How To Trim Weed Fast
Recent medical and recreational legalization of weed has skyrocketed the demand of not just growers of the cannabis plant, but also trimmers to process the flowers of the plants into beautifully shaped nugs. Weed trimming is a lucrative career with many perks. Why trim fast? You'll get paid more at sites that pay you per pound, impress clients, get more jobs, finish processing your personal harvest faster so it will be ready to sell sooner, and be able to teach trimmers you hire how to trim fast. Get ahead of the competition in this hilarious and comprehensive guide written for trimmers, growers, and trim bosses! Learn the ins and outs of trimming weed with: Basic and advanced trimming techniques English and metric unit conversions Trimming etiquette How to setup a trim room How to manage trimmers Maintaining health while trimming Glossary of terms Trimmer stereotypes! Check out www.trimweedfast.com for wholesale information and www.sageliskey.com for other projects published by the Rad Cat Press. Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/radcatpress
The Cannabis Grow Bible
The most comprehensive guide to marijuana gardening ever written is back with all new information and updated advice for cannabis enthusiasts. Over 200 additional pages of all new information are included in this book, from all new lighting equipment and techniques, to highly advanced cannabinoid extraction techniques and detailed, step-by-step gardening guides for novice and professional growers alike. This book contains over 700 pages, with all new photos and step-by-step guides to every aspect of marijuana horticulture, plant breeding, and hash production. Featuring a handy quick start guide at the beginning to allow growers to get started right away, and hone their techniques as they read the later chapters in more detail. The biggest, most comprehensive, and straightforward guide to marijuana horticulture ever published.
100 Perfect Plants
Bring the beauty of National Trust gardens to your own little patch with this foolproof plan for creating a great garden.Bring the beauty of National Trust gardens to your own little patch.Some 80% of people who visit NT properties do so 'to look at the garden'. And one of the glories of NT gardens are their incredible beds and borders - plants that bring colour, drama and surprises year round. In this book, senior NT gardener Simon Akeroyd gives you a foolproof plan to get similar effects in your own garden with 100 key plants. How to plan, how to plant, how to prune. All of the plants will be easily available, and he will give alternatives if you want to mix things up. The book is organised seasonally, with features on important skills and tasks for each season - such as testing your soil, planting bulbs, pruning for winter and so on.
No Dig Organic Home and Garden
"A manual for self-sufficiency"--Lia Leendertz, Gardens Illustrated No dig organic gardening saves time and work. It requires an annual dressing of compost to help accelerate the improvement in soil structure and leads to higher fertility and less weeds. No dig experts Charles Dowding and Stephanie Hafferty, explain how to set up a no dig garden, including how to: - Make compost and enrich soil- Learn skills you need to sow and grow annual and perennial veg- Harvest and prepare food year round- Make natural cosmetics, cleaning products, and garden preparations The no dig approach works as well in small spaces as in large gardens. The authors' combined experience covers methods of growing, preparing and storing the plants you grow for many uses, and includes recipes and ideas for increasing self-reliance, saving money, living sustainably, and enjoying the pleasure of growing your own food, year-round. An acknowledged expert in no dig and author of a half-dozen books on the subject, Charles' advice is distilled from 35 years of growing vegetables intensively and efficiently. Stephanie, a kitchen gardener, grows in her small, productive home garden and allotment, and creates no dig gardens for restaurants and private estates. She creates delicious seasonal recipes made from the vegetables anyone can grow. She also explains how to use common plants you can grow and forage for to make handmade preparations for the home and garden. Winner of the 2017 Peter Seabrook Practical Book of the Year Award
How to Grow Stuff
The essential guide to the simple art of growing stuff. Feeling green-fingered but not sure where to start? This book is for you. Growing stuff--herbs, veggies, salad, flowers, and plants--is fun and pretty easy. You just need some practical knowledge--all in this book--and a bit of space--a window ledge, pot, or plot of soil. Then, have fun growing basil, mint, parsley, rosemary, chillies, courgettes, rocket, tomatoes, geraniums, pansies, lavender, osteospurmum, daffodils, hyacinths, muscari, tulips, succulents, aloe vera, money plants, maidenhair ferns, and oxalis. If you have no outside space at all, you can grow everything here inside, too.
Veg Patch
What could be tastier than vegetables, picked straight from your back garden? Growing your own vegetables can be a rewarding pastime and you don't need a big garden or allotment to cultivate your favourite veg, as they can grow well in containers and smaller urban spaces.A reissue of Home-grown Vegetables (2007). A practical and inspirational guide to growing your own squashes, greens or root vegetables.What could be tastier than vegetables, picked straight from your back garden? Growing your own vegetables can be a rewarding pastime and you don't need a big garden or allotment to cultivate your favourite vegetables, as they can grow well in containers and smaller urban spaces.This beautiful and practical guide celebrates the produce of allotments and gardens, from carrots and courgettes to artichokes and aubergines. Each vegetable entry details all you need to know about sowing, growing and harvesting with essential gardening notes and tips for successful planting.With beautiful illustrations throughout, you will find all you need for a healthy garden bursting with fresh produce all year round.
