Gardening

Useful and practical gardening advice.
–Jeff Lowenfels, author, the Teaming Series and DIY Autoflowering Cannabis

Microscopic organisms are as important to plant growth as water and light. Microbe Science for Gardeners highlights the essential role of microbes in plant biosystems and soil health, providing practical how-to gardening advice for enhancing plant microbiomes, and debunking common gardening myths.

Going beyond soil biology to examine the crucial role of microorganisms in cultivating a productive garden, this accessible guide covers:

• The interrelationships in microbe populations and between microbes and plants
• Understanding microbes such as bacteria, yeast, mycorrhizal fungi, and protozoa, both in the rhizosphere and above ground
• How common practices such as tilling, crop rotation, and mulching affect the microbe community
• How the savvy gardener can encourage beneficial microorganisms while discouraging those that cause disease or other undesirable effects
• An objective analysis of popularized practices such as controlling fungal-to- bacterial ratios and applying biostimulants, compost tea, or plant probiotics
• Prevention and cures for dozens of bacterial, viral, and fungal plant diseases.

Whether you're a home gardener, market gardener, or micro-farmer, Microbe Science for Gardeners will help you leverage the incredible power of the mighty microbe to grow healthy, strong, thriving plants.

Build and sustain fertile, living soil—the essential foundation for thriving crops—with Jean-Martin Fortier's biointensive techniques.

Living Soil: A Grower's Guide reveals the secrets to creating fertile, healthy soil—an essential foundation for abundant, nutrient-rich harvests. With Jean-Martin Fortier's biointensive methods, gardeners and farmers alike can improve soil health while supporting thriving ecosystems.

This richly illustrated, full-color guide includes:

• An overview of "The Market Gardener Method"—a proven formula for small-scale, high-yield farming
• A deep dive into soil composition, including humus, microbes, and mineral content
• Simple DIY assessments and advanced tests for understanding soil biology and structure
• Low and no-till techniques to enhance soil fertility, including composting, mulching, crop rotation, and green manures
• Strategies for regenerating and sustaining soil over time.

Living Soil is part of the Grower's Guides from the Market Gardener series, offering practical knowledge for all growers. From beginner gardeners to seasoned farmers, these guides equip you with the tools and insights needed to grow sustainably using principles of biointensive, regenerative agriculture on a human scale.

Master the art of growing nutritious, versatile, and flavorful root vegetables with Jean-Martin Fortier's biointensive farming methods.

Root Vegetables: A Grower's Guide uncovers the secrets to cultivating a wide range of root crops, from familiar favorites like potatoes and carrots to lesser-known gems like oca and salsify. Jean-Martin Fortier's biointensive approach maximizes yield while nurturing soil health, making this guide invaluable to home gardeners and market farmers alike.

This richly illustrated, full-color guide includes:

• A step-by-step introduction to "The Fortier Method" for sustainable, high-yield microfarming
• Botanical insights into root vegetables, from ancient wild varieties to modern cultivars
• Detailed profiles of 20 nutritious and versatile crops, with practical advice on growing each
• Techniques for soil preparation, sowing, transplanting, fertilizing, and irrigation
• Organic practices for managing pests, diseases, and crop rotations
• Tips for optimizing harvest and storage to preserve flavor and nutrition.

Root Vegetables is part of the Grower's Guides from the Market Gardener series. It's designed to provide novice to expert growers with practical knowledge to succeed using the principles of biointensive, regenerative agriculture on a human scale.

The complete year-round guide to organic vegetable production for market gardeners and small-scale farmers – now fully revised and updated

Sustainable Market Farming is the comprehensive, go-to reference for serious growers in every climate zone. Extensively revised and updated, this brand new, fully illustrated edition is packed with detailed information on everything from planning to harvest, and features in-depth profiles of a full range of crops.

Informed by the author's experience leading decades of intensive year-round organic vegetable production on a few acres to feed a community of 100 people, this complete practical guide includes:

• The most current farm-specific planning and organizational business skills to ensure a profitable, successful, smooth-running, professional enterprise
• Cutting-edge information describing new and efficient techniques, strategies for season extension, approaches for integrated pest, disease, and weed management, and preferred climate-smart, disease-resistant varieties to add to your repertoire
• Updated guidelines for improving and maintaining soil quality and finding resilient, regenerative solutions to align farming practices with new environmental challenges
• Precise growing guides for a cornucopia of vegetables, addressing selection of varieties, soil, water, and fertility requirements, sowing, cultivation, crop rotation, succession planting, common pests and diseases, harvest, storage, and more.

Whether you are a beginning grower, an aspiring market gardener, or an established enterprise seeking to take your operation to the next level, Sustainable Market Farming is the book you will find yourself returning to again and again throughout a long farming career. An exciting, timely, and invaluable resource.

A complete guide to tomato cultivation from seed selection to harvest.

