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Back to Basics: Traditional Garden Wisdom: Time-Tested Techniques for Creating a Natural, Sustainable Outdoor Space
"When your garden contains lots of earthworms, your soil is good." This maxim may not sound familiar, but before the days of landscapers and lawn-maintenance companies, this type of knowledge was common. Gardening skills were passed down from generation to generation, and yards were personal places that flourished under the care of time-tested wisdom. Today the pace of life is faster, and modern advances make gardening tasks easier, but we can all benefit from the techniques and common-sense advice of the past to have beautiful, fruitful gardens now. With "Back to Basics: Traditional Garden Wisdom," anyone can: Develop a dream, green garden without spending a fortune Grow an organic and eco-friendly garden with minimum fuss and maximum taste Discover how to collect and save seeds Make your own compost and learn "no-dig" gardening Make a cold frame and protect plants from frost Repel moles with castor oil, prevent mice with the right plants, and make herbal insect repellents Find out the best way to prune a hedge, tree, or climbing flower Know which gardening tasks to do for each season Raise a panel fence and use recycled materials for landscaping Plant raised beds and container gardens, and build a natural grape arbor Discover how companion planting can discourage harmful pests and encourage growth "Back to Basics: Traditional Garden Wisdom" has full-color step-by-step illustrated instructions that will bring new knowledge to gardeners of all levels. Soon you'll be adding fireplace ashes to the garden to give it a potassium boost and using your elbow to see if the soil is warm enough for planting. With this insightful book, you'll discover why sage advice never goes out of style.
Encyclopedia of Organic, Sustainable, and Local Food
In 2009 First Lady Michelle Obama established an organic vegetable garden at the White House, reflecting the impact and popularity of the "green" food movement at even the highest levels. Global sales of organic products topped $23 billion in 2008 and have been growing 20 to 25 percent annually for the past decade. "The Encyclopedia of Organic, Sustainable, and Local Food" pulls together a fascinating array of diverse, interdisciplinary topics to provide a thorough overview of our current alternative food system. With increasing attention focused on organic and local food, many people are attracted to these sustainable food choices. This encyclopedia explores social concerns, economic trends, policy influences, and ecological terms in a single, comprehensive volume. "The Encyclopedia of Organic, Sustainable, and Local Food" features - More than 140 comprehensive, A-to-Z entries covering all aspects of organic food and farming, local food production and consumption, and sustainable food initiatives - A chronology of the years 1860-2009 detailing the history and evolution of organic and local food, including more than forty events - Twenty-six photographs depicting current themes in sustainable farming and organic/local food - A bibliography listing key references for readers who wish to further investigate a specific theme
Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All
A host of books and films in recent years have documented the dangers of our current food system, from chemical runoff to soaring rates of diet-related illness to inhumane treatment of workers and animals. But advice on what to do about it largely begins and ends with the admonition to "eat local or "eat organic." "Fair Food" is an enlightening and inspiring guide to changing not only what we eat, but how food is grown, packaged, delivered, marketed, and sold. Oran B. Hesterman shows how our system's dysfunctions are unintended consequences of our emphasis on efficiency, centralization, higher yields, profit, and convenience--and defines the new principles, as well as the concrete steps, necessary to restructuring it. Along the way, he introduces people and organizations across the country who are already doing this work in a number of creative ways, from bringing fresh food to inner cities to fighting for farm workers' rights to putting cows back on the pastures where they belong. He provides a wealth of practical information for readers who want to get more involved.
Homesteading in the 21st Century: How One Family Created a More Sustainable, Self-Sufficient, and Satisfying Life
Not since Thoreau made his home in the woods at Walden Pond has the notion of self-sufficiency held more universal appeal. There's no question we're going through some tough economic times, but this book offers an alternative. It's a guide for anyone who imagines a better life--from struggling families tired of energy dependency to dreamers who always wished they could live off the land someday. This ultimate DIY guide holds to the premise that anyone can homestead, and raise at least a portion of their food themselves--even if they live in the city. This book is absolutely brimming with ideas on how to take control of your life by degrees--whether that means keeping chickens, growing a garden, or brewing your own beer.