Plant Spirit Gardener
Gardening can deeply nurture our heart and soul, especially if we become aware of the invisible realms and want to be a co-creator with the spirits of nature. We can be shamans in our own backyards practising 'divine gardening' with the down-to-earth esoteric wisdom in this book, the eighth from Australian-Irish geomancer Alanna Moore. Everything a sensitive gardener needs to do to profoundly connect with Mother Nature is here. There are instructions for learning pendulum dowsing and its applications for the garden, with eleven charts and lists of information to dowse from. This unique reference book, a paperback of 206 pages, is full of universal and also highly personal insights. It is richly illustrated with 106 all colour photographs and nine line diagrams to help you discover and practise the fascinating art of gardening with the devas - the fairy kingdom.
Don't Repot That Plant!
Why is my plant dying? Will Creed answers your indoor plant care questions that are not answered anywhere else - providing real answers to real questions non-professionals have about caring for their plants. Other plant care books perpetuate many of the out-of-date or unrealistic techniques or confusing information that has changed very little over generations. Included here are specific care requirements for dozens of the most popular house and office plants. Learn to care for your plants properly, from buying the right plant for the right place, to preventing or treating disease. Don't repot that plant! Repotting is rarely necessary. A plant may seem rootbound- but it loves its pot just the size it is. It is healthy, it is thriving. Contrary to conventional wisdom, repotting a plant isn't always the answer. Get the light right - make sure you have the right light intensity available for the particular plant species Learn how much each plant species needs to dry out Learn to prune Learn to identify plant pests and treat them early Don't bother about humidity and fertilizer/plant food
Square Foot Gardening
Square Foot Gardening: Growing Perfect Vegetables is a practical guide that answers the age-old question for gardeners: How do you know when a fruit or vegetable is ripe? Square Foot Gardening is the most popular alternate gardening method in the world, and this new title is a terrific addition to the SFG family. Growing Perfect Vegetables gets to the root of what every gardener wants: perfect produce, and lots of it. Whether you grow in a Square Foot Garden, a straw bale garden, containers, or a traditional garden plot, you'll be happy to have this helpful garden book so you can approach harvest time with confidence, not apprehension. Because even the most experienced homegrowers get a little nervous when harvest time comes around. In Square Foot Gardening: Growing Perfect Vegetables, you'll find hundreds of beautiful photos that show you exactly how produce should look when perfectly ripe, and ready for picking and buying. It even includes some tips and clues to help you interpret what your plants are trying to tell you about the fruit they are bearing. Written under the direction of The Mel Bartholomew Foundation, named for the inventor of Square Foot Gardening, this handy book provides crucial information, including optimal planting and harvesting times for more than 60 fruits and vegetables, along with the many full color photos of perfectly ripe produce.
Water Features for patios and gardens
Water Features for Patios and Gardens is an inspirational guide to water features and patios and gardens that will turn your home into a lifestyle experience. It is a comprehensive, practical guide to designing, building and installing ponds, formal pools and the full range of water features for patios and gardens of all sizes and styles. Whether you want to create an ambitious water garden which will attract wildlife and birds, build a pretty, reflective lily pond, or simply include an ornamental fountain on your patio, here you will find the ideas and instructions to complete your plans with ease. There is a wide range of waterproofing information, from inexpensive polyurethane and geotextile membranes to sealed concrete and fibreglass. There are instructions on how to seal a variety of containers with step-by-step illustrations. This book will show you how to plan and institute your designs, detailing tools and materials, sealants, pumps, and filters. Design ideas are well illustrated and include several before and after examples guaranteed to inspire even the most reluctant handyman. Once you have established your new water feature, learn how to maintain it, stock it with fish, and attract birds, frogs and other creatures to your new environment. There are also details about marginal plants, floating aquatic plants, and rock garden plants, with full colour photographs to assist with plant identification. Create a feature that will refresh and revitalise your outdoor area, whether you want a natural pond for keeping fish, a more compact feature using planters to enliven your patio, a simple Japanese feature, or a trickling stream which looks as if it occurs quite naturally. With this beautifully illustrated book, you will be able to create the water feature of your dreams.
The Composting Troubleshooter
A BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESSFUL COMPOSTINGHave you ever been frustrated at how long it takes to produce compost at home?Do you know something's gone wrong with your compost but not sure what?Are you bothered by troublesome flies in your compost bin?If so, then this book is for you.SUCCESSFUL COMPOSTINGAlthough there are plenty of books written about how to make compost, few focus on preventing problems and providing advice on what to do when things don't quite go to plan.In The Composting Troubleshooter, compost expert Dr Jane Gilbert explains the composting basics and sets out how you can compost effectively. By blending both art and science, the key components needed for successful composting are clearly explained and illustrated using easy-to-understand diagrams.PREVENTING PROBLEMSYou'll learn how to prevent composting problems by blending different materials, getting the structure of the heap right, and adjusting the moisture levels.'The Composting Troubleshooter' provides an in-depth description of the different types of materials that can be composted, listing their key properties and things to keep an eye on. You'll also find out about materials that may cause you problems, or taint your compost.TROUBLESHOOTING PROBLEMSUnlike other composting books, The Composting Troubleshooter, provides detailed advice on how to overcome a range of different composting problems. It is accompanied by a quick Look-Up Troubleshooter guide to help point you in the right direction.The book also contains chapters on: alternative composting methods; putting your compost to work; health and safety; and useful resources.By understanding the composting basics described in this book, you'll be empowered to make and use compost effectively. You'll also know what to do if things go off kilter. Both you and your garden will be able to reap the rewards.