Nutritious, versatile, and bursting with flavor, tomatoes are a perennial favorite of both home gardeners and market farmers.

Beautifully illustrated and highly accessible, this succinct guide from renowned market gardener Jean-Martin Fortier brings you his pro tips and tricks, ensuring a plentiful and profitable tomato harvest. Coverage includes:

• A celebration of the humble tomato and its fascinating history
• An inspiring collection of outstanding heirloom and hybrid tomato varieties for you to grow
• Strategies for planning, preparation, and propagation suited to every grower
• Cultivation methods including transplanting, fertilizing, irrigation, pruning, trellising, disease prevention, and organic pest control
• Picking at the peak of freshness, extending harvests, and processing ideas to let you enjoy that homegrown tomato flavor all winter long.

Grower's Guides from the Market Gardener is a collection of practical handbooks designed to provide everyone from novice gardeners to seasoned farmers with information to grow better, using Jean-Martin Fortier's principles of biointensive, regenerative agriculture at a human scale.

Connecting with plants—a guide to belonging, ecological resilience, and permaculture design

The plants in our world not only nourish and sustain us, they root us within our human and ecological communities. Mulberries in the Rain explores these vital connections, combining evocative storytelling with detailed crop profiles and permaculture design tools to mentor and inspire you.

Central to permaculture is the art of creating beneficial relationships—crafting inherently regenerative food systems modeled on nature. As growers, we tend to interpret this idea literally—think companion planting, edible ecosystems, and food forests. Where do social relations and community-building fit in?

Authors and permaculture experts Ryan Blosser and Trevor Piersol:

• Demystify plant guilds, showing how to create biodiverse, low-maintenance ecological systems
• Integrate tried-and-tested permaculture frameworks such as the Scale of Permanence and the Ecology of Self, with tools from economics, mental health, and other disciplines
• Provide cultivation primers for permaculture plants classified according to function, identifying out- standing anchor plants, nitrogen fixers, barrier plants, beneficial attractors, and dynamic accumulators
• Use plant narratives to illustrate how our inner landscapes are inextricably intertwined with the way we show up in the world.

This unique, beautifully illustrated handbook breaks new ground in social permaculture while providing a deep hands-on dive into creating thriving foodscapes. Required reading for anyone who seeks a deeper connection to people and place, and a more resilient future.

Essential tools for successful vegetable growers

Often overlooked by both home and market gardeners, the right farm and garden tools are essential for cultivating success. Vegetable Garden Tools: A Grower's Guide will help you select the appropriate equipment for your unique situation, drawing on "The Market Gardener Method." This method, developed by Jean-Martin Fortier, is a proven formula for successful, small-scale, high-yield microfarming.

This highly accessible, succinct, and beautifully illustrated full-color handbook features:

• Recommendations for garden tools and implements for every stage of cultivation—from soil preparation and sowing to planting, crop maintenance, and harvesting.
• A focus on "low-tech" hand tools that are inexpensive, sustainable, and allow for working the soil while respecting biodiversity. These tools increase productivity and efficiency, and improve ergonomics.
• Detailed information on the function, benefits, and operation of each piece of equipment, accompanied by over 100 explanatory drawings.
• Specific advice and tips to get the most out of your garden tools and farm equipment, whether you are using them in a family garden or on a diversified market farm.

Vegetable Garden Tools: A Grower's Guide is a keystone title in the Grower's Guides from the Market Gardener series. This curated collection of practical handbooks is designed to provide everyone from novice gardeners to seasoned horticulturalists and farmers with the information they need to grow better using Jean-Martin Fortier's principles of biointensive, regenerative agriculture at a human scale.

Level up your growing with the right tool for every job

Searching for effective, economical ways to level up your growing? The Garden Tool Handbook is the essential guide to choosing the right hand tool for the right job at the right time, and maximizing quality, efficiency, and profitability on your farm, homestead, or market garden.

Carefully selected garden equipment is the first line of defense against pests, weeds, and drought; a helping hand at all stages of cultivation; and your greatest ally in crop management. Edible ecosystem expert Zach Loeks reveals the valuable information you need to optimize productivity including:

• How to ensure a smooth workflow and prevent labor bottlenecks by understanding the garden operation cycle from planting to harvest
• The advantages of tackling repetitive seasonal tasks with hand tools, such as ergonomic benefits, increased output, and more enjoyment
• Multifunctional equipment and professional tool systems for every operation from start-up to pro grower How smart, timely tool acquisitions can provide a high return on investment and improve your bottom line
• Case studies, farm use scenarios, maintenance and storage guidelines, pro tips, and more.

The future of food is small-scale agriculture, and innovative, affordable garden implements adapted to specific crops, environments, and production styles are the key to revolutionizing our food system. This richly illustrated, full-color resource is a must-read for serious gardeners, professional growers, edible landscapers, and anyone who wants to grow better.

