Showing titles in Gardening & Horticulture

We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life, supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and the humble peppercorn drove the Age of Discovery, so did coffee beans help fuel the Enlightenment and cottonseed help spark the Industrial Revolution. And from the fall of Rome to the Arab Spring, the fate of nations continues to hinge on the seeds of a Middle Eastern grass known as wheat.

Whether your garden is big or small or you are a complete beginner, building raised beds can help you achieve the perfect garden. It offers many benefits over traditional gardening, including—improving the drainage, being able to manage the quality of the soil, extending your growing season, along with many more. And you don’t need to be an expert to build and manage raised beds.

People have been living off the land for millions of years, and in recent times, self-sustainability has become a hot topic. Rising costs in supermarkets and the lack of true organic produce have led to more and more people turning to their own gardens to provide some of their food. The only way to eat truly organic and healthy produce is to grow your own, and over the years, I've made the mistakes and learned from them so that I can pass my knowledge on to you. Make no mistake; gardening is not easy, but it is one of the most rewarding things you can do for a healthier life.

The garden has always been a place of peace and perseverance, of nurture and reward. Using contemporary neuroscience, psychoanalysis and compelling real-life stories, The Well Gardened Mind investigates the remarkable effects of nature on our health and well-being. From the science of the brain’s own ‘gardener cells’ to the beauty of flowers and the grounding effects of working with nature’s rhythms of growth, decay and regeneration, Stuart-Smith provides a new perspective on the power of gardening. Prisoners given the chance to grow plants are less likely to reoffend.

The universal appeal of Laura Ingalls Wilder springs from a life lived in partnership with the land, on farms she and her family settled across the Northeast and Midwest. In this revealing exploration of Wilder's deep connection with the natural world, Marta McDowell follows the wagon trail of the beloved Little House series. You'll learn details about Wilder's life and inspirations, pinpoint the Ingalls and Wilder homestead claims on authentic archival maps, and learn to grow the plants and vegetables featured in the series. Excerpts from Wilder's books, letters, and diaries bring to light her profound appreciation for the landscapes at the heart of her world.

In Spring Rain, writer and gardener, Marc Hamer, now in his 60s, shares his path to contentment from difficult beginnings. Through the prism of family gardens, he reflects on how we reconcile our childhoods with where we end up as adults. Growing up in a violent home, as a young boy, Hamer found solace and safety in his small back garden. In particular, in its shed, where he stumbled across an incomplete set of old encylopaedias. These books, and observing the plants and insects in his private kingdom, began his lifelong love of learning and openness to the world.

This handbook has been written for people new to container gardening and those looking to improve their current garden space. If you or someone you know has a small space, patio or balcony, this handbook will improve both their garden and personal well-being.

The new edition of Gardening Basics for Dummies grounds you thoroughly in the fundamentals of soil, flowers, trees, and lawns - and helps you get to know the names of what you're planting along the way. In a friendly, straightforward style, professional horticulturist Steven A. Frowine shows you how to start growing your expertise - from planning out your own mini-Eden and planting your first annuals, bulbs, and perennials through to laying the perfect lawn, raising tasty crops, and even introducing fish to your landscape!

There's a lot of gardening advice out there. But none that invites you to think about how to be while you're in your garden. With increasingly busy lives, yet another list of chores seems like the last thing we need when it comes to our own practice of self-care and relaxation. After all, aren't these the things we wanted to escape to the garden for in the first place?

Growing up in an ex-mining town in Nottinghamshire, Arthur Parkinson never wanted a dog, or a cat, or a pony - just hens. As a kid, he was known as 'chicken boy', a taunt Arthur now proudly reclaims with his crested coterie that includes countless hens, from Sheila the white Silkie to Clarissa the champagne-coloured Buff Cochin. A personal and humorous memoir of Arthur's life amongst his hens, this is an invitation to discover the joy that is only possible in the company of these intriguing creatures.

When Rosanne and her husband left city life for the Cornwall idyll they knew little of farming, the seasons and milking, but over time they found their way, rising to each new challenge and embracing all that the land gave them. Growing Goats and Girls lovingly and invitingly charts the rural, hardworking and joyfully haphazard lives of Rosanne and her husband as they escape London to live off the land.

Call it "Zen and the Art of Farming" or a "Little Green Book", Masanobu Fukuoka's manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book "is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical."

Tired of weeding, labor, and battling pests? Dreaming of a low-maintenance, abundant garden? Discover easy permaculture strategies to simplify gardening for beginners and busy individuals.

A Fenland Garden is the story of the creation of a garden in a complex and fragile English landscape—the Fens of southern Lincolnshire—by a writer who has a very particular relationship with landscape and the soil, thanks to his distinguished career as an archaeologist and discoverer of some of England's earliest field systems. It describes the imagining, planning and building of a garden in an unfamiliar and sometimes hostile place, and the challenges, setbacks and joys these processes entail.

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. 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.

One Garden Against the World is a call to action for all of us – gardeners, communities and individuals – to do more for wildlife and more for the climate. Climate change and biodiversity loss go hand in hand, but if we work together, it’s never too late to make a difference.

Compared to Charles' other books, this is more about no dig, eliminating weeds, garden layout, compost making, and using compost. There is also a history of no-dig vegetable gardening in the last 100 years. I want listeners to understand the context and the reasons why no dig has not been much valued until recently, and why it is now. This audiobook has 18 sections, covering the key methods and wonderful results of no dig, from starting with weeds to sowing and planting straightaway, and cropping soon after.

Christo Lloyd was recognised as one of the foremost gardeners and garden writers of the 20th century. Here, for the first time, is the definitive collection of his best, most informative, and so often amusing garden writing. Christo on gardening: "ours, in its humble way, is an art as well as a craft. At the same time it keeps us in touch with the earth, the seasons, and with that complex of interrelated forces both animate and inanimate which we call nature. It is a humanising occupation."

In a world overwhelmed by pharmaceutical solutions, Barbara O'Neill's Natural Remedies: A Comprehensive Guide to Holistic Healing and Wellness offers a refreshing approach to health and well-being. Drawing on years of experience and expertise, Barbara O'Neill presents time-tested, natural remedies that are not only effective but also accessible to everyone. This book is a treasure trove of knowledge, perfect for those seeking to take control of their health through natural means.

A much-loved classic of nature writing from environmentalist and the author of Waterlog, Roger Deakin, Wildwood is an exploration of the element wood in nature, our culture and our lives. From the walnut tree at his Suffolk home, he embarks upon a quest that takes him through Britain, across Europe, to Central Asia and Australia, in search of what lies behind man's profound and enduring connection with wood and trees.