The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower's Handbook
Best practices for the eight most profitable crops: tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, peppers, leafy greens, lettuce, herbs, and microgreens"Mefferd's book fills a gaping void in the literature for market growers. I highly recommend it to anyone growing in greenhouses, or who aspires to."-- Ben Hartman, author of The Lean FarmWhether growing in a heated greenhouse or unheated hoophouse, this book offers a decision-making framework for how to best manage crops Today only a few dozen large-scale producers dominate the greenhouse produce market. Why? Because they know and employ best practices for the most profitable crops. The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower's Handbook levels the playing field by revealing these practices so that all growers--large and small--can maximize the potential of their protected growing space. Whether growing in a heated greenhouse or unheated hoophouse, this book offers a decision-making framework for how to best manage crops that goes beyond a list of simple do's and don'ts. Author Andrew Mefferd spent years consulting for growers using protected agriculture in a wide variety of climates, soils, and conditions. The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower's Handbook brings his experience and expertise to bear in an in-depth guide that will help readers make their investment in greenhouse space worthwhile. Every year, more growers are turning to protected culture to deal with unpredictable weather and to meet out-of-season demand for local food, but many end up spinning their wheels, wasting time and money on unprofitable crops grown in ways that don't make the most of their precious greenhouse space.In The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower's Handbook comprehensive chapters include: Protected Growing Structures and their featuresHeating, Cooling, Lighting, and IrrigationPlant BasicsPropagation, Pruning, and TrellisingGraftingAnd Much More!Mefferd's book is full of techniques and strategies that can help farms stay profitable, satisfy customers, and become an integral part of re-localizing our food system.From seed to sale, The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower's Handbook is the indispensable resource for protected growing.
101 Organic Gardening Hacks
Shawna Coronado, one of America's most creative gardeners, gives you her library of clever gardening tricks in 101 Organic Gardening Hacks. If you ask garden author Shawna Coronado what a hack is, she might just wave her hand toward her own back yard. She could be pointing at the garden bench she created from leftover wood posts and a few cinder blocks, or the rows of wine bottles buried soldier-style along a winding pathway, or even the garden soil itself, which is blended by hand from an organic soil recipe she devised. In 101 Organic Garden Hacks you'll find the top tips, tricks, and solutions Shawna has dreamed up in her career as one of America's most creative gardeners. Some are practical timesavers; others offer clever ways to upcycle everyday items in your garden. One characteristic every hack shares is that they are completely organic and unfailingly environmentally friendly. Divided into a dozen different categories for easy reference, each hack is accompanied by a clear photo that shows you exactly how to complete it. With these hacks, discover how easy it is to: Fertilize your soil the all-natural way with tips on using manure, mulch, epsom salt, coffee grounds, and different types of compost made from kitchen and garden waste. Maintain your garden with eco-friendly tricks for repelling pests and conserving water, including making earwig traps and harvesting rain water. Attract pollinators with plant selections and DIY feeders and homes. Transform your outdoor space into an elegant retreat with garden decor from recycled items like an old chandelier. And much more! If you are looking for resourceful ways to improve your garden and promote green living values right at home, you'll love paging through this fascinating, eye-catching book.
The Jewish Gardening Cookbook
A down-to-earth approach to spirituality that links your garden with biblical tradition. "Perhaps you're asking, 'What is a "Jewish garden"?' Though it is essentially a collection of plants, it's really more than that. You don't just grow plants in a Jewish garden; you incorporate them into your life. Some will help transport you to different times and places; others will provide your senses with aromas, tastes, and beauty. All will help you experience a more personal attachment to God and to Judaism."-from the IntroductionThis guide shows how your gardening can sustain your spirit in new ways, whether you grow one fig tree on an apartment terrace, or five acres of wheat in the country. It may also help you realize, as never before, that for each fruit and vegetable associated with every holiday, there is a profound and sustaining reason.To ancient Jews, figs symbolized prosperity, grapes signified fertility, and olives represented the renewal of life. Barley was the chief cooking staple, and dates were a honey substitute. The Jewish Gardening Cookbook gives clear and easy-to-follow instructions on how these foods-and more-can be grown and used for holidays, festivals, and life cycle events. For example, following the cycle of the Jewish year, it explains how to grow apples to bake in apple-raisin-nut cake at Rosh Hashanah, potatoes for latkes at Hanukkah, and ways to maximize use of your zucchini crop with zucchini nut bread at Purim.The Jewish Gardening Cookbook provides tasty vegetarian recipes so that what you grow can be enjoyed during holiday meals, bringing our biblical past into our lives as people who have a profound relationship with the Land of Israel.
Late Bloomer
There are times in a gardener's life when what we want to do and what we can do are at odds. Our knees and backs may be complaining, our energy isn't what it was - yet our desire to get our hands in the dirt is as strong as ever. Or maybe we've downsized to a much smaller outdoor space that doesn't look promising at all. What to do? In Late Bloomer, garden designer Jan Coppola Bills shows us how to successfully rethink our approach to gardening as we age. The author is a second-half-of-life gardener who helps her many friends and clients achieve easy care, low cost, eco-friendly, simple and beautiful gardens. It's all about maintaining a joyful, healthful connection with the soil - but without the toil. Late Bloomer is part garden philosophy and part on-the-ground strategies and tips from the author and expert gardeners across the U.S. With color photos on almost every page, this inviting and practical book is organized around the four tenets of the Late Bloomer philosophy: Simplicity. Beauty and Harmony. Comfort and Ease. Relaxation and Letting Go.