Everyone's guide to using the power of science to produce healthier and tastier fruits and vegetables

From garden to fork, Food Science for Gardeners is everyone's guide to optimizing the quality of garden produce and preparing the most delicious and nutritious food possible.

Beginning with a high-level overview of food quality and nutrient density, this invaluable resource then takes a deep, but accessible, dive into:

• The essential nutrient groups as well as phytonutrients and their anti-oxidant properties
• Factors affecting food safety such as pesticides, microplastics, bacteria, and other forms of chemical and biological contamination
• The pros and cons of a host of approaches to food storage and preservation, as well as an extensive variety of cooking methods
• Gardening techniques for growing nutritious food
• A complete section dedicated to the best growing methods for common fruits and vegetables.

Whether you're a home gardener, local food enthusiast, or small-scale farmer, Food Science for Gardeners demystifies the science of food, enabling you to put the best quality vegetables and fruits on your plate.

A little plant science grows a long way

Plant Science for Gardeners empowers growers to analyze common problems, find solutions, and make better decisions in the garden for optimal plant health and productivity.

Most gardeners learn by accumulating rules – water once a week, never dry out snowdrop bulbs, prune lilacs after flowering, plant garlic in October—the list is endless.

Rules take years to learn and yet leave you floundering when the unexpected strikes and plants look unhealthy, produce poorly, or die.

There is a better way.

By understanding the basic biology of how plants grow, you can become a thinking gardener with the confidence to problem solve for optimized plant health and productivity. Learn the science and ditch the rules! Coverage includes:

• The biology of roots, stems, leaves, and flowers
• Understanding how plants function as whole organisms
• The role of nutrients and inputs
• Vegetables, flowers, grasses, and trees and shrubs
• Propagation and genetics
• Sidebars that explode common gardening myths
• Tips for evaluating plant problems and finding solutions.

Whether you're a home gardener, micro-farmer, market gardener, or homesteader, this entertaining and accessible guide shortens the learning curve and gives you the knowledge to succeed no matter where you live.

AWARDS

• SILVER (tie) | 2023 IPPY Awards: Science

Create your own compost and grow better plants.

With breathtaking clarity, Compost Science for Gardeners demystifies composting practices and helps readers determine the best technique for their unique situation. This comprehensive science-based book is your key to building healthier soil and growing better plants.

Using plain language and easy-to-follow instructions, this essential resource distills and blends the latest scientific research with the author's many decades of knowledge and experience into manageable form, debunking a host of common gardening myths along the way. Learn about:

• The role of composting in the ecological cycle
• Compostable materials to incorporate and those to avoid
• Browns and greens vs the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio
• The full range of composting methods, including cold and hot composting; composting in piles, bins, and tumblers; and pit and trench composting
• Keyhole gardening, food digesters, vermicomposting, bokashi, eco-enzyme fermentation, and more
• The relative merits and impact on the environment of each composting technique
• Using finished compost to improve soil health

Anyone can compost. Whether you are a balcony or backyard gardener, market gardener, small-scale farmer, or homesteader, or even if you are simply looking for a way to keep organic matter out of the landfill, this book will show you how to do it simply, safely, and sensibly.

From Minnesota to Moscow — how to grow fresh figs in cold climates

Growing Figs in Cold Climates is a complete, full-color, illustrated guide to organic methods for growing delicious figs in cold climates, well outside the traditional hot, arid home of this ancient fruiting tree. Coverage includes:

• Five methods for growing figs in cold climates including overwintering
• Cultivar selection for cool and cold climates
• Pruning techniques for a variety of methods of growing figs in cold climates
• Pest problems and solutions
• Harvesting, including ways to speed ripening, identify ripe fruit, and manage an overabundance
• Small-scale commercial fig production in cold climates.

Fresh figs are juicy, full-bodied, and filled with a honey-sweet flavor, and because truly ripe figs are highly perishable, they are only available to those who grow their own.

By choosing the right cultivars and techniques, figs can be grown across cool and cold growing zones of North America, Europe, and beyond, putting them within reach of almost every gardener. Easy and delicious — if you can grow a houseplant, you can grow a fig.

Build healthy soil and grow better plants

Robert Pavlis, a gardener for over four decades, debunks common soil myths, explores the rhizosphere, and provides a personalized soil fertility improvement program in this three-part popular science guidebook.

Healthy soil means thriving plants. Yet untangling the soil food web and optimizing your soil health is beyond most gardeners, many of whom lack an in-depth knowledge of the soil ecosystem.

Soil Science for Gardeners is an accessible, science-based guide to understanding soil fertility and, in particular, the rhizosphere – the thin layer of liquid and soil surrounding plant roots, so vital to plant health.

• Soil biology and chemistry and how plants and soil interact
• Common soil health problems, including analyzing soil's fertility and plant nutrients
• The creation of a personalized plan for improving your soil fertility, including setting priorities and goals in a cost-effective, realistic time frame.
• Creating the optimal conditions for nature to do the heavy lifting of building soil fertility

Written for the home gardener, market gardener, and micro-farmer, Soil Science for Gardeners is packed with information to help you grow thriving plants.

