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. Coverage includes: 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.
Work in partnership with nature to nurture your soil for healthy plants and bumper crops - without back-breaking effort! Have you ever wondered how to transform a weedy plot into a thriving vegetable garden? Well now you can! By following the simple steps set out in No Dig, in just a few short hours you can revolutionize your vegetable patch with plants already in the ground from day one! Charles Dowding is on a mission to teach that there is no need to dig over the soil, but by minimizing intervention you are actively boosting soil productivity. In fact, The less you dig, the more you preserve soil structure and nurture the fungal mycelium vital to the health of all plants. This is the essence of the No Dig system that Charles Dowding has perfected over a lifetime growing vegetables. So put your gardening gloves on and get ready to discover: - Guides and calendars of when to sow, grow, and harvest. - Inspiring information and first-hand guidance from the author - “Delve deeper” features look in-depth at the No Dig system and the facts and research that back it up. - The essential role of compost and how to make your own at home. - The importance of soil management, soil ecology, and soil health. Now one of the hottest topics in environmental science, this "wood-wide web" has informed Charles's practice for decades, and he's proven it isn't just trees that benefit - every gardener can harness the power of the wood-wide web. Featuring newly- commissioned step-by-step photography of all stages of growing vegetables and herbs, and all elements of No Dig growing, shot at Charles’s beautiful market garden in Somerset, you too will be able to grow more veg with less time and effort, and in harmony with nature - so join the No Dig revolution today! A must-have volume for followers of Charles Dowding who fervently believe in his approach to low input, high yield gardening, as well as gardeners who want to garden more lightly on the earth, with environmentally friendly techniques like organic and No Dig.
This guide provides valuable information and support for anyone struggling to create a garden from this challenging soil, which can so easily become waterlogged in winter and baked dry in summer. The author guides the reader through the basics of cultivation before going on to look at more detail at the plants that will flourish on clay soil.
Wild Suburbia guides us through the process of transforming a traditional, high water-use yard into a peaceful habitat garden abounding with native plants. Author Barbara Eisenstein emphasizes that gardening is a rewarding activity rather than a finished product, from removing lawns and getting in touch with a yard's climate to choosing plants and helping them thrive. Supplementing her advice with personal stories from her decades of experience working with native plants, Eisenstein illuminates the joys of tending a native garden--and assures us that any challenges, from managing pests to disapproving neighbors, should never sap the enjoyment out of a pleasurable and fulfilling hobby. For plant lovers curious about their own ecosystems, Wild Suburbia offers a style of gardening that nurtures biodiversity, deepens connection to place, and encourages new and seasoned gardeners alike to experiment and have fun.
Information on gardening on limestone, alkaline clay, and caliche soils with suggestions for lime-loving and heat-tolerant trees, shrubs, roses, annuals, and gardens that will attract wildlife.
Valdiserri's observations about the blindness of fear and prejudice surrounding AIDS in the United States need to be heard everywhere. Deeply aware of the worth of each life sacrificed, he writes with conviction about the emptiness of viewing illness as a failure of individual responsibility, about the necessity that AIDS be perceived as 'our' disease rather than 'theirs, ' and about the validity and the power of rage.
Dry summer, wet winter climate? This is your must have plant guide. Selecting plants suited to your climate is the first step toward a thriving, largely self-sustaining garden that connects with and supports the natural world. With gentle and compelling text and stunning photographs of plants in garden settings, Gardening in Summer-Dry Climates by Nora Harlow and Saxon Holt is a guide to native and climate-adapted plants for summer-dry, winter-wet climates of North America's Pacific coast. Knowing what these climates share and how and why they differ, you can choose to make gardens that maintain and expand local and regional biodiversity, take little from the earth that is not returned, and welcome and accommodate the presence of wildlife. With global warming, it is now even more critical that we garden in tune with climate.
Part-gardening bible, part-call to action, award-winning authors Kathleen Norris Brenzel and Mary-Kate Mackey present advice, tips, and how-tos for gardeners seeking better health, increased happiness, and stronger communities A gardening book for the times we live in, The Healthy Garden combines practical advice for starting a garden with a rare view into how home gardening builds resilience, personal happiness, and community strength. Filled with savvy tips from dozens of experts, each chapter celebrates the many ways gardening works to build health. These professionals and passionate plant people offer lively insights into landscape design, soil science, nutrition, and plant choices. With its can-do, Victory Garden approach, The Healthy Garden is essential for anyone seeking to live closer to nature in their own backyards.
Bringing dynamic back into vegetable gardening, seed saving, and breeding of plants and animals. A joyful and accessible approach to growing tasty, productive, and resiliently diverse food. Advocating a return to traditional regenerative horticulture methods of gardening and farming, while minimizing the use of current agricultural methods. Focusing on communities, and local varieties of crops and animals. Biodiversity and cross pollination allow selection for crops that thrive under ever changing conditions, while lessening the need for costly inputs, like poisons, fertilizer, materials, and labor. Less labor means more time for friends, family, music, dancing, or whatever it is that brings you joy. The book includes detailed suggestions for developing a more reliable food system using local crop varieties. The techniques taught in this book can bring self-reliance and sustainable food security to small scale back yard beginner gardens, large scale farms, and permaculture food forests. A chapter is devoted to pollination and the benefits of encouraging cross-pollination. Chapters are devoted to breeding tomatoes, corn, beans, squash, and grains. Tips on growing many other vegetable varieties are included. The appendix includes a summary of which vegetables and grains are easiest to work with. A chapter is devoted to extending the principles of local gardening to breeding chickens, honeybees, mushrooms, and trees. Reviews "Landrace Gardening is brilliant." Dan Barber, Blue Hill At Stone Barns, and Row 7 Seed Company "Landrace Gardening gives us a roadmap to the kind of joyful food security that we need for healing many of the most important wounds of our time." Jason Padvorac "The best part is that everything in this book is adaptable for any gardener." Jere Gettle- Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. "The western sustainable agriculture movement has long needed its own version of the 'One Straw Revolution'. Joseph Lofthouse provides just that. " Alan Bishop, Alchemist at Spirits Of French Lick "Awesome to see this process beginning to work in just one year." Josh Jamison, HEART Village "Inspiring. Empowering. VERY important work." Stephanie Genus "This book begins to spark the imagination to the possibilities of what we have lost and how to begin to resurrect the return to something even better." Karin Kee "Man is way too eager to take extra burdens upon his shoulders, babying and pampering the plant when it should be bred to do all the work itself. Landrace Gardening makes important progress in that direction." Dave Blanchard "No Homestead Or Garden Is Complete Without This Book!" EmsyDoodle "If one can learn to take a more free approach to gardening and seed saving you will experience much of the joy Joseph receives when he gardens." Andrew Barney
Explains how to use a system of layered mulch materials, including newspaper, leaves, and grass clippings, to provide a nutrient-rich base for healthy gardens and robust flowers, herbs, vegetables, and fruits
