The Nourishing Homestead: One Back-to-the-Land Family's Plan for Cultivating Soil, Skills, and Spirit


Ben Hewitt - 2015
    In addition to these cultivated food crops, they also forage for wild edibles, process their own meat, make their own butter, and ferment, dry, and can their own vegetables. Their focus is to produce nutrient-dense foods from vibrant, mineralized soils for themselves and their immediate community.(from Amazon)

The Backyard Gardener: Simple, Easy, and Beautiful Gardening with Vegetables, Herbs, and Flowers


Kelly Orzel - 2017
    How important is composting? Is seed saving really worth it? Focusing on sustainable, organic growing practices and plants, The Backyard Gardener is a comprehensive handbook that will help get them started. Kelly Orzel covers everything from soil selection to growing and harvesting. Sidebars such as "garden center survival tips" offer useful advice to help readers build their confidence and know-how. This guide also features photographs of beautiful plant bed designs, propagation techniques, and much more.

The Edible Balcony: Growing Fresh Produce in the Heart of the City


Alex Mitchell - 2011
    From an easy edible balcony that can be set up over a weekend, to using recycled and salvage materials, growing exotic fruit and creating a futuristic salad and herb wall, "The Edible Balcony" mixes inspirational ideas with practical advice on how to achieve beautiful, flourishing outdoor areas however many floors up you maybe and however small your space. Packed with detailed planting and growing advice on all the crops featured, including the best varieties for sunny, shady, windy and dry balconies, plus how to make a self-watering container, create a salad cascade using guttering and grow beans and tomatoes on a hatstand, it is the essential guide for both beginner and experienced gardeners alike.

Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food


Wendell Berry - 2009
    Long before Whole Foods organic produce was available at your local supermarket, Berry was farming with the purity of food in mind. For the last five decades, Berry has embodied mindful eating through his land practices and his writing. In recognition of that influence, Michael Pollan here offers an introduction to this wonderful collection.Drawn from over thirty years of work, this collection joins bestsellers The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Pollan, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, as essential reading for anyone who cares about what they eat. The essays address such concerns as: How does organic measure up against locally grown? What are the differences between small and large farms, and how does that affect what you put on your dinner table? What can you do to support sustainable agriculture?A progenitor of the Slow Food movement, Wendell Berry reminds us all to take the time to understand the basics of what we ingest. “Eating is an agriculture act,” he writes. Indeed, we are all players in the food economy.

No-Waste Kitchen Gardening: Regrow Your Leftover Greens, Stalks, Seeds, and More


Katie Elzer-Peters - 2018
     Stop tossing your carrot stumps, loose cilantro sprigs, lettuce and cabbage stalks, and apple cores in the trash! The expert advice in No-Waste Kitchen Gardening, gives you all the instruction and tricks you'll need to grow and re-propagate produce from food waste. You'll be astonished at how much food waste you can re-grow. You'll also find some helpful general information about growing indoors and maintaining your re-grown plants. Two-part photo instructions show first what the root, chunk seed, or leaf should look like when you re-plant it, and second, when to harvest or re-plant it in soil to continue growing.  Edibles big and small, quick to grow and those that take a big longer, are included, so you can pick and choose which projects to take on. A few of the many plants profiled include:Green onionsTomatoesMelonsAvocadoesPotatoesCarrotsCut back on your food waste, cultivate your own food easily, and maybe even share gardening with a new generation, all with the advice from No-Waste Kitchen Gardening.