Contains illustrated, step-by-step instructions for thirty-nine building projects for vegetable gardens, including a classic compost bin, a tool rack, potting bench, berry box, solar dryer, picnic table, garden swing, and flower press.
Gardeners, small farmers, and outdoor living enthusiasts will love this compilation of 76 rustic DIY projects. From plant supports and clotheslines to a chicken coop, a greenhouse, and a root cellar with storage bins, most of the projects are suitable for complete novices, and all use just basic tools and easy-to-find materials. You’ll find techniques to build whatever your outdoor world is missing, with additional tips to live sustainably, happily, and independently. Also available in this series: The Backyard Homestead, The Backyard Homestead Seasonal Planner, The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals, and The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How.
This book is ideal for beginners, improvers and those serious about growing tasty, healthy organic fruit and vegetables. It will empower readers to grow food for a family, and help work out how to get the best results. Many books give sowing and growing instructions for a multitude of crops, but few give space to the techniques and tips that make gardening easier and that help anyone to grow healthy, sustainable food. Some of the techniques are developed from Joyce’s own trials and observations; others are classic techniques that are still useful now. With a bit more detail, and a step-by-step project, a technique becomes much easier to follow and understand. There’s something here for everyone: whether you grow in a small back yard and want to know how to raise salad in buckets, or if you have a large allotment where you want to improve pollination, or make your own liquid feeds. The book makes several promises to its readers. Firstly, by following its advice you will grow great fruit and vegetables. Next, the knowledge you gain will save you time as well as money. Third, you'll enjoy the gardening journey and the discoveries made along the way. Fourth, you'll find greener and cleaner ways of doing things, and you'll improve your skills, methods and habits. Find out how to rotate your vegetables so they stay healthy and well-fed, to preserve choice crops for the freshest taste, to improve the soil organically and sustainably, and to produce home made fertiliser from the leaves of your comfrey crop.
“What better way to begin to explore the natural world than to experience the magic and beauty of a family garden.” —Arden Bucklin-Sporer, author of How to Grow a School Garden Many gardeners find that once they have children gardening goes the way of late-night dinner parties and Sunday morning sleep-ins. Raising kids and maintaining a garden can be a juggling act, leaving the family garden forgotten and neglected. But kids can make great gardening companions, and the benefits of including them are impossible to ignore. Gardening gets kids outdoors and away from television and video games, increases their connection to plants and animals, and helps build enthusiasm for fresh fruits and vegetables. Their involvement becomes the real harvest of a family garden. In The Book of Gardening Projects for Kids, Whitney Cohen and John Fisher draw on years of experience in the Life Lab Garden Classroom and gardening with their own children to teach parents how to integrate the garden into their family life, no matter its scope or scale. The book features simple, practical gardening advice, including how to design a play-friendly garden, ideas for fun-filled theme gardens, and how to cook and preserve the garden's bounty. 101 engaging, family-friendly garden activities are also featured, from making Crunch-n-Munch Vegetable Beds and Muddy Miniature Masterpieces to harvesting berries for Fresh Fruity Pops.
Forget the 100-mile eat-local diet; try the 300-square-foot-diet &— grow squash on the windowsill, flowers in the planter box, or corn in a parking strip. Apartment Gardening details how to start a garden in the heart of the city. From building a window box to planting seeds in jars on the counter, every space is plantable, and this book reveals that the DIY future is now by providing hands-on, accessible advice. Amy Pennington's friendly voice paired with Kate Bingham-Burt's crafty illustrations make greener living an accessible reality, even if readers have only a few hundred square feet and two windowsills. Save money by planting the same things available at the grocery store, and create an eccentric garden right in the heart of any living space.
