Gardening

“Filled with illustrations and fascinating information, Polish Herbs, Flowers & Folk Medicine is a veritable treasure trove of history, how-to, and inspiration.”—The Midwest Book Review

Taking the reader on a historical tour of herbs and flowers used in Poland throughout the centuries, this carefully-researched volume captures the unique history and role of plant life once essential to the people of Poland. Wander through monastery, castle and cottage gardens with acclaimed Polish-American author Sophie Hodorowicz Knab as she explores the growth of medicine and pharmacies and provides information on the use of over 100 plants, used in healing as well as in daily life and seasonal holidays throughout the year.

You’ll find legends, cautionary tales, and love potions, as well as a chapter devoted to wedding plants and herbs. There are home remedies for everything that ailed the people of Poland, from acne to arthritis, relaxants to rejuvenators, and heartache to heartburn. Gleaned from old Polish herbals, Knab provides recipes for balms to treat ailments such as stress, insomnia, slow metabolism, perspiring feet, limp hair and oily skin. Also included are recipes for homemade herbal vinegars, soups, syrups, and liqueurs, including elderberry syrup, homemade Benedictine, and a healing vodka drink from Gdansk.

This revised edition includes new information and research as well as new illustrations and color photographs. All plants are listed alphabetically according to their English common name, followed by Latin botanical name and common Polish name. There is an index of scientific names for quick reference. History buffs, gardeners, and anyone interested in their Polish ancestry will find much to explore here.

A state-by-state analysis of the expansion of medical marijuana access in the United States

As of 2023, thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized the medical use of marijuana. Twenty-three have legalized recreational use, supporting what is now a flourishing multibillion-dollar industry. In Green Rush, Daniel J. Mallinson and A. Lee Hannah offer a fascinating history of cannabis legalization in America, highlighting the people, states, and policies that made these victories possible.

With sharp insight, Mallinson and Hannah explore the backdrop to this sea change in policy, including shifts in public opinion, growing opposition to the War on Drugs, the promise of new revenue streams, and more. They examine the complex web of state actors—and the steps they took—to chart a path forward for marijuana legalization, from grassroots activists and interest groups to elected officials and other key policymakers.

Mallinson and Hannah show us how states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia not only created, legitimized, and spread medical marijuana policy but also learned from each other’s successes and failures throughout the process. As marijuana legalization increasingly finds its way onto state ballots, Green Rush offers fresh insight into how we got here as a country and where we are going—one state at a time.

Every year Americans use a staggering five hundred million pounds of toxic pesticides in and around their homes, schools, parks, and roads—a growing health risk for people and the environment. But are these poisons really necessary? This book, appealing to the hunter in us all, shows how to triumph in combat with pests without losing the war to toxic chemicals. Tiny Game Hunting, written in a lively and entertaining style and illustrated with detailed drawings, gives more than two hundred tried-and-true ways to control or kill common household and garden pests without using toxic pesticides.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1953.

Since the 1890s, providing places for people to garden has been an inventive strategy to improve American urban conditions. There have been vacant-lot gardens, school gardens, Depression-era relief gardens, victory gardens, and community gardens—each representing a consistent impulse to return to gardening during times of social and economic change. In this critical history of community gardening in America, the most comprehensive review of the greening of urban communities to date, Laura J. Lawson documents the evolution of urban garden programs in the United States. Her vibrant narrative focuses on the values associated with gardening, the ebb and flow of campaigns during times of social and economic crisis, organizational strategies of these primarily volunteer campaigns, and the sustainability of current programs.

People have always grown food in urban spaces—on windowsills and sidewalks, and in backyards and neighborhood parks—but today, urban farmers are leading an environmental and social movement that transforms our national food system. To explore this agricultural renaissance, brothers David and Michael Hanson and urban farmer Edwin Marty document twelve successful urban farm programs, from an alternative school for girls in Detroit, to a backyard food swap in New Orleans, to a restaurant supply garden on a rooftop in Brooklyn. Each beautifully illustrated essay offers practical advice for budding farmers, such as composting and keeping livestock in the city, decontaminating toxic soil, even changing zoning laws.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1975.