How to Make on Farm Composting Work. Sustainable Recycling of Waste to Land.
Form closed loop recycling to using waste to create crops and biofuels, this remarkable book showcases the technology being used today by farmers to produce foods and fuels with a staggeringly attractive carbon footprint. Essential reading for anyone involved in waste, recycling and farming and those that would like to see a reversal in global warming.
Sustainable Soils: The Place of Organic Matter in Sustaining Soils and Their Productivity
Find the right balance of organic matter, tillage, and chemical additives to increase the quality and quantity of crops This book shows the importance of organic matter in maintaining crop production. The addition of organic matter to soil is covered in great detail. This book is unique in that it draws on practical farming operations to illustrate many of the points discussed. The senior author has had almost 60 years of experience in solving production problems--many of which have been related to insufficient organic matter. In addition, Sustainable Soils: The Place of Organic Matter in Sustaining Soils and Their Productivity stresses the necessity of combining the addition of organic matter with reduced tillage and added chemicals. Photographs, tables, and figures, as well as appendixes containing common and botanical names of plants, symbols and abbreviations found in the text, and useful conversion factors and data help bring the information into focus quickly and efficiently. An extensive bibliography points the way to other useful material on this subject. Sustainable Soils discusses: what materials can be added techniques for proper handling of organic matter how much is enough (and how much is too much ) the nutritive value of various forms of organic matter the benefits that can be expected from properly handling and adding organic matter to soil From the Editors: "Sustainable agriculture is not possible without a sustainable soil science, which in turn is largely dependent on organic matter. It is necessary to return large amounts of organic matter to the soil in order to maintain satisfactory crop production. It can be derived from crop residues, cover crops, sods, or various wastes, such as manures, sludges, and composts. This book details the benefits of various forms, and how each should be handled for maximum returns."
The Good Life: How to Create a Sustainable and Fulfilling Lifestyle
For many people, consumer culture has lost its appeal. So have debt accumulation, time poverty, exteriority, and social alienation. The Good Life traces one woman's journey toward a deeply fulfilling lifestyle-and points toward a way of life that values freedom, interdependence, caring, community, and our connectedness with nature. The Good Life offers a guide to finding personal freedom through a sustainable lifestyle. It invites readers to view the recent global market downturn as an opportunity to transform our dead consumer culture into a living post-consumer society. The book is packed with information on emerging alternatives, such as co-housing, slow money, vegetarian and raw foods, permaculture and organic gardening, voluntary simplicity, green building, and more.
The Meat Crisis: Developing More Sustainable Production and Consumption
Meat and dairy production and consumption are in crisis. Globally 60 billion farm animals are used for food production every year. It is well accepted that methane emissions from cattle and other livestock are major contributors to greenhouse gas levels and to climate change. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) predicts a rough doubling of meat and milk consumption by 2050, with particularly rapid growth occurring in the developing economies of Asia. This could raise the number of farm animals used annually to nearer 120 billion. What will this mean for the health and wellbeing of those animals, of the people who consume ever larger quantities of animal products, and for the health of the planet itself?This powerful and challenging book explores these issues surrounding the global growth in the production and consumption of meat and dairy animals and products, including cultural and health factors, and the implications of the likely intensification of farming for both small-scale producers and for the animals. Several chapters explore the related environmental issues, from resource use of water, cereals and soya, to the impact of livestock production on global warming and issues concerning biodiversity, land use and the impacts of different farming systems on the environment. A final group of chapters addresses ethical and policy implications for the future of food and livestock production and consumption. The overall message is clearly that we must eat less meat to help secure a more sustainable and equitable world.
