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Gardening for Safer Food, Better Nutrition |
| Your Backyard Herb Garden: A Gardener's Guide to Growing Over 50 Herbs Plus How to Use Them in Cooking, Crafts, Companion Planting and More- By Miranda Smith Here is what one needs to grow herbs -- soil conditioning, pests, fertilizing, watering -- all of them done organically. What I find really attractive is a chart on each of the fifty herbs discussed showing its Attention Required, Freindly to bugs, Ornamental quality, Container Growing, Yield, Easy to Grow. There is also great section on propogation, using in cooking and beauty, dried arrangements, etc. Done in color with great drawings, this is informative book, each page is loaded with info.
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| Salad Leaves for All Seasons: Organic Growing from Pot to Plot - By Charles Dowding Small is beautiful, less is more; a salad a day--but not the supermarket way. This compendium of practical methods for growing a wide variety of salads throughout the year will inspire you to grow your own, whether on a windowsill or a garden. Here is all the information you need for productive, healthy and tasty salads. Learn the subtleties of salad seasons and virtues of different leaves throughout the year. And when your table is groaning with the abundance of your harvests, there are delicious and imaginative recipes from Susie, Charles' wife, exploiting the fantastic flavors, color and vitality of home-grown salad leaves.
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| Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series) - By Steve Solomon The decline of cheap oil is inspiring increasing numbers of North Americans to achieve some measure of backyard food self-sufficiency. In hard times, the family can be greatly helped by growing a highly productive food garden, requiring little cash outlay or watering. Currently popular intensive vegetable gardening methods are largely inappropriate to this new circumstance. Crowded raised beds require high inputs of water, fertility and organic matter, and demand large amounts of human time and effort. But, except for labor, these inputs depend on the price of oil. Prior to the 1970s, North American home food growing used more land with less labor, with wider plant spacing, with less or no irrigation, and all done with sharp hand tools. But these sustainable systems have been largely forgotten. Gardening When It Counts helps readers rediscover traditional low-input gardening methods to produce healthy food. Designed for readers with no experience and applicable to most areas in the English-speaking world except the tropics and hot deserts, this book shows that any family with access to 3-5,000 sq. ft. of garden land can halve their food costs using a growing system requiring just the odd bucketful of household waste water, perhaps two hundred dollars worth of hand tools, and about the same amount spent on supplies - working an average of two hours a day during the growing season.
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When you grow that wonderful delicious mouthwatering garden, don't be surprised that it does not go unnoticed by the local wildlife. Deer, rabbits, gophers, moles, ground hogs, birds and other vegetarian connesiurs will sincerely appreciate your good efforts on their behalf. To keep some for yourself, you'll need to protect your garden.
My ground hog was a very tidy animal. He made his home in the middle of the corn patch, leaving a mound of dirt six feet across and over three feet high. His favorite food was the green beans. He started at the end of the rot and ate each plant down to a one inch stub. When he got full, he waddled back to his hole and slept. When he woke up and got hungry, he went back to the same row and resumed where he left off.
Rabbits breed prolificly. As a species, their survival strategy is to breed faster than the predators can catch and eat them. When my kids were young, they enjoyed fresh garden rabbit more than the vegetables.
Deer are quick to put any new garden on their browsing agenda. They can jump any fence under six feet high and sometimes higher. Dogs are helpful in keeping them chased away.
Scarecrows, decoys and related items don't work. The only thing that keeps birds away from fresh fruits and berries is protective netting.
If you are serious about protecting your garden, you will need good fencing, a dog and a gun.
