Make the most of your vegetable garden with Brett Markham, author Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on ¼ Acre. This comprehensive new handbook covers everything you need to know about maximizing and harvesting the best vegetables you can possibly produce. With each chapter addressing a different vegetable, you’ll learn tips and tricks about varietal selection, nutritional merits, how to begin, special hints for growing, and how to deal with particular pests and diseases, plus one or two creative recipes to get you started. With over 150 of Markham’s own photographs guiding you every step of the way, you’ll find this an honest, straightforward guide and a must-have for any vegetable mini-farmer.
Maximize your vegetable output! Increase your self-sufficiency! And be kind to the ecosystem! Brett L Markham, author of Mimi Farming: Self Suffering on 1/4 Acre, is here to help you get started in his new handbook that covers everything you need to know about composting. Whether it's your mini farm or flower garden that need nourishment, Markham explains how to compost just about anything you can grow - and reminds us that developing your own composting practices not only can be fun but also saves money and encourages self-sufficiency. Learn to make a backyard compost structure with Brett's easy-to-follow directions and learn the science behind how your food scraps become food for plants. In the Mini Farming Guide to Composting you'll find easy instructions that make composting simple.
Bestselling author Brett Markham’s new handbook gives us the mini farming basics along with in-depth tips on vegetable gardening, fermenting, composting, and self-sufficiency in a handy new format and design. Includes: • Soil management and making your own fertilizer • Crop rotation and cover cropping • Composting • Seed starting and timing/planning • Raised beds and pest management • Pvc trellising and planting spacers • Raising chickens, making your own chicken plucker, and butchering • Growing fruit/nut trees and vines • Food preservation (canning and freezing) • Fermenting wine, vinegar and cheese With the full color photographs that made the original Mini Farming so popular, and step by step drawings, projects, graphs, and tables, you’ll have everything you need for your new or established mini farm at your fingertips. So dive in a learn how to begin and cultivate your own mini farm on less than a quarter acre.
Make the most of your vegetable garden with Brett Markham, author Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on ¼ Acre. This comprehensive new handbook covers everything you need to know about maximizing and harvesting the best vegetables you can possibly produce. With each chapter addressing a different vegetable, you’ll learn tips and tricks about varietal selection, nutritional merits, how to begin, special hints for growing, and how to deal with particular pests and diseases, plus one or two creative recipes to get you started. With over 150 of Markham’s own photographs guiding you every step of the way, you’ll find this an honest, straightforward guide and a must-have for any vegetable mini-farmer.
California abounds with edible selections to grow in the diverse conditions of the state. California Fruit & Vegetable Gardening addresses the critical elements of climate, soil, sun, and water that affects growing success. More than sixty fruits, vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers are highlighted, and helpful charts and graphs for planning and planting the garden are included.
At Clay Bottom Farm, author Ben Hartman and staff practice kaizen, or continuous improvement, cutting out more waste--of time, labor, space, money, and more--every year and aligning their organic production more tightly with customer demand. Applied alongside other lean principles originally developed by the Japanese auto industry, the end result has been increased profits and less work. In this field-guide companion to his award-winning first book, The Lean Farm, Hartman shows market vegetable growers in even more detail how Clay Bottom Farm implements lean thinking in every area of their work, including using kanbans, or replacement signals, to maximize land use; germination chambers to reduce defect waste; and right-sized machinery to save money and labor and increase efficiency. From finding land and assessing infrastructure needs to selling perfect produce at the farmers market, The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables digs deeper into specific, tested methods for waste-free farming that not only help farmers become more successful but make the work more enjoyable. These methods include: Using Japanese paper pot transplanters Building your own germinating chambers Leaning up your greenhouse Making and applying simple composts Using lean techniques for pest and weed control Creating Heijunka, or load-leveling calendars for efficient planning Farming is not static, and improvement requires constant change. The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables offers strategies for farmers to stay flexible and profitable even in the face of changing weather and markets. Much more than a simple exercise in cost-cutting, lean farming is about growing better, not cheaper, food--the food your customers want.
For years, millions of readers have turned to Mother Earth News for trusted advice on growing vegetables and fruits. This book harnesses decades of wisdom, bringing together all the indispensable techniques, complete growing guides, helpful tips, useful photographs, and inspiring illustrations for which Mother Earth News is known. Plan for self-sufficiency with a garden focused on edibles! Choose from a variety of plans for kitchen gardens, browse strategies for small-space gardening, or up your gardening game by installing and maintaining permanent beds. Soil concerns? Get the dirt on building fertile soil, soil pH, compost, vermicompost, and even biochar. Longtime gardeners are sure to find something new, from vertical gardening to plans for extending the seasons. That's right: garden through the seasons with dozens of vegetable- and fruit-specific growing guides. Start with your favorites or learn to love something new (Asian greens or fruit trees, anyone?). In slower-growing or more challenging seasons, Mother Earth News is there to help. Whether you need to know the best vegetables to grow in the shade or the top gardening tips for soil health in winter, this book has it all.--COVER.
Even in winter’s coldest months you can harvest fresh, delicious produce. Drawing on insights gained from years of growing vegetables in Nova Scotia, Niki Jabbour shares her simple techniques for gardening throughout the year. Learn how to select the best varieties for each season, the art of succession planting, and how to build inexpensive structures to protect your crops from the elements. No matter where you live, you’ll soon enjoy a thriving vegetable garden year-round.
Grow Something to Eat Year-Round is a light, bright new gardening title with a big promise-it sets out to deliver home-grown food from the plot, pot, freezer, or pantry every day of the year. That's easy enough in the summer, when kitchen gardens and allotments are awash with peas, beans, leafy greens, and soft fruit, but not so straightforward in midwinter, when the ground may be frozen solid. Success lies in the planning, and this book is written as a continuum, with sowing, planting, and growing advice for each month to keep the crops coming. There are also features on harvesting, storing, freezing, and preserving crops to enjoy later in the winter months and the early-spring gap when little is ready to harvest. Advice is given on winter polytunnel and greenhouse crops, and indoor seed sprouting, citrus plants, and herbs in pots to help bring fresh tastes to the table in winter. The result is a year-round manual for productive kitchen gardeners, with plenty of growing projects for raised beds and pots to allow smaller-scale gardeners to take part.