The Natural Kitchen: Your Guide to the Sustainable Food Revolution
This quietly revolutionary guidebook picks up where the bestselling Process Self-Reliance Series' "The Urban Homestead" left off and brings us into the kitchen, where the daily choices we make involving food have a profound impact both on our lives and the world at large. Deborah Eden Tull draws upon seven years of experience as a monk, organic farmer, and chef to introduce simple but life-changing ways for urbanites to adopt a more mindful relationship with food, including shopping, menu planning, cooking, growing and preserving food, and maintaining the kitchen. Beautifully illustrated, practical, and fun, this book is filled with anecdotes and step-by-step instructions to inspire neophytes and experienced homesteaders alike. "The Natural Kitchen"'s introspective and educational journey will inspire action and change forever the way readers relate to food, the environment, and their daily lives.
The Next Green Revolution: Essential Steps to a Healthy, Sustainable Agriculture
Explore the benefits of and necessity for sustainable agriculture Here is an easy-to-read, practical introduction to sustainable agriculture: what it means and why it is needed. It is the first book to synthesize the goals of sustainable agriculture into eight comprehensive steps. The Next Green Revolution presents a convincing critique of our current agricultural system and an introduction to an alternative system which gives more consideration to future generations. Interwoven through the book are Dr. Horne's reflections on social justice, quality of life, and how farmers and rural communities are inextricably linked.The Next Green Revolution draws on the unique perspective of Dr. James E. Horne, President of a leading nonprofit agriculture organization, the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture. It is inspired by his experience as a traditional agriculturalist and educator coming to grips with the failings of the conventional system and searching for an alternative. Writing in the first person, he describes growing up in a sharecropper family in Oklahoma, running his own ranch, and consulting with farmers as an agricultural economist. He shares what he learned as the Kerr Center experimented with new "sustainable" approaches to old problems on the Center's ranch/farm, and his experiences working with the USDA's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program. With The Next Green Revolution, you will explore: the major problems of contemporary industrial agriculture definitions of sustainable agriculture the historical roots of sustainable agriculture the politics of sustainable agriculture sustainable agriculture practices changes needed to encourage a sustainable agricultureand the eight steps to sustainable agriculture, which address: soil health and erosion water quality and use organic waste management crop and livestock adaptation biodiversity environmentally benign pest management energy use farm diversification profitabilityThe Next Green Revolution is a well-researched introduction to the field, written with a minimum of jargon.
The Profitable Hobby Farm: How to Build a Sustainable Local Foods Business
Turn your hobby farm into a successful business No experience in farming? No problem "The Profitable Hobby Farm" gives you all the tools you need to launch a thriving hobby farm business. Based on the author's expert guidance and the motivating experiences of other small farmers, it shows you how to blend strategy, marketing, and money management in order to prosper. "The Profitable Hobby Farm "provides sound, friendly start-up advice on a variety of topics essential to making an initial foray into a local foods venture. A must-read book for raising and selling local, sustainable foods Includes sample business plan, grant application, marketing and advertising plan, and other forms Lengthy resources section directs you to additional reading Also by Aubrey: "Starting & Running Your Own Small Farm Business "Whether it's growing heirloom tomatoes, raising free-range chickens for their eggs, or making organic wine or cheese, this book shows you how to turn your hobby into a profit.
The Sustainable Vegetable Garden: A Backyard Guide to Healthy Soil and Higher Yields
From the author of our best-selling and widely beloved HOW TO GROW MORE VEGETABLES comes this "quick and dirty" introduction to biointensive gardening that shows it is not only possible but easy to grow astonishing crops of healthful organic vegetables and fruits, while conserving resources and actually helping the soil. A revolutionary approach to feeding ourselves and nurturing the land, this book includes:‚A Step-by-step illustrations and instructions that make these techniques simple for even the novice gardener.‚A Everything you need to know about planning crops, composting, harvesting, and more.‚A Complete resources for seeds, tools, and other garden supplies.Feed a family of four on the bounty of your backyard, or just get more out of your garden with less effort with this wonderful resource.