The Year-Round Solar Greenhouse
Build your own passive solar greenhouse for year-round food production in any climate Fresh, local nutrient-dense fruits vegetables are hard to find in winter in cold climates. Growing warm-weather crops like tomatoes, bananas, avocados, and other perennials is nearly impossible using conventional structures. The solution for millions of backyard and small-scale commercial growers is self-heating solar greenhouses. The Year-round Solar Greenhouse is the one-stop guide to designing and building greenhouses that harness and store energy from the sun to create naturally heated, lush growing environments even in the depths of winter, covering principles of solar greenhouse design and siting, glazing material properties and selection, controlling heat loss, ventilation, and construction methods. Additionally, an in-depth section covers sustainable ways of heating the greenhouse without fossil fuels, including using thermal mass and storing heat underground with a ground to air heat exchanger. Variations include attached solar greenhouses, earth sheltered greenhouses, plus integrating hydroponics and aquaponics. More than a dozen case studies from across North America provide inspiration and demonstrate specific challenges and solutions for growing year-round in any climate. Grow your own food, anytime, anywhere using the power of the sun!
Gardening With Chickens
Welcome to a world where chickens and gardens coexist!Join Lisa Steele, chicken-keeper extraordinaire and founder of Fresh Eggs Daily, on a unique journey through the garden. Start by planning your garden and learning strategies and tips for keeping your plants safe while they grow. Plant with purpose, choosing from a dozen plans for theme gardens such as Orange Egg Yolks or Nesting Box Herbs. Or choose a design that's filled with edibles - sharing the bounty with your family and your feathered friends. Then comes the fun part: enjoy the harvest, even let the chickens graze!Lisa's friendly writing, together with inspirational photos and illustrations, will have you rolling up your sleeves and reaching for your gardening tools. Lisa also covers a range of topics just for chicken-keepers, including: - Chickens and composting- Using chickens to aerate and till- Coop window boxes- Plants to avoid when you have chickens- Lists of the most valuable crops and herbs- Advice on how to harvest and use many of the plants- And much more!Whether you're an experienced chicken keeper, master gardener, or just getting into these two wonderful hobbies, Gardening with Chickens is an indispensable guide for a harmonious homestead.
Figs
FIGS (Rare and Heritage Fruit Cultivars #13) The taste of a tree-ripened, freshly-picked fig, is sublime. Never judge figs on the specimens available in supermarkets, which are often dry and inferior. A ripe, fresh fig should be tender and slightly soft. When you bite into it, a silky surge of juicy, rich flavour fills your mouth, tasting like jam eaten straight out of the jar - only infinitely more subtle and complex, with overtones of honey and wine. The interior of the fruit is packed with luscious flowerlets lapped in a sweet, glistening syrup. The fruit of the fig tree has been sought out and cultivated by man since ancient times, and is now widely grown throughout the temperate world, both for its fruit and as an ornamental plant. Hundreds of named fig cultivars now exist, but only a handful are commercially grown. Find out more about the amazing heirloom varieties within these pages. This book is one of a series written for 'backyard farmers' of the 21st century. The series focuses on rare and heritage fruit in Australia, although it includes much information of interest to fruit enthusiasts around the world. 'Heritage' or 'heirloom' fruits such as old-fashioned varieties of apple, quince, fig, plum, peach and pear are increasingly popular due to their diverse flavours, excellent nutritional qualities and other desirable characteristics. They are part of our horticultural, vintage and culinary inheritance. To pick a tree-ripened heritage fruit from your own back yard and bite into it is to experience the taste of fresh food as our forefathers knew it. During the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries fruit diversity was huge, but in modern supermarkets only a limited range of commercial fruit varieties is now available to consumers. Heritage, heirloom and rare fruit enthusiasts across the world are currently reviving our horticultural legacy by renovating old orchards and identifying 'lost', unusual and historic fruit varieties. The goal is to make a much wider range of fruit trees available again to the home gardener. This series of handbooks aims to help.
Garden Friends
A guide to keeping garden pests away organically.Get the best out of your outside space by calling on your garden 'friends'. Introducing helpful wildlife into your garden will help to control pests, maintain a natural chemical-free balance and encourage your garden to bloom, whether you have a large garden, an allotment or a simple window box.Some plants are great 'friends' and are endlessly useful - sweetpeas are good for regenerating tired soil, for example, while marigolds repel pesky greenfly away from your prized cabbages. Birds and other animals such as hedgehogs, bats and frogs are also renowned pest-munchers, while bees, butterflies and other insects will happily pollinate your flowers, fruit and vegetables. Encouraging just a few of these 'friends' into your garden will soon ensure your prized plants are blooming.This practical guide describes all of the wonderful wildlife that is helpful to have in your garden and how to spot them. Packed with hints and tips on how to encourage the critters into your space and make sure they stick around, this guide is a must-have for any gardener.
The Garden Interior
The Garden Interior is the inspiring story of how one garden raised a family and what goes on inside the heart and mind of a gardener.
How to Prune Trees & Shrubs
Help your trees, shrubs, and vines look and yield their best by making the right cut every time. Whether you are hoping for more flowers or fruit, trying to create a dense screen, or struggling to manage out-of-control growth, there is a pruning technique to achieve your goals. Expert gardener Barbara Ellis explains how a plant responds to pruning, how and when to use basic cuts, and what tools to use. Her plant-by-plant guide will give you the confidence you need to make that first cut.