Grow vegetables year-round in a greenhouse powered only by solar energy

Originally developed in China to feed millions, Chinese greenhouses are earth-sheltered, solar-heated, east-west oriented, intelligently glazed, and well-insulated. They have proven highly effective in growing warm-weather vegetables and fruits like green peppers and tomatoes in cold climates through fall, winter, and early spring using passive solar energy as the sole heat source.

The Chinese Greenhouse is a full-color comprehensive guide to these passive solar greenhouses for self-sufficiency and growing year-round in soil or aquaponic grow beds with no additional heat. Coverage includes:

• How to design, build, and operate a Chinese greenhouse
• How to improve performance via short-term and long-term heat banking
• How to provide additional heat to make your greenhouse operate even more effectively
• How to cool the greenhouse during the summer.

Become a more self-sufficient gardener, growing and harvesting a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables year-round, with your own Chinese greenhouse.

Start a peaceful revolution by planting an edible ecosystem and sharing the experience with your neighbors

Humans have always thrived in rich, diverse, edible ecosystems. Yet most cities and suburbs are blanketed by lawns, ornamentals, and a lack of biodiversity, let alone anything edible. It is within these sterile landscapes that seeds of an edible ecosystem lie.

The Edible Ecosystem Solution is a comprehensive, practical guidebook that looks at underutilized spaces to reveal the many opportunities for landscape transformation that are both far-reaching and immediately beneficial and enjoyable. Contents include:

• Hundreds of full-color infographics, illustrations, and photographs that clearly outline the principles and concepts of edible landscape design and benefits
• How to get started with as little as 25 square feet of land
• How to transition a garden plot into a place of edible abundance and an edible biodiversity hot spot, living laboratory, and a source point for transitioning and transforming community and culture
• Choosing appropriate plants for insects, wildlife, and food production
• Scaling up and networking backyard edible ecosystems at the neighborhood level and beyond to build community food security and resilience.

The Edible Ecosystem Solution is for everyone with access to a bit of yard, a desire for food security, biodiversity, and a beautiful and resilient community, and for anyone who wants to reclaim humanity's place in a rich, abundant, edible ecosystem.

Evergreen your landscape with the beauty and benefits of conifers

Growing Conifers is a beautifully photographed, comprehensive gardening guide for selecting and cultivating conifers. Coverage includes:

• Conifer taxonomy, classification, and geographic distribution
• Selecting conifers for size, shape, color, and texture
• Best practices for placement and planting of trees, shrubs, and groundcovers in urban and rural gardens
• Growing needs and low-input maintenance
• Building healthy soil, minimizing water stress, and integrated pest management
• Benefits of conifers including habitat, water and air quality, carbon sequestration, aesthetics, and food.

Conifers are often overlooked in gardening and landscaping in favor of deciduous trees and shrubs. Yet conifers come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors and offer tremendous aesthetic and ecological benefits for any garden.

Growing Conifers is an essential, comprehensive resource for gardeners and landscape professionals looking to develop beautiful, sustainable landscapes.

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New Society Publishers is an activist, solutions-oriented publisher focused on publishing books to build a more just and sustainable future. They pride themselves on holding the highest environmental standards of any publisher in North America. In 2002, they committed to printing all their books (including their full color books) on uncoated 100% post-consumer recycled paper, processed chlorine-free, with low-VOC vegetable-based inks. In doing so, the Growing Conifers' print run alone saved 66 fully grown trees, 5300 gallons of water, and 28,000 lbs of greenhouse gases. When you buy New Society Publishers' books, you are part of the solution!

“Distills a lifetime of plant experience into easy-to-follow instruction, giving an amateur like me the confidence to green my home for health.” —Paula Baker-LaPorte, coauthor of Prescriptions for a Healthy House

Some of the most polluted places on earth are where we spend 90% of our time: inside our homes. Science is continually uncovering more effective ways of improving the quality of our environment, and plants—specifically indoor trees and shrubs—are at the top of this list.

Growing trees and shrubs indoors might seem like a monumental challenge, but it’s no different than growing any plants indoors. Written by master gardener DJ Herda, Growing Trees and Shrubs Indoors is a definitive guide on what makes these plants special and all the tips and tricks you need to help them survive and flourish in an indoor environment. It covers how they:

• Rid your environment of airborne pollutants
• Beautify your home
• Help you to live a longer, healthier, happier life.

An explosive introduction into the wellness scene, Growing Trees and Shrubs Indoors is for those with a keen interest in gardening, health, and science, offering an entirely new way of promoting human wellness—by creating beautiful, enjoyable surroundings.