This study examines the agricultural practices and decision-making processes of a small Tai-Lue village in northern Thailand, focusing on the period from 1959 to 1961, with a follow-up visit in 1965. Conducted through anthropological fieldwork, the research involved living among villagers, learning their language, and participating in their daily life. The primary aim was to understand how villagers in Ban Ping made farming decisions, with a specific interest in their adoption of new agricultural technologies, such as tractors, which had significantly changed rice cultivation by 1960. By concentrating on the local, culturally-informed perspectives of the villagers, the study seeks to provide insights into the factors that influence farming choices within the community.

The analysis explores the complexities of farming decisions through two perspectives: rational decision-making processes related to technology and broader social factors tied to the village’s extracommunity relations. The methodological approach involves a detailed, systematic examination of how decisions were made in 1960, with subsequent insights from the 1965 field trip reserved for the study's final chapter to maintain the integrity of the initial analysis. By doing so, the research attempts to reveal the processes through which farmers select among different agricultural practices, emphasizing the importance of understanding localized decision-making in efforts to improve agricultural development and economic policies.

This work is intended not only for ethnographers studying agricultural practices but also for those involved in economic development, offering a grounded perspective on the technological and social dynamics of rural communities. The study reflects the author's engagement with development work in Thailand, drawing on experiences with various international and Thai organizations. The research benefits from the support of local Thai officials, community members, and academic institutions, whose cooperation made it possible to document the nuanced interactions between tradition, technology, and economic change in Ban Ping.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1968.

Tenryu-ji: One of Kyoto's most revered Zen temples and a monument to Japanese history, viewed through its monks, gardens, prayers, and art.

This illustrated study of Tenryuji, ranked number one among the five great Zen temples of Kyoto and a major destination for tourism and worship, weaves together history, design, culture, and personal reflection to reveal the inner workings of a great spiritual institution.

Looking at Tenryuji's present as a mirror to its past, and detailing the famous pond and rockwork composition by renowned designer Muso Soseki, Norris Brock Johnson presents the first full-length "biography" of a Zen temple garden.

This is a print on demand edition of an important, hard-to-find publication. More than 50 maps.

Forget not Mee & My Garden. . . , Peter Collinson wrote his Maryland friend George Robins in 1721. "If you have any Shells, Curious Stones, or any other Naturall Curiosity Remember Mee. I want one of your Humming Birds which you may send dry'd in its Feathers, and any Curious Insect." This theme echoed through Collinson's letters for the rest of his life, along with thanks for rarities received, introductions, cultivation instructions, encouragements, importunings, queries. Armstrong describes Collinson's correspondence as, "vigorous, brisk, and emphatic." His letters talk mainly of plants, but there are also antiquities, birds, butterflies, British imperial interests, sheep management in Spain, electricity, weather, fossils, insects, earthquakes, vine culture, Colonial policy, tithes, wars, terrapins, "an Infalible Remedy for the bite of a Mad Dog,' red Indians, astronomy, the making of salt, cheese fairs, the price of wheat, the power of snakes to charm, the Spanish threat to Florida, geology, French expansion," Hints . . . to Incorporate the Germans more with the [Pennsylvania] English. . . , the history of rice growing, premiums to encourage the production of silk, whether swallows migrate or winter-over under water, "Old Hock" as a remedy for gout, thundergusts, magnetism, Bezoar stones, & now & then a Quakerly comment. This selection of 187 letters is enhanced with over 120 illustrations (portraits and botanical drawings among them), some by Mark Catesby, Georg Dionysius Ehret, William Bartram, many in color. Includes notes & commentary for most letters.

Between 1796 & 1800 Baron Peter von Braun, a rich businessman & manager of Vienna’s court theaters, transformed his estate at Schonau into an English-style landscape park. The most celebrated building was the Temple of Night, a domed rotunda accessible only through a meandering rockwork grotto. A life-size statue of the goddess Night on a chariot pulled by two horses presided over the Temple, while from the dome, came the sounds of a mechanical musical instrument. Only the ruins survive, & the Temple has received little scholarly attention. This book brings it back to life by assembling the descriptions of it by early 19th-cent. eyewitnesses. “Will appeal to anyone interested in the history of garden design, arch., theater, & music.” Illus.