Afton Villa
Genevieve Trimble's remarkable story of Afton Villa began with a tragedy. In 1963, fire ravaged the forty-room Victorian Gothic plantation home on the historic estate, bringing to ashes over 170 years of history. Over the next decade, its once-regal serpentine entryway and carefully laid out gardens gradually deteriorated, as vines strangled the rows of azaleas that once welcomed guests. A place of enchantment crumbled toward extinction.The irreversible loss of Afton Villa's once pristine nineteenth-century gardens and carefully built stately home did, however, inspire Trimble to seize the opportunity to protect the derelict property from oblivion and she and her husband purchased the estate in 1972. This ambitious move initiated a forty-year regeneration of one of the most treasured and legendary gardens in Louisiana. Afton Villa documents Trimble's decades-long restoration project while providing a history of the original owners and paying tribute to the other people who contributed to its rebirth. Focusing on preservation, Trimble reveals how the garden's original footprint survived as well as how she thoughtfully introduced new flora into the terraced landscape, including the foundation ruins of the house, under the guidance of landscape architect Neil G. Odenwald. With steep learning curves and devastating setbacks, including hurricane destruction, each milestone in the recovery of Afton Villa marked a triumph of collaborative will over adversity. Hundreds of visitors every year journey to St. Francisville to enjoy the result of Trimble's arduous and rewarding efforts. The moss-draped oaks welcome them to a rolling vista of daffodils, cherry trees, and a boxwood parterre as well as hundreds of other features in this thirty-five-acre garden. With a vivid narrative and beautiful images, Afton Villa: The Birth and Rebirth of a Nineteenth-Century Louisiana Garden captures the story of this remarkable restoration.
The Downsized Veggie Garden
This is a timely, "especially for now" book, when growing food at home is at the top of many family to-do lists. Small is beautiful, and integrating a small, easy-to-manage garden into hectic everyday life is easy. In The Downsized Veggie Garden, low maintenance is the mantra. And so is making smart, creative use of the space we have - whether it's outdoors, indoors, in-ground, in containers, on a balcony railing...or even going vertical. Garden expert Kate Copsey takes the reader season-by-season, plant-by-plant, with essential tips about soil, seed-starting, plant choices, non-chemical fertilizing, watering, choosing the right containers, veggie garden planning and planting, and much more. This fully illustrated book is a one-stop guide for the beginner gardener or the downsizing gardener.
Totally Bonsai
"Learn the ins and outs of proper bonsai design and care with this beautifully illustrated Japanese gardening book. Creating your own bonsai tree is simple, calming and serene, and best of all, it lets you bring the outdoors inside, even if you don't have a lot of space. Imagine an enormous redwood shrunk to a size you can carry in one hand, but perfect in every detail. That is the joy of bonsai--the re-creation of nature in miniature. With Totally Bonsai you can learn everything you need to know to become accomplished at the art of bonsai tree care and cultivation--how to pick a plant, what tools you'll need, and how to trim and style your plant. At the heart of the book is a species directory detailing both outdoor and indoor bonsai. It includes 10 easy-to-grow types of bonsai plants that are great for the beginning bonsai enthusiast, as well as another 40 species that need a little more care With Totally Bonsai you will: Discover the small but perfectly formed world of the bonsai Learn the secrets to growing a healthy tree Properly pot or repot your bonsai Recognize pests and diseases and how to treat them Discover the techniques for shaping, bending, and transforming your bonsai Totally Bonsai is a wonderful introduction to bonsai tradition and practice, including a historical overview of many styles of Japanese, Korean, Singaporean and Chinese bonsai, or penjing. Whether you want to grow a bonsai with dramatically exposed roots, create a spectacular twin-trunked landscape or cultivate a romantic sweeping cascade, Totally Bonsai will show you how."
The Cancer Survivor's Garden Companion
THE BOOK IN 19 WORDS: A CANCER PATIENT DISCOVERS THAT GARDENING IS GOOD MEDICINE - AND FINDS A POWERFUL HEALING PARTNER IN HER OWN BACKYARD. Jenny Peterson is a breast cancer survivor. Her long road through cancer treatment was hard, emotional and often deeply depressing. The one thing that pulled her out of the darkness was her desire to be able to garden again. Peterson credits her garden with clearing her mental fog and overcoming her depression, physical limitations and pain. The Cancer Survivor's Garden Companion explores the therapeutic benefits of this vital "earth connection." With gentle empathy, beautiful photographs and easy how-to steps, she shows others how to create their own backyard haven for healing - a personal restorative garden - with a bonus of well-grounded guidance about diet, exercise, mental focus and spiritual renewal.
Growing Vegetables in Straw Bales
Straw bale gardening is an inexpensive, low-maintenance way to grow a bounty of food in a small space. All you need is a bale of straw, some fertilizer, and your favorite vegetable seeds! Craig LeHoullier's step-by-step instructions show you how to do everything from sourcing the straw and setting up your bale to planting, dealing with weeds and pests, and harvesting.
Building Raised Beds
For beginning gardeners and homeowners, this handbook shows you exactly how to plan, build, and plant a simple raised bed. Fully illustrated step-by-step instructions make it easy and ensure success! In just a weekend, using a few basic materials and minimal building skills, you can set up a complete garden bed adapted for vegetables, flowers, or herbs.