“A fascinating, encyclopedic compendium dealing with the nature and care of trees and shrubs.” —Arnold M. Ludwig, author of King of the Mountain

“Covers everything from watering needs and light requirements to propagation to keeping costs down, all in an effort to help you create a verdant home that has the health benefits of being outside.” —Deanna Duke, author of The Non-Toxic Avenger

“Clearly written and beautifully illustrated. It’s a real eye-opener!” —Phillip Adcock, author of Master Your Brain

A totally new category of plants — as easy to grow as tomatoes, perfect for gardeners

Cannabis prohibition is ending around the world, and there’s a new bud in town — auto-flowering cannabis. As easy to grow as tomatoes, auto-flowering cannabis is the perfect new plant for the home gardener who has limited time and space.

Unlike commercially grown cannabis, auto-flowering cannabis plants are small, container-grown, day-neutral, require no special lights or equipment, and grow incredibly fast – from seed to harvest in as little as seven weeks.

Written by gardening authority Jeff Lowenfels, DIY Auto-flowering Cannabis is a full-color, illustrated guide for everyone wanting to grow their own. It covers:

• The history and benefits of auto-flowering cannabis
• Its origins, chemistry, and growing habits
• Step-by-step growing methods, including tips, tricks, supplies, and seed sourcing
• How to harvest, process, and breed your new plants.

If you are a home gardener or already grow cannabis, you too can learn how to grow this new plant with ease, all while reaping its many benefits, such as harvesting it for medical use, recreational use, or simply as a decorative, sweet-smelling flower to enjoy. If you like to grow tomatoes, you will love growing auto-flowering cannabis.

The author of Grow Create Inspire gives readers “a beautiful synthesis of organic, regenerative, and permaculture practices for an abundant yard anywhere” (Matt Powers, author of Regenerative Soil).

Journey into the good food movement by unleashing the potential of your yard, transforming it into a beautiful and vibrant space that offers a continuous supply of food.

Using dozens of beautiful color photographs and watercolor planting charts, infographics, and landscaping designs, Your Edible Yard is the comprehensive how-to guide you need to turn your yard into a bountiful feast.

It features:

• Practical gardening methods and maintenance from weeding to wintering, including foodscaping, container gardening, and saving seeds
• Permaculture principles including soil building techniques, garden preparation, raised beds, and natural/non-toxic DIY pesticide alternatives
• How to integrate culinary and medicinal herbs, edible flowers, mushrooms, fruits, vegetables, and wild edibles
• Gardening resources: where to go for help, buy seeds, and source supplies on a budget
• Instructions on preserving, fermenting, freezing, drying, and making simple medicines
• General tips, such as how to find loopholes in laws preventing edible front yards

Whether you’re a beginner or experienced gardener in the city, the suburbs, or the country, this manual is the A-Z guide for how to make use of the space you have, highlighting the colorful and abundant array that edible landscapes promise.

“Crystal lays out the path for us to turn our bland yards into the gardens of our dreams, full of healthy food, while saving us money at the grocery store and precious environmental resources. This book has the potential to change the landscaping of our nation and the design of our lives.” —Rob Greenfield, author of Dude Making a Difference

An irreverent romp through the natural science of gardening, with eye-opening insight and practical guidance for getting the most out of your plants.

Curious why caressing your cucumber plants will help them bear more fruit? Or why you should grow oranges from seed even if the fruit is inedible? Or why trees need to sleep and how to help them? Join acclaimed gardener, scientist, and author Lee Reich on a journey through the delights of your garden in this laugh-out-loud treatise on the scientific wonders of plants and soil.

The Ever Curious Gardener includes information on:

• How to maximize both flavor and nutrition in your garden bounty
• Helping plants thrive during drought
• Outwitting weeds by understanding their nature
• Making the best use of compost
• Tips on pruning and orchard care
• Why the dead language of Latin can make you a better gardener.

Build a natural pond for wildlife, beauty, and quiet contemplation

Typical backyard ponds are a complicated mess of pipes, pumps, filters, and nasty chemicals designed to adjust pH and keep algae at bay. Hardly the bucolic, natural ecosystem beloved by dragonflies, frogs, and songbirds.

The antidote is a natural pond, free of hassle, cost, and complexity and designed as a fully functional ecosystem, ideal for biodiversity, swimming, irrigation, and quiet contemplation.

Building Natural Ponds is the first step-by-step guide to designing and building natural ponds that use no pumps, filters, chemicals, or electricity and mimic native ponds in both aesthetics and functionality. Highly illustrated with how-to drawings and photographs, coverage includes:

• Understanding pond ecosystems and natural algae control
• Planning, design, siting, and pond aesthetics
• Step-by-step guidance for construction, plants and fish, and maintenance and trouble shooting
• Scaling up to large ponds, pools, bogs, and rain gardens.

Whether you're a backyard gardener looking to add a small serene natural water feature or a homesteader with visions of a large pond for fish, swimming, and irrigation, Building Natural Ponds is the complete guide to building ponds in tune with nature, where plants, insects, and amphibians thrive in blissful serenity.

