"Vera's 15 years of experience as an organic no-dig gardener demonstrates that gardens can be beautiful and productive. She provides a vast amount of accessible information with gorgeous photographs to show you how to grow vegetables, herbs and flowers all year. Make your fragrant and abundant veggie patch centre stage by incorporating cut flowers with herbs, brassicas, and peas. Or plant a potager garden! The many examples of polycultures will help you create edible paradises everywhere, large or small, on patios, balconies, windowsills, allotments, community and school gardens, front and back gardens, and anywhere else you can grow." -- page 4 of cover.
“A Way to Garden prods us toward that ineffable place where we feel we belong; it’s a guide to living both in and out of the garden.” —The New York Times Book Review For Margaret Roach, gardening is more than a hobby, it’s a calling. Her unique approach, which she calls “horticultural how-to and woo-woo,” is a blend of vital information you need to memorize and intuitive steps you must simply feel and surrender to. In A Way to Garden, Roach imparts decades of garden wisdom on seasonal gardening, ornamental plants, vegetable gardening, design, gardening for wildlife, organic practices, and much more. She also challenges gardeners to think beyond their garden borders and to consider the ways gardening can enrich the world. Brimming with beautiful photographs of Roach’s own garden, A Way to Garden is practical, inspiring, and a must-have for every passionate gardener.
How do you make a garden grow? In this playful companion to the popular Tap the Magic Tree and Touch the Brightest Star, you will see how tiny seeds bloom into beautiful flowers. And by tapping, clapping, waving, and more, young readers can join in the action! Christie Matheson masterfully combines the wonder of the natural world with the interactivity of reading. Beautiful collage-and-watercolor art follows the seed through its entire life cycle, as it grows into a zinnia in a garden full of buzzing bees, curious hummingbirds, and colorful butterflies. Children engage with the book as they wiggle their fingers to water the seeds, clap to make the sun shine after rain, and shoo away a hungry snail. Appropriate for even the youngest child, Plant the Tiny Seed is never the same book twice—no matter how many times you read it! And for curious young nature lovers, a page of facts about seeds, flowers, and the insects and animals featured in the book is included at the end. Fans of Press Here, Eric Carle, and Lois Ehlert will find their next favorite book in Plant the Tiny Seed.
Companion planting has a long history of use by gardeners, but the explanation of why it works has been filled with folklore and conjecture. Plant Partners delivers a research-based rationale for this ever-popular growing technique, offering dozens of ways you can use scientifically tested plant partnerships to benefit your whole garden. Through an enhanced understanding of how plants interact with and influence each other, this guide suggests specific plant combinations that improve soil health and weed control, decrease pest damage, and increase biodiversity, resulting in real and measurable impacts in the garden.
Much more than a how-to flower gardening book (though you will learn how to), Garden Maker is for those who want to grow beautiful things that reflect the glory and majesty of the Creator and bring a little bit of heaven down to earth. From the beginning God made a garden, so it’s no surprise if you feel closer to Him with your hands in the dirt and the sun on your back. There is something profoundly soul-satisfying about creating and cultivating beauty. If you long to experience more splendor in your life, you can grow some of your very own. Join kindred spirit Christie Purifoy as she helps you unearth the simple delights of growing garden flowers, from preparing and planning to creating beautiful bouquets and other arrangements. Lavishly photographed and lovingly written, this all-seasons guide invites you to discover the innumerable joys and wonders to be found in the flower garden.
Complete instructions for growing over 190 vegetables, herbs, berries, fruits, nuts, and tropical fruits in the ground and in containers. Plans and design ideas for kitchen gardens of all sizes, as well as easy-to-follow guidelines for composting, building raised beds, and more. Growing season details for all regions of the West, including Alaska and Hawaii. Timely tips from edibles experts around the West-British Columbia to New Mexico. More than 300 pages of color photographs, practical advice, and inspiration from the editors of Sunset magazine, the West's authority on gardening.