“Gardentopia is that rare marriage of the art of landscaping and the technical knowledge of how to compose a landscape—boiled down to readily understood and easily executed actions. This book puts you in the driver’s seat and shows you how to chart the course to your own personal garden utopia.” - Margie Grace, Grace Design Associates Any backyard has the potential to refresh and inspire if you know what to do. Jan Johnsen’s new book, Gardentopia: Design Basics for Creating Beautiful Outdoor Spaces, will delight all garden lovers with over 130 lushly illustrated landscape design and planting suggestions. Ms. Johnsen is an admired designer and popular speaker whose hands-on approach to “co-creating with nature” will have you saying, “I can do that!’ This info-packed, sumptuous book offers individual tips for enhancing any size landscape using ‘real world’ solutions. The suggestions are grouped into five categories that include Garden Design and Artful Accents, Walls, Patios, and Steps and Plants and Planting, among others. Whether you are an experienced gardener or a landscaping novice, Gardentopia will inspire you with tips such as ‘Soften a Corner”, “Paint it Black”, and “Hide and Reveal”.
A new edition of the classic gardening handbook details a simple yet highly effective gardening system, based on a grid of one-foot by one-foot squares, that produces big yields with less space and with less work than with conventional row gardens. Reissue. 30,000 first printing.
A step-by-step guide that gives any gardener all the information needed to make garden furnishings that are both simple and beautiful. This book includes 50 complete plans for trellises, raised beds, planters, window boxes, and just about any imaginable project you can make to train and display plants in your garden and around your home. Featured projects are created using a host of easily found materials, including wood, metal, hypertufa, upcycled barrels, clay pots, sticks, latticework, copper tubing, re-rod, wire, landscape timbers, retaining wall block, and natural stone. Each plan includes photographs, a scaled plan drawing, cutting and shopping lists, and thorough step-by-step instructions.
Lots of fun, and packed full of all the information you'll need, this colourful guide is for anyone interested in growing their own food. Fabian Capomolla and Mat Pember run a successful business installing edible gardens: in polystyrene boxes on balconies, in crates you can put anywhere in your backyard, or by creating no-dig, raised garden beds. After years of helping clients set up spaces to grow their own fruit and vegetables they believe anyone can create their own little edible garden, in most any area. And in this easy-to-use guide they show you how simple it is! Fundamentals such as Soil, Climate, Watering, Composting, Worm Farms, Saving and Sowing Seeds, and Raised Garden Beds and Crates are all discussed comprehensively - each with a fully illustrated step-by-step activity to help you create your own little veggie patch. The complete A-Z of Edible Plants gives you vital information on more than 40 vegetables (and fruit trees), including detailed planting information, ongoing maintenance advice, tips on best companions and when to harvest. And the family activities scattered throughout the book will get the kids involved too, whether it's Making a Scarecrow, Building a Spud Tower or Growing Beans in a Bean Can. Shortlisted for the ABIA Illustrated Book of the Year This is a specially formatted fixed layout ebook that retains the look and feel of the print book.
Gardening Your Front Yard is an active, inspiring resource that shows you how to treat your front yard like a backyard without sacrificing beauty, from choosing the right plants to building front patios and walkways. With her unique combination of DIY/building savvy and gardening expertise, author Tara Nolan (Raised Bed Revolution) weaves you past the main pitfalls you may encounter when trying to fit a garden or gardens between your home and the street. This beautiful and comprehensive hardcover book shows how to accomplish several hardscape projects, such as building front patios, borders, edging, and walkways, as well as making your own raised beds, planting containers, trellises, rose arbors, privacy screens, and more—all custom-designed for the rigors of front-yard gardening. Gardening Your Front Yard is a garden book in every sense of the word, however. Choosing the right plants is even more important when you are dealing with a small, highly visible area with less than ideal growing conditions—all common traits of most front yards. You will find advice on training vines up brickwork and planting around foundation walls, planting boulevards/hell strips, and you’ll even take a trip into the side yard. Shade gardens, privacy screening, and security dos and don'ts are covered, plus how to intermingle edibles and landscape plants, cactus and succulent gardens, birdbaths, and much, much more. With the sage advice and step-by-step projects of this comprehensive guide, convert your front yard from a bland grasscape to a vital living space.