Robert Pavlis , a Master Gardener with over 40 years of gardening experience, is owner and developer of Aspen Grove Gardens, a six-acre botanical garden featuring over 2,500 varieties of plants. A well-respected speaker and teacher, Robert has published articles in Mother Earth News , Ontario Gardening magazine, the widely read blog GardenMyths.com, which explodes common gardening myths and gardening information site GardenFundamentals.com.

In a time of climate change and mass extinction, how we garden matters more than ever: "An outstanding and deeply passionate book." —Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals

Plenty of books tell home gardeners and professional landscape designers how to garden sustainably, what plants to use, and what resources to explore. Yet few examine why our urban wildlife gardens matter so much—not just for ourselves, but for the larger human and animal communities.

Our landscapes push aside wildlife and in turn diminish our genetically programmed love for wildness. How can we get ourselves back into balance through gardens, to speak life's language and learn from other species?

Benjamin Vogt addresses why we need a new garden ethic, and why we urgently need wildness in our daily lives—lives sequestered in buildings surrounded by monocultures of lawn and concrete that significantly harm our physical and mental health. He examines the psychological issues around climate change and mass extinction as a way to understand how we are short-circuiting our response to global crises, especially by not growing native plants in our gardens. Simply put, environmentalism is not political; it's social justice for all species marginalized today and for those facing extinction tomorrow. By thinking deeply and honestly about our built landscapes, we can create a compassionate activism that connects us more profoundly to nature and to one another.

Fertilize your garden naturally--a guide to growing your plants in healthy, happy soil

People want to know where their food comes from, who grows it and how it is grown. Interest in permaculture, backyard composting, and gardening in general, is growing. So how does the budding gardener ensure that his soil is healthy and nutrient-rich enough to support all the produce he intends to grow? Here's a hint--think worms! Vermiculture is the healthiest and most cost-effective way to ensure that your soil receives the nourishment that it needs. A simple vermicompost bin can produce the completely natural , nutrient-rich fertilizer that can be used to boost soil health and, in turn, increase your crop yield.

In true Crystal Stevens' fashion, Worms at Work is a practical, easy-to-implement guide to fertilizing your garden naturally. It discusses the vital role worms play in boosting soil health, and the reasons why every gardener should use vermicompost in order to decrease reliance on toxic synthetic fertilizers. Coverage includes:

• Simple designs to build your own vermicompost bin
• Caring for your worms
• Garden applications for your worm castings
• Lesson plans to incorporate vermicomposting into the school science curriculum

Crystal Stevens is the author of Grow Create Inspire and has been co-manager of La Vista CSA Farm for the past 7 years. She teaches regular Vermiculture 101 workshops.

"Your 'one stop shop' for everything from seed to plate . . . This book will leave you . . . ready to launch your own journey to food self-sufficiency." —Lisa Kivirist, author Soil Sisters

Put off by the origin-unknown, not-so-fresh, pesticide-laden herbs at the grocery store? Hungry for delicious high-quality vegetables and looking to have some control over where your food comes from?

Foodie meets novice gardener in this deliciously accessible, easy-to-use guide to planting, growing, harvesting, cooking, and preserving 20+ popular, easy-to-grow vegetables and herbs. Taking the first-time gardener from growing to cooking delicious, nutritious, and affordable meals using these herbs and vegetables, this book is a celebration of food in all its stages.

The Food Lover's Garden guides you through:

• Getting started with easy step-by-step growing instructions from balcony to backyard
• Simple, tasty cooking recipes incorporating each vegetable and herb
• Meal combinations of two or more of the featured herb and vegetable dishes
• Selecting essential kitchen tools and gadgets to maximize the herb and vegetable harvesting
• Canning and pickling recipes for preserving the rest.

From the humble potato to pungent garlic to the beauty of the beet, classic vegetables take a delicious turn with innovative cooking recipes. Truly food for all seasons and palates.

Foodies, novice gardeners, urban homesteaders, and supporters of sustainable living—take back your right to high-quality food with The Food Lover's Garden.

"The crisp photographs, lushly painted illustrations, and delicious text lead the reader from the garden to the kitchen and pantry with anticipation of culinary delight."—Darrell E. Frey, author of Bioshelter Market Garden

The Zen approach to mowing lawns, wacking weeds, harvesting crops, and building modern homesteader abs!

Dreading the weekly law mow? Need to whack the weeds in your orchard? Cringing at the drudgery and incessant blare of the mower? Imagine instead long sweeps of an elegant scythe cutting your grass and pesky weeds in blissful, meditative silence.

That is the power of the "scythe revolution" sweeping North America.

Written by a master of the scythe, professionally trained in Austria, and drawing deeply on research into original German texts, The Scything Handbook brings centuries-old scything techniques into the twent-first century.