The Complete Guide to Growing Healing and Medicinal Herbs
Packed with new information, this book provides all of the basics of healing herbs, beginning with a complete breakdown of the numerous healing herbs known to be easily cultivated in temperate climates. Matching the right herbs to your region, you will then be able to start learning: how herbs grow what they need from the soil, water, the weather, and feeding which pests are most likely to appear with each plant which conditions are best for your herbs, from indoor potting to outdoor containers, or in-ground fields. Learn how you can make a number of common treatments for various ailments with your herbs and how you can benefit best from your new found garden.
Propagation
All sorts of greenhouse, garden, and house plants can be propagated from cuttings, using only a cold frame or some sheltered ground. Budding, layering, grafting, division, and raising from seed are also simple operations once you know how--with the added satisfaction of obtaining new plants at a fraction of the cost of buying them. This manual explains all the techniques clearly and simply, illustrating the process with more than 80 diagrams and photos. There are also chapters on the uses of modern materials and equipment, the history of propagation, and the care of young plants after the propagation period, to ensure complete success. Comprehensive alphabetical tables cover the propagation of over 1,500 different kinds of plant, making this book as invaluable for the horticultural student as it is for the home gardener. For each variety the chart indicates the most suitable methods, times of year, and conditions--greenhouse, cold frame, outdoors, or indoors--to propagate successfully.
Will Bonsall's Essential Guide to Radical, Self-reliant Gardening
"If you wish to live well and eat well no matter what is going on in the rest of the world, this book is for you. . . . Will Bonsall will help you enjoy the good life under any and all conditions."--Eliot Coleman, author of The New Organic Grower "Society does not generally expect its farmers to be visionaries." Perhaps not, but longtime Maine farmer and homesteader Will Bonsall does possess a unique clarity of vision that extends all the way from the finer points of soil fertility and seed saving to exploring how we can transform civilization and make our world a better, more resilient place. In Will Bonsall's Essential Guide to Radical, Self-Reliant Gardening, Bonsall maintains that to achieve real wealth we first need to understand the economy of the land, to realize that things that might make sense economically don't always make sense ecologically, and vice versa. The marketplace distorts our values, and our modern dependence on petroleum in particular presents a serious barrier to creating a truly sustainable agriculture. For him the solution is, first and foremost, greater self-reliance, especially in the areas of food and energy. By avoiding any off-farm inputs (fertilizers, minerals, and animal manures), Bonsall has learned how to practice a purely veganic, or plant-based, agriculture--not from a strictly moralistic or philosophical perspective, but because it makes good business sense: spend less instead of making more. What this means in practical terms is that Bonsall draws upon the fertility of on-farm plant materials: compost, green manures, perennial grasses, and forest products like leaves and ramial wood chips. And he grows and harvests a diversity of crops from both cultivated and perennial plants: vegetables, grains, pulses, oilseeds, fruits and nuts--even uncommon but useful permaculture plants like groundnut (Apios). Inside Will Bonsall's Essential Guide to Radical, Self-Reliant Gardening you'll also find: Milling, baking and sprouting Freezing and vermentation Best practices to handle plant disease and animal pests Collecting and storing seeds And so much more! In a friendly, almost conversational way, Bonsall imparts a wealth of knowledge drawn from his more than forty years of farming experience. "My goal," he writes, "is not to feed the world, but to feed myself and let others feed themselves. If we all did that, it might be a good beginning."
The New Shade Garden
In The New Shade Garden, award-winning author Ken Druse presents a comprehensive guide to creating a shade garden with an emphasis on the adjustments necessary for our changing climate. There is a new generation of gardeners who are planting gardens not only for their visual beauty but also for their ability to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Druse offers advice on a wide variety of common problems facing today's gardeners, including: Watering plants without stressing limited resourcesDesigning your own gardenPruning treesDealing with a troublesome deer situation Preparing soil for plantingThe vast array of flowers and greenery that grow best in the shadeAnd more! Druse writes in his introduction, "The garden of the future will be a shade garden. There are many reasons: fiscal, historical, environmental--and for the sake of our health and the planet's." Discover what Druse has learned in his many years of gardening: Creating your own lush oasis is the best defense against our changing world. Filled with guidance, horticultural facts, and useful plant recommendations, this book is sure to become a resource you will refer to again and again. Perfect for new and seasoned gardeners alike, this wide-ranging encyclopedic manual provides all the information you need to start or improve upon your own shade garden. "Reading Druse is like talking to a generous old friend who knows exactly when you're about to give up and comes to the rescue." ―New York Times Book Review "Druse argues that shade gardens will be the most comfortable, satisfying and sustainable option." --Chicago Tribune
Five simple grafting techniques best suited for most exotic fruit plants (Economy Edition)
This book describes in detail 5 most useful grafting techniques that can be used to propagate many exotic fruits. The book contains detailed illustrations, examples, fruit chart as well as root stocks and techniques well suited for these fruits.
Chesapeake Gardening and Landscaping
What if, one step at a time, we could make our gardens and landscapes more eco-friendly? Barbara W. Ellis's colorful, comprehensive guide shows homeowners, gardeners, garden designers, and landscapers how to do just that for the large and beautiful Chesapeake Bay watershed region. This area includes Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Washington, D.C., and part of West Virginia (translating to portions of USDA Zones 6, 7, and 8). Here, mid-Atlantic gardeners, from beginners to advanced, will find the essential tools for taking steps to make their gardens part of the solution through long-term planning and planting.The guide is built from the ground up around six simple but powerful principles that anyone can use: * Reduce lawn* Build plant diversity* Grow native plants* Manage water runoff* Welcome wildlife* Garden wiselyIncluded are detailed instructions for assessing and designing your particular garden or landscape site; choosing and caring for trees, shrubs, vines, ground covers, and flowers; and succeeding with such conditions as shade or poor soil. From rain gardens to woodland gardens, meadow gardens to wildlife gardens, and much more, this indispensable guide features more than 300 color photographs.