| Wildlife in the Garden: How to Live in Harmony With Deer, Raccoons, Rabbits, Crows, and Other Pesky Creatures - By Gene Logsdon From his hiding place inside the overturned flowerpot in Smith's garden, Toad dozes with one eye open. Toad's scientific name is Bufo americanus, just as Smith's is Homo sapiens, but neither Toad nor Smith attaches much importance to the niceties of scientific accuracy. Toad's list of important matters scarcely extends beyond the length of his tongue, with which he can reach out swift as lightning and catch bugs that fly within range. His repose even now, during his daylight siesta, is deceptive. Smith, down on all fours watching him, does not even see the sudden stab of the tongue when it comes, only that a hapless fly, hovering near the inscrutable toad, suddenly disappears' - Gene Logsdon, Chapter 1.In "Wildlife in Your Garden" Gene Logsdon has found an imaginative way to introduce gardeners to a more total enjoyment of nature - fauna as well as flora. From suburb to countryside, every gardener knows that there are many pests who delight in one's precious creations - rabbits devour petunias, raccoons eat the almost ripe sweet corn, deer browse the morning glories, crows pull up young corn sprouts. How can gardeners and wildlife live together in harmony? Gene knows. But this is as much a work of literature as it is a how to. The advice is there, but it is presented through various characters who represent different points of view and levels of knowledge about nature - Smith, Brown, the Widow Lady, the Beekeeper, the Farmer, and the neighbourhood itself, Gwynnedde Township. You'll fall in love with these characters, with Toad, with the Township, and with Gene Logsdon.
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| Fences for Pasture & Garden - By Gail Damerow The complete guide to choosing, planning, and building today's best fences: wire, rail, electric, high-tension, temporary, woven, and snow. A Well-Made Fence Brings Peace of Mind. If you keep livestock or tend a garden that's vulnerable to wildlife predators, you know that a good fence is essential for protecting your investment. But with all of the new options available today -- and the many challenges posed by terrain, weather, and predators -- it's often hard to determine what type of fence meets your needs. The author weighs the pros and cons of various fence systems -- from traditional fences to the latest technology -- and helps you select the best one for your needs. Helpful suggestions for planning the fence ensure maximum efficiency of labor and materials. And complete, generously illustrated directions show you how to build wire fences, rail fences, electric fences, high-tension fences, temporary fences, woven fences, snow fences, gates, trellises, and more. From alarm systems to zoning laws, this book covers it all. If there's a fence in your future, don't waste time and money on an ineffective system.
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Insect pests vary from one region and season to another. One thing that you can count on is that some of them will find your garden. Fortunately, you don't have to be taken by surprise or loose your crop. You don't have to resort to toxic chemicals either. Inform yourself of what to expect and be prepared to deal with the bugs when they show up.
| The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals - By Barbara W Ellis and Fern Marshall Bradley An excellent handbook with entries for common fruits, flowering plants, vegetables, and trees. Each listing has information on disease and pest problems and tips on how to solve them without chemicals. Especially useful sections feature photos of garden insects and diseases.
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Poor soil will yield little reward for the effort put into it. Building fertile soil and maintaining peak fertility is an ongoing effort in all gardening practices. Understanding the soil and how to live and work with it is essential. Simply throwing some commercial fertilizer onto it will not be enough.
| Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web [ILLUSTRATED] - By Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis There is than more than meets the eye in all that dirt. Between the tiny pieces of rock (minerals) and the decaying plant matter, right next to the roots of plants and the above the clay level, lives billions of organisms. Each one, be it bacteria, fungi, nematodes, protozoa, worms, grubs or rodents, has a function in the soil. This book is bursting with information helpful to gardeners. Using a science-based approach the authors characterize the roll of each inhabitant and component of soil and explain its contribution to the "soil food web." They even include 19 helpful rules to keep your soil fertile without fertilizers and to recover the life in damaged soil.
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| The Enlivened Rock Powders - By Jeff Harvey Lisle The practical side of using rockdusts as fertilizers, compost enrichers, and plant growth enhancers is discussed in this exciting book. Beginning with an explanation of the spiritual, cosmic side of rocks and drawing from his extensive knowledge of biodynamic techniques and dowsing, Lisle explains how to utilize these materials in agriculture. Peppered with in-depth quotations from other writings on the forces within rocks.