Detailed illustrations cover scythe assembly, perfecting the stroke, blade selection, honing, peening, and aftercare, as well as background on how scythes are forged. Also covered are the basics of making hay and mulch by hand, and how to grow and harvest gains at the home and homestead scale for self-sufficiency.

Scything promotes health, flexibility, mind-body connection, and a meditative contemplation of the natural world while producing beautiful lawns and luscious mulch for the modern gardener and homesteader. This is truly an heirloom tool to master.

Join the scythe revolution!

Ian Miller followed a career in music with a degree in Agroecology from UC Santa Cruz. During a two year stint on a biodynamic farm in Austria he learned how to scythe and delved into historic scything texts in German. He has worked for Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa and is developing a twemty-acre scythe-based homestead near Decorah, Iowa, where he grows his own grain for bread making and makes hay by hand.

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!

Create abundance through this unique approach to low-maintenance, high-yield, sustainable food production

A food forest is a productive landscape developed around a mix of trees and perennials. Rooted in permaculture principles, this integrated approach to gardening incorporates a variety of plants such as fruit and nut trees, shrubs, vines, and perennial herbs and vegetables. Food forests can help increase biodiversity, protect valuable habitat for beneficial insects, and promote food security and resilience, all while providing an abundant harvest.

The Food Forest Handbook is a practical manual for the design and management of a home-scale perennial polyculture garden. Simple, straightforward instructions guide the reader through:

Getting started - site assessment and planning Tending the forest garden – maintaining soil health, succession planning, , mulching, pruning and more The fruits of your labor – crop profiles, harvest, storage, nutrition and recipes.

This timely book makes the concept of food forests accessible to everyone. Focusing on the potential of perennial polyculture to enhance local food systems, The Food Forest Handbook shows the reader how to mix and match plants in unique combinations to establish bountiful landscapes and create genuine self-reliance in years to come.

Darrell Frey is the owner and manager of Three Sisters Farm, a five-acre permaculture farm, solar greenhouse and market garden located in Western Pennsylvania. He has been permaculture teacher for thirty years, and is the author of Bioshelter Market Garden: A Permaculture Farm .

Michelle Czolba is co-owner of Pittsburgh Permaculture and co-founded the Hazelwood Food Forest. She has extensive experience in the design and maintenance of perennial polyculture.

Harness the power of permaculture to thrive, not just survive, the great transition from fossil fuels

Caught between climate change and a fossil fuel-driven economy that demands ever more growth, the world faces a great transition—by design or disaster—away from fossil fuels to an alternative renewable energy future.

But what proven tools are available to aid in making a successful, deliberate transition to resilient and sustainable living?

For the first time, the power of permaculture design has been brought to bear on the great transition problem. In the process, acclaimed permaculture teacher and designer Ross Mars has distilled his considerable knowledge into the ultimate permaculture resource for resilient and sustainable living.

The Permaculture Transition Manual is packed with information on permaculture design principles, gardening, soil building, nutrient-dense food growing, including top plant and tree selections for all climatic zones. Coverage extends to rainwater harvesting and irrigation, human waste management, and strategies for rural properties plus a unique focus on applying permaculture to small urban spaces for decluttering and efficient food growing. Also covered are hand tools, food preservation, alternative renewable energy production, low-carbon housing, and a plethora of nearly forgotten and cozy skills such as soap making, basket weaving, seed saving, rope and candle making, and more.

On the desert island of a world in decline this is the one-stop guide to vibrant, resilient and sustainable living you'll want to take with you.

Ross Mars is a scientist with a PhD in Environmental Science, entrepreneur and highly-regarded permaculture teacher and designer. Author of The Basics of Permaculture Design , he manages Candlelight Farm, a permaculture demonstration site and training center in Western Australia.

Community-based initiatives to preserve and protect our food supply

Historically, seed companies were generally small, often family-run businesses. Because they were regionally based, they could focus on varieties well-suited to the local environment. A Pacific Northwest company, for example, would specialize in different cultivars than a company based in the Southeast. However the absorption of these small, independent seed businesses into large multinationals, combined with the advancement of biotechnology resulting in hybrids and GMO seeds, has led to a serious loss of genetic diversity. The public is now at the mercy of the corporations that control the seeds.

In the past few years, gardeners have realized the inherent danger in this situation. A growing movement is striving to preserve and expand our stock of heritage and heirloom varieties through seed saving and sharing opportunities. Seed Libraries is a practical guide to saving seeds through community programs, including:

• Step-by-step instructions for setting up a seed library
• A wealth of ideas to help attract patrons and keep the momentum going
• Profiles of existing libraries and other types of seed saving partnerships

Whoever controls the seeds controls the food supply. By empowering communities to preserve and protect the genetic diversity of their harvest, Seed Libraries is the first step towards reclaiming our self-reliance while enhancing food security and ensuring that the future of food is healthy, vibrant, tasty, and nutritious.

