow mushrooms on just about anything, just about anywhere, and by anyone.

    John Kallas makes it fun and easy to learn about foods you've unknowingly passed by all your life. Through gorgeous photographs, playful, but authoritative text, and ground-breaking design he gives you the knowledge and confidence to finally begin eating and enjoying edible wild plants. Edible Wild Plants divides plants into four flavor categories -- foundation, tart, pungent, and bitter. Categorizing by flavor helps readers use these greens in pleasing and predictable ways. According to the author, combining elements from these different categories makes the best salads.