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| The Soul of Soil: A Soil-Building Guide for Master Gardeners and Farmers- By Grace Gershuny >Soil is the basis not only for all gardening, but for all terrestrial life. No aspect of agriculture is more fundamental and important, yet we have been losing vast quantities of our finite soil resources to erosion, pollution, and development. Nowhere will the reader find simpler and more coherent descriptions of key concepts including cation exchange capacity and chelation. What distinguishes The Soul of Soil is the authors' concise presentation; they give readers important information, including technical essentials, without getting bogged down in scientific or quasiscientific mumbo-jumbo. In addition, useful tables list specific compost materials, green manures, and other resources that allow growers to translate into action the more general information provided by the book. The soil-building techniques featured include: * Organic matter management * Building and maintaining humus * On-site composting * Green manures and rotations; * Cultivation and weed control; * Nutrient balances and soil testing; * Using mineral fertilizers; * Planning for organic certification.
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Animals require constant attention and management. If you keep animals, just remember that they have to be fed, watered, protected and watched daily. You have to have proper fences and housing to contain and protect them from predators. If you travel, you have to have someone take care of them in your absence. Still, there are a couple of critters that can be used constructively with a well organized gardening system. Chickens will eat your garden vegetables if they have access to it. However, if they are confined to harvested areas, they will scratch up and eat the residual vegetation, grass, weeds and bugs and leave behind a very rich manure fertilizer. Geese will eat your garden vegetables if they have access to it. However, they will eat the grass and weeds out of certain crops that they don't like the taste of, like strawberry plants. They can also be used to contain and recycle weeds and grass in areas that have been harvested or set aside for cover crops.
| Domestic Geese- By Chris Ashton There are many reasons for keeping geese—for eggs, meat, and weed and grass control. Whatever your reason for choosing these fascinating birds, Chris Ashton explains how to look after them, from setting up with the first birds to breeding, rearing, and showing. Topics covered include breeds, their origin, and characteristics; an overview of different enterprises; management of adult stock; the breeding season; rearing the goslings; and ailments and diseases.
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| Chicken Tractor: The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil - By Andy W Lee and Patricia L Foreman A chicken tractor is a bottomless, portable pen that fits over your garden beds. Just set it wherever you need help in your garden. The chickens peck and scratch the soil to clean your beds, eat pest bugs and weed seeds. Best of all, they provide eggs and meat with that old-fashioned flavor. Chicken tractors have helped thousands of gardeners have better gardens and taken chickens out of factory farms and put them in the garden where they are your personal helpers.
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So which method of food preservation should you use? All of them!
Fresh is best and the fresher the better. It is a true luxury to have a kitchen garden which contains small amounts of a variety of vegetables planted for continuous harvest over a long period of time. It is a very special situation when you can take your food straight from the garden to the salad bowl and wok.
Refrigeration can increase the shelf life of all foods. Freezing is useful for long term preservation, and it, arguably, takes less time and effort than alternative methods. The drawback is that your freezer is dependent on an uninterrupted supply of electricity.
Some vegetables are amenable to lactic fermentation as a short to medium term storage solution. In general, this method is usable with any firm vegetable, including cabbage and other brassica family members, chinese cabbage, green beans, cucumbers and root vegetables. This method requires little effort and expense and adds nutritional and culinary qualities to food.
If you own a good food dryer, drying can be a practical solution for all fruits and berries and many vegetables. Once you have acquired a dryer, using it requires little effort and expense.
A root cellar or equivalent can be used to store most root crops, some fruits like apples, and some vegetables like squash and pumpkins. Once you have acqired the root cellar, it involves little effort and expense.
Canning requires some additional time and effort but produces a product that is shelf stable for several years. One must acquire a canner, jars and associated materials. Once these are acquired, there is little additional expense involved.
You don't need to wait till you have a producing garden to start acquiring your food preserving skills and materials. Pick up some extra fruits and vegetables in season at farmers markets, supermarkets and local farms and start putting them away.
| Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables- By Nancy Bubel Root cellaring is a way of using the earth's naturally cool, stable temperature to store perishable fruits and vegetables. Root cellaring is a no-cost, simple, low-technology, energy-saving way to keep the harvest fresh all year long. Root Cellaring covers the subject with a thoroughness that makes it the only book you'll ever need on root cellaring. Root Cellaring will tell you:
Root cellaring need not be strictly a country concept. Though it's often thought of as an adjunct to a large garden, a root cellar can in fact considerably stretch the resources of a small garden, making it easy to grow late succession crops for storage instead of many rows for canning and freezing.