Cindy Conner is a permaculture educator, founder of Homeplace Earth and producer of two popular instructional gardening DVDs. She is also the author of Grow a Sustainable Diet .

Row by row - maximize your harvest and feed your soil by developing a customized plan for your garden

Everyone loves to prepare a meal with ingredients fresh from their own garden. But for most of us, no matter how plentiful our harvest, homegrown produce comprises only a fraction of what we eat. And while many gardening guides will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about individual crops, few tackle the more involved task of helping you maximize the percentage of your diet you grow yourself.

Grow a Sustainable Diet will help you develop a comprehensive, customized garden plan to produce the maximum number of calories and nutrients from any available space. Avoid arriving in August buried under a mountain of kale or zucchini (and not much else) by making thoughtful choices at the planning stage, focusing on dietary staples and key nutrients. Learn how to calculate:

• Which food and cover crops are best for your specific requirements
• How many seeds and plants of each variety you should sow
• What and when to plant, harvest and replant for maximum yield.

Focusing on permaculture principles, biointensive gardening methods, getting food to the table with minimum fossil fuel input, and growing crops that sustain both you and your soil, this complete guide is a must-read for anyone working toward food self-sufficiency for themselves or their family.

“Shows us how to garden like our ancestors gardened . . . with just four basic hand tools, and with little or no electricity or irrigation.” —Carol Deppe, author of The Resilient Gardener

In hard times, the family can be greatly helped by growing a highly productive food garden, requiring little cash outlay or watering. This book shows that any family with access to 3-5,000 sq. ft. of garden land can halve their food costs using a growing system requiring just the odd bucketful of household wastewater, perhaps two hundred dollars’ worth of hand tools.

Gardening When It Counts helps readers rediscover traditional low-input gardening methods to produce healthy food. Currently popular intensive vegetable gardening methods are largely inappropriate to the new circumstances we find ourselves in. Crowded raised beds require high inputs of water, fertility and organic matter, and demand large amounts of human time and effort. Prior to the 1970s, North American home food growing used more land with less labor, with wider plant spacing, with less or no irrigation, and all done with sharp hand tools. But these sustainable systems have been largely forgotten.

Designed for readers with no experience and applicable to most areas in the English-speaking world except the tropics and hot deserts, Gardening When It Counts is inspiring increasing numbers of North Americans to achieve some measure of backyard food self-sufficiency.

“Delightfully informative and abundantly rich with humor and grandfatherly wisdom. A must-read for anyone wanting a feast off the land of their own making.” —Elaine Smitha, host of the “Evolving Ideas” cable talk show and author of If You Make the Rules, How Come You’re Not Boss?

Dive into home aquaponics with this definitive do-it-yourself guide

Aquaponics is a revolutionary system for growing plants by fertilizing them with the waste water from fish in a sustainable closed system. A combination of the best of aquaculture and hydroponics, aquaponic gardening is an amazingly productive way to grow organic vegetables, greens, herbs and fruits, while providing the added benefits of fresh fish as a safe, healthy source of protein. On a larger scale, it is a key solution to mitigating food insecurity, climate change, groundwater pollution and the impacts of overfishing on our oceans.

Aquaponic Gardening is the definitive do-it-yourself home manual, focused on giving you all the tools you need to create your own aquaponic system and enjoy healthy, safe, fresh and delicious food all year round. Starting with an overview of the theory, benefits and potential of aquaponics, the book goes on to explain:

• System location considerations and hardware components
• The living elements — fish, plants, bacteria, and worms
• Putting it all together — starting and maintaining a healthy system.

Aquaponics systems are completely organic. They are four to six times more productive and use 90 percent less water than conventional gardens. Other advantages include no weeds, fewer pests, and no watering, fertilizing, bending, digging, or heavy lifting – in fact, there really is no down side! Anyone interested in taking the next step towards self-sufficiency will be fascinated by this practical, accessible and well-illustrated guide.

How home gardeners with limited time and garden space can reclaim the joy and independence of seed saving

Beginning Seed Saving for the Home Gardener explores how seed saving is not only easier than we think, but that it is essential for vibrant, independent, and bountiful gardens.

Many home gardeners refuse to eat a grocery store tomato, but routinely obtain seeds commercially, sometimes from thousands of miles away. And while seed saving can appear mysterious and intimidating, even home gardeners with limited time and space can experience the joy and independence it brings, freeing them from industry and the annual commercial seed order.

• Why seed saving belongs in the home garden
• Principles of vegetative and sexual reproduction
• Easy inbreeding plants, including legumes, lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers
• Plants with a few more challenges, including squash, spinach, onions, and parsley
• Brief discussion of more difficult crops, including corn, carrots, and cabbage.

Written by a home seed saver for the home seed saver, Beginning Seed Saving for the Home Gardener is a comprehensive guide for those who want to reclaim our seed heritage, highlighting the importance of saving seeds for you, your neighbors, and most importantly, subsequent generations.