Building Soil
This is your down-to-earth, complete manual for achieving great gardening results with your own rich, organic soil. How do you recognize healthy soil? How much can your existing soil be improved? What are the best amendments to use for your soil? Let Building Soil answer your questions and be your guide on gardening from the ground up. Fertilizing, tilling, weed management, and irrigation all affect the quality of your soil. Using author Elizabeth Murphy's detailed instructions, anyone can become a successful soil-based gardener, whether you want to start a garden from scratch or improve an existing garden. If you want methods that won't break your back, are good for the environment, and create high-yielding and beautiful gardens of all shapes and sizes, this is the book for you! Create classic landscape gardens, grow a high-yielding orchard, nurture naturally beautiful lawns, raise your household veggies, or run a profitable farm. A soil-based approach allows you to see not just the plants, but the living system that grows them. Soil-building practices promote more ecologically friendly gardening by: Reducing fertilizer and pesticide use Sequestering greenhouse gases Increasing overall garden productivity With a detailed discussion and comparison tables on a range of organic fertilizer choices, Building Soil is a simple book full of practical, up-to-date information about building healthy soils. Simple methods perfect for the home gardener's use put healthy, organic soil within everyone's reach. You don't need a degree in soil management to understand this book; you only need a yard or garden and the desire to improve it at the most basic level.
The Allotmenteers
The peace, tranquillity and harmony of a traditional English allotment is being threatened by one man.A man who will stop at nothing to ensure that the allotments are run his way....and his way only.A new tenant is the catalyst that causes some of the plot holders to unite against this common threat.The Allotmenteers is the story of the trials, tribulations, laughter, heartbreak caused by this battle of mind and will.The Allotmenteers will probably change your mind about allotments, the characters who inhabit them and, maybe, just maybe, make you wonder about getting an allotment plot for yourself.
Practical Permaculture for Home Landscapes, Your Community, and the Whole Earth
"This permaculture primer is fresh and vibrant. Bring it on!" --Permaculture Magazine Permaculture is more popular than ever, but it can still be a daunting concept. If you are new to permaculture and interested in learning more, Practical Permaculture offers authoritative, in-depth, and hands-on advice for a more holistic approach to sustainable living. Jessi Bloom and Dave Boehnlein, two dynamic leaders in the permaculture community, explain the basics of permaculture, share their design process, and explore various permaculture systems including soil, water, waste, energy, shelter, food and plants, and animals and wildlife. They also profile the fifty most useful plants for permaculture landscapes.
Garden-pedia
Quick: do you know the difference between hardpan and hardening-off? Between a native and a nativar? A cold frame and a cloche? Do you wish someone would write a book that explains in simple English what all those gardening terms mean - just give you the stuff you need to know, so you can be a knowledgeable gardener? Veteran horticulturists Maria Zampini and Pam Bennett have done just that. Garden-pedia is written to fill the need for a clear, concise book of useful terms for the layman gardener. In a friendly, conversational style, the authors give the reader easy access to the what, when, why and how of gardening - with entertaining sidebars, tips and color photos throughout. This authoritative, up-to-date guide is destined to be the reference of choice for gardeners everywhere. Go ahead: impress your friends and family with your newfound knowledge.
Small-Space Vegetable Gardens
"Size matters! Andrea Bellamy shares creative ways to grow a wide array of vegetables, fruits, and herbs in diminutive settings, year-round." --Debra Prinzing, author, speaker, and podcaster Small-Space Vegetable Gardens explains the basics of growing a bounty of edibles in a minimal amount of space. 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.
Epic Tomatoes
Savor your best tomato harvest ever with this guide book for tomato enthusiasts! Craig LeHoullier provides everything you to know about growing more than 200 varieties of tomatoes, from planting to cultivating and collecting seeds at the end of the season. He also offers a comprehensive guide to various pests and tomato diseases, explaining how best to avoid them. With beautiful photographs and intriguing tomato profiles throughout, Epic Tomatoes celebrates one of the most versatile and delicious crops in your garden.
Gardens of the Garden State
A glorious photographic tour of the public and private gardens of New Jersey--from historic formal gardens of former estates, to suburb gardens, horticulturists' havens, and fresh takes on front yards. The most densely populated state in the nation and one of the original thirteen, home to the largest public iris garden in the country, and the glacier-swept endpoint of the last Ice Age--for Nancy Berner and Susan Lowry, who look to gardens as an entry to the history and culture of a region, New Jersey presents an array of surprising diversity. Its temperate climate makes it possible to grow a wide range of plants, while its complex topography--ranging from mountains to rolling hills and flat basins, the scrubby Pine Barrens and the rich Coastal Plain--demands innovative approaches to design. The twenty-eight selected gardens--from Skylands, with its specimen trees, woodland and rock gardens, and lilac collection close to the New York border, to the elegant formal gardens of Short Hills, Bernardsville, and Oldwick, to a wildlife garden filled with frogs and butterflies and a lighthouse garden near Cape May--illustrate the ways in which New Jersey's long garden traditions are upheld to this day. Gemma and Andrew Ingalls' stunning photographs bring out the manifold ways in which a garden might speak to us in its owner's or designer's voice, expressing a particular point of view.