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| Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation- By The Gardeners and Farmers of Centre Terre Vivante Typical books about preserving garden produce nearly always assume that modern "kitchen gardeners" will boil or freeze their vegetables and fruits. Yet here is a book that goes back to the future—celebrating traditional French techniques for storing and preserving edibles in ways that maximize flavor and nutrition. As Eliot Coleman says, "Food preservation techniques can be divided into two categories: the modern scientific methods that remove the life from food, and the natural 'poetic' methods that maintain or enhance the life in food. The poetic techniques produce... foods that have been celebrated for centuries and are considered gourmet delights today." Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning offers more than 250 easy and enjoyable recipes featuring locally grown and minimally refined ingredients. It is an essential guide for those who seek healthy food for a healthy world.
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| Canning & Preserving for Dummies- By Karen Ward Putting up fruits and vegetables in your home is as easy as pie with this step-by-step guide to canning and preserving. With easy-to-follow recipes, up-to-date safety guidelines, and simple, fun techniques, you’ll find everything you need to fill your pantry with savory, homemade fare.
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| Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook- By Mary Bell A guide to food dehydrating shows readers how to make preservative-free dried apple rings, candied apricots, beef and fish jerkies, sun-dried tomatoes, corn chips, herb seasonings, dried fruit sugars, and more. This is one of the best dehydrated food guides available. She covers everything. Don't just dry and store food, but use it daily in every imaginable way.
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Saving seeds for next year's crop is one of the most essential activities of any self sufficient gardener or farmer. No seeds means no crops and no crops means no food. There are many regionally adapted and open pollenated varieties that are no longer propagated commercially but are ideal for individual growing conditions. The only way you can get a few of these priceless heirloom seeds is to find a seed saver who has a few. Be a seed saver.
In one sense, he who controls seed controls food. Or, he who owns seed owns food, and the highest bidder takes all. Heirloom seed, then, is more than a trinket or curiosity from the past. It represents the chance of survival in the future. Should an as-yet-unknown plant virus come along and take out the American hybrid corn crop (something that has in fact come close to happening), it's the genetic diversity available in heirloom, open-pollinated seeds that will save the world. Governments maintain plant gene banks, but individuals can do much the same.
Sixty million American gardeners buy their seeds from mail order seed companies. In the period 1984-1987, 54 of the 230 seed companies in the U.S. and Canada went out of business, resulting in 943 non-hybrid varieties becoming unavailable. One answer to the extinction of food crop varieties is Seed Savers Exchange, the publisher of Seed to Seed. Begun in 1975, SSE maintains more than 18,000 rare vegetable varieties at Heritage Farm in Decorah, Iowa. Another answer is for individual gardeners to save their own seed from non-hybrid varieties. Varieties that grow and taste exceptionally well in specific areas can be planted year after year from home-grown seed. A further advantage is protection from seed price increases. Hybrid seeds are in the control of large companies. You can be in control of heirloom varieties that do best in your garden. Happy eating.
| Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener's & Farmer's Guide to Plant Breeding & Seed Saving - By Carol Deppe There is nothing quite like this book in the world's literature—it is the Hope diamond of horticulture. In the field of edible plants, Carol Deppe is a modest legend who has been a matchmaker and midwife to many new vegetables. In this book, Ms. Deppe explains how she and a few other masters of plant breeding have achieved their success. She encourages the rest of us to try our hands and hearts—and patience—at producing our own culinary gems. Ms. Deppe, who combines a doctorate in plant genetics with insatiable curiosity and soil-stained hands, will continue to inspire growers to participate in a creative process as ancient as farming itself. This book is an intense and readable exposition of the science and art of plant breeding, which will inspire and inform any reader. Even the casual reader who doesn't take up the challenge of developing unique garden specialties will become aware of humanity's debt to our predecessors, who turned wildlings into the organisms that can feed all of us.
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| Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners - By Suzanne Ashworth and Ken Whealy Seed to Seed is a complete seed-saving guide that describes specific techniques for saving the seeds of 160 different vegetables. This book