Elevate your backyard veggie patch into a work of sophisticated and stylish art. Kitchen Garden Revival guides you through every aspect of kitchen gardening, from design to harvesting—with expert advice from author Nicole Johnsey Burke, founder of Rooted Garden, one of the leading US culinary landscape companies, and Gardenary, an online kitchen gardening education and resource company. Participating in the grow-your-own movement is important to both reduce your food miles and control what makes it onto your family’s table. If you’ve hesitated to take part because installing and caring for a traditional vegetable garden doesn’t seem to suit your life or your sense of style, Kitchen Garden Revival is here to show you there’s a better, more beautiful way to grow food. Instead of row after row of cabbage and pepper plants plunked into a patch of dirt in the middle of the yard, kitchen gardens are attractive, highly tailored food gardens consisting of easy-to-maintain raised planting beds laid out in an organized geometric pattern. Offering both four seasons of ornamental interest and plenty of fresh, homegrown fruits, vegetables, and herbs, kitchen gardens are the way to grow your own food in a fashionable, modern, and practical way. Kitchen gardens were once popular features of the European and early American landscape, but they fell out of favor when our agrarian roots were displaced by industrialization. With this accessible and inspirational guide, Nicole aims to return the kitchen garden to its rightful place just outside of every backdoor. Learn the art of kitchen gardening as you discover: What characteristics all kitchen gardens have in common How to design and install gorgeous kitchen garden beds using metal, wood, or stone Why raised beds mean reduced maintenance What crops are best for your kitchen garden A planting, tending, and harvesting plan developed by a pro Season-by-season growing guides It's time to join the Kitchen Garden Revival and start growing your own delicious, organic food.
Huw Richards set himself a challenge - to grow his own fruit and veg for free for a year. He succeeded and now wants to help you do the same. Can't afford a raised bed? Try repurposing an old wooden pallet. Don't want to spend money on buying plants? Look in the fridge and your kitchen cupboards for food that you can plant. Need a particular tool? Barter or borrow from a neighbor. Don't have a garden? See if someone in your area has an untended patch you can turn into a well-loved veg plot. Huw's Grow Food for Free has the inspiration and practical advice you need to start, grow, love, propagate and harvest your own fruit and veg organically and at zero-cost. This is real sustainability!
Brie Arthur's Gardening with Grains is a passion project that grew from a light-bulb, aha moment - that's when she realized we've been missing a dynamic piece of the burgeoning foodscape movement. We've learned the joys of interplanting our blooming flowerbeds with veggies, herbs and berries - but what about the grains, those ancient and beautiful grasses that practically gave us civilization: wheat, barley and oats for winter; corn, rice and sorghum for the warm season. Gardening with Grains is a pioneering book, a companion to Arthur's The Foodscape Revolution. Richly illustrated, it combines history, environmental benefits and personal stories with simple how-to's for planning, growing and harvesting 6 important grains. Includes 12 chef-tested recipes for inspiration. This is a design book, too, with planting patterns and suggestions, no matter how much or how little garden space you have. These grains are ornamental grasses, and they show off beautifully in any setting. The grouped plantings reveal the grains' varied colors and textures, interplanted with flowers like poppies, larkspur, snapdragons, nigella, zinnias, sunflowers and marigolds. Not only flowers, but salad greens and other decorative veggies play well with grains. Gardening with Grains is foodscaping for fun, beauty and bragging rights. . . and maybe even some homemade beer and bread.(Genus illustrations and garden plans by landscape architect and botanical artist Preston Montague.)
Plant selection and garden style are deeply influenced by where we are gardening. To successfully grow a range of beautiful ornamental plants, every gardener has to know the specifics of the region’s climate, soil, and geography. Growing the Midwest Garden, by Edward Lyon, the director of Wisconsin’s Allen Centennial Gardens, offers an enthusiastic and comprehensive approach to ornamental gardening in the heartland. This guide features in-depth chapters on climate, soil, pests, and maintenance, along with plant profiles of the best perennials, annuals, trees, shrubs, and bulbs.