Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

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I have to admit that this is one gardening book that I never quite got into. Maybe I don’t have a poetic enough soul. As you can see from the comments, some people really love this one, so I’m including it. — Zana

Description
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. It is an inspiring, necessary book about agriculture because it is not just about agriculture.” Read the rest of this entry »

Permaculture is a great way to combine gardening with other activities. Here’s an easy-to-read book to get you going! — Zana

Description
Permaculture experts Ross and Jenny Mars outline the steps to transform your garden into a productive living system. Modeled upon the development of Candlelight Farm, and illustrated with photographs, this guide encourages the reader to make positive steps towards reconciling human impact with nature – following the permaculture ideal. Read the rest of this entry »

I still have my old 1975 copy of this book, well worn. I was skeptical but when I tried some of the methods, they worked! — Zana

Description
This classic has now taught generations of gardeners how to use the natural benefits of plants to protect and support each other. Here is a reader’s complete reference to which plants nourish the soil, which keep away bugs and pests, and which plants just don’t get along. Here is a complete guide to using companion planting to grow a better garden. 555,000 copies in print. Read the rest of this entry »

Description

The Urban Homestead is the essential handbook for a fast-growing new movement: urbanites are becoming gardeners and farmers. Rejecting both end-times hand wringing and dewy-eyed faith that technology will save us from ourselves, urban homesteaders choose instead to act. By growing their own food and harnessing natural energy, they are planting seeds for the future of our cities.

If you would like to harvest your own vegetables, raise city chickens, or convert to solar energy, this practical, hands-on book is full of step-by-step projects that will get you started homesteading immediately, whether you live in an apartment or a house. It is also a guidebook to the larger movement and will point you to the best books and Internet resources on self-sufficiency topics.

Projects include: Read the rest of this entry »

I’m emphasizing gardening books at this time of year, since it’s either gardening season where you live or soon will be. Composting is valuable both for the garden and also for reducing what you send off to the landfills. Subtitled Banner batches, grow heaps, comforter compost, and other amazing techniques for saving time and money, and producing … most flavorful, nutritous vegetables ever, this book emphasizes relatively easy ways to do your composting. Our compost bins have never been so close to the garden and I can certainly advocate having them closer! — Zana

Description
Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin turn the compost bin upside down with their liberating system of keeping compost heaps right in the garden, rather than in some dark corner behind the garage. The compost and the plants live together from the beginning in a nourishing, organic environment. The authors’ bountiful, compost-rich gardens require less digging, weeding, mulching, and even less planting. And here’s one of the best parts — no more backbreaking slogs from compost bin to garden. The authors even identify the plants that benefit most from compost and how the elements of a composted garden work together.

A natural Six-Way Compost Gardening System provides the ruling principles for successfully improving every garden with healthy compost. Readers will learn how to:

1. Choose labor-saving sites that keep gardens and compost piles as close to one another as possible.

2. Work with the compostable riches produced at home. Every yard and kitchen produces plenty of material — easily identified with at-a-glance charts — for a great start.

3. Help composting critters do their work by balancing ingredients, adding high-nitrogen meals when needed, and keeping the compost moist.

4. Reuse recycling bin items, such as large plastic buckets and cardboard boxes, as composting equipment.

5. Keep diversity in the mix. The magic is in the variety of the components and how they work together to create “gardener’s gold.”

6. Customize composting to suit specific garden needs, always concentrating first on soil care.

Adhering to these guidelines, Pleasant and Martin bring readers on a thorough, informative tour of materials and innovative techniques, leading the way to an efficient and rewarding home gardening system. Their methods are sure to help gardeners turn average vegetable plots into rich incubators of healthy produce, bursting with fresh flavor, and flower beds into rich tapestries of bountiful blooms all season long.

The Complete Compost Gardening Guide: Banner batches, grow heaps, comforter compost, and other amazing techniques for saving time and money, and producing … most flavorful, nutritous vegetables ever.

Rob Roy is an incredibly prolific writer on many aspects of natural building. Earth sheltering is a very practical idea for houses, as you end up with a much better insulated house than normal, thus keeping you more comfortable and using less energy for heating or cooling. Underground building is not for everyone, but it’s great to live in. We had an earth-sheltered north-side pantry on the earthbag house we built, with the whole north side of the house dug into the earth on the first floor, and it worked very well in Colorado’s winters. — Zana

Description

An earth-sheltered, earth-roofed home has the least impact upon the land of all housing styles, leaving almost zero footprint on the planet.

Earth-Sheltered Houses is a practical guide for those who want to build their own underground home at moderate cost. It describes the benefits of sheltering a home with earth, including the added comfort and energy efficiency from the moderating influence of the earth on the home’s temperature (keeping it warm in the winter and cool in the summer), along with the benefits of low maintenance and the protection against fire, sound, earthquake, and storm afforded by the earth. Extra benefits from adding an earth or other living roof option include greater longevity of the roof substrate, fine aesthetics, and environmental harmony.

The book covers all of the various construction techniques involved, including details on planning, excavation, footings, floor, walls, framing, roofing, waterproofing, insulation, and drainage. Specific methods appropriate for the inexperienced owner/builder are a particular focus and include:

• Pouring one’s own footings and/or floor
• The use of dry-stacked (surface-bonded) concrete block walls
• Post-and-beam framing
• Plank-and-beam roofing
• Drainage methods and self-adhesive waterproofing membranes

The time-tested, easy-to-learn construction techniques described in Earth-Sheltered Houses will enable readers to embark upon their own building projects with confidence, backed up by a comprehensive resources section that lists all the latest products such as waterproofing membranes, types of rigid insulation, and drainage products that will protect the building against water damage and heat loss.

Rob Roy is a former contractor with 27 years of experience and 12 previous books to his credit, including Cordwood Building and Timber Framing for the Rest of Us. An expert on underground building, he founded the Earthwood Building School in 1981 with his wife, Jaki, and is frequently a speaker at events throughout North America.

Earth-Sheltered Houses: How to Build an Affordable…