Real Gardens Grow Natives
For many people, the most tangible and beneficial impact they can have on the environment is right in their own yard. Aimed at beginning and veteran gardeners alike, Real Gardens Grow Natives is a stunningly photographed guide that helps readers plan, implement, and sustain a retreat at home that reflects the natural world. Gardening with native plants that naturally belong and thrive in the Pacific Northwest's climate and soil not only nurtures biodiversity, but provides a quintessential Northwest character and beauty to yard and neighborhood! For gardeners and conservationists who lack the time to read through lengthy design books and plant lists or can't afford a landscape designer, Real Gardens Grow Natives is accessible yet comprehensive and provides the inspiration and clear instruction needed to create and sustain beautiful, functional, and undemanding gardens. With expert knowledge from professional landscape designer Eileen M. Stark, Real Gardens Grow Natives includes: * Detailed profiles of 100 select native plants for the Pacific Northwest west of the Cascades, plus related species, helping make plant choice and placement. * Straightfoward methods to enhance or restore habitat and increase biodiversity * Landscape design guidance for various-sized yards, including sample plans * Ways to integrate natives, edibles, and nonnative ornamentals within your garden * Specific planting procedures and secrets to healthy soil * Techniques for propagating your own native plants * Advice for easy, maintenance using organic methods
The Quotable Gardener
Wisdom, insight, and humor, from Addison to Zola, about the world's most popular hobby.
Transplanted Gardener, First Edition
An American observes the madness and wonder of English gardening.
Integrated Forest Gardening
Permaculture is a movement that is coming into its own, and the concept of creating plant guilds in permaculture is at the forefront of every farmer's and gardener's practice. One of the essential practices of permaculture is to develop perennial agricultural systems that thrive over several decades without expensive and harmful inputs: perennial plant guilds, food forests, agroforestry, and mixed animal and woody species polycultures. The massive degradation of conventional agriculture and the environmental havoc it creates has never been as all pervasive in terms of scale, so it has become a global necessity to further the understanding of a comprehensive design and planning system such as permaculture that works with nature, not against it. The guild concept often used is one of a "functional relationship" between plants-beneficial groupings of plants that share functions in order to bring health and stability to a plant regime and create an abundant yield for our utilization. In other words, it is the integration of species that creates a balanced, healthy, and thriving ecosystem. But it goes beyond integration. A guild is a metaphor for all walks of life, most importantly a group of people working together to craft works of balance, beauty, and utility. This book is the first, and most comprehensive, guide about plant guilds ever written, and covers in detail both what guilds are and how to design and construct them, complete with extensive color photography and design illustrations. Included is information on: - What we can observe about natural plant guilds in the wild and the importance of observation; - Detailed research on the structure of plant guilds, and a portrait of an oak tree (a guild unto itself); - Animal interactions with plant guilds; - Steps to guild design, construction, and dynamics: from assessment to design to implementation; - Fifteen detailed plant guilds, five each from the three authors based on their unique perspectives; - Guild project management: budgets, implementation, management, and maintenance. Readers of any scale will benefit from this book, from permaculture designers and professional growers, to backyard growers new to the concept of permaculture. Books on permaculture cover this topic, but never in enough depth to be replicable in a serious way. Finally, it's here!
Fairy Gardening 101
Release your inner child and step into the fairy world by creating your own enchanted garden, no matter how much space you have! Fairy gardens are increasing in popularity and Fairy Gardening 101 provides you with all the information necessary to design, plant, and care for your very own miniature garden oasis. Author, artist, and fairy gardener extraordinaire Fiona McDonald introduces readers to the history of fairy gardens and then provides step-by-step instructions, photographs, and illustrations for you to follow--or draw inspiration from--when starting your own project. Learn which types of plants and containers are most successful for a fairy garden, as well as how to develop a focal point for your enchanted mini Eden. Fairy Gardening 101 also provides important information on caring for your garden, on designing gardens for both indoors and outside, on using artificial plants to make your garden last a lifetime, and much more! You'll also find inspirational photos from fairy gardeners around the globe as well as a list of suppliers. You don't need to be a master gardener or to have a particularly green thumb to successfully plant and maintain your tiny fairy garden. All you need is a few miniature plants, some thoughtfully placed accessories, a fairy or two, and a love of whimsy and imagination.
The Greenhouse Gardener's Manual
"Anyone purchasing a greenhouse should read this book first." --Home Greenhouse Magazine Do you want homegrown tomatoes in the dead of winter? Or to grow succulents and cacti in the coldest parts of the world? All you need is a greenhouse. In The Greenhouse Gardener's Manual, Roger Marshall shares the secrets of successfully growing vegetables, fruits, flowers, and houseplants in a well-maintained greenhouse. You'll learn how to choose the right design, create a healthy environment, use the space for propagation, and maintain the greenhouse year-round. Marshall also includes a plant directory of the 70 best fruits and vegetables and the 88 best ornamental plants for growing in a greenhouse.
Saving Vegetable Seeds
Save vegetable seeds as you harvest so your favorite plants can grow again next season. In this Storey BASICS(R) guide, Fern Marshall Bradley covers everything you need to know to successfully save seeds from 20 popular garden vegetables, including beans, carrots, peas, peppers, and tomatoes. Learn how each plant is pollinated, where to store your collected seeds through the winter, and how to test their replanting viability in the spring. Now you can grow the delicious varieties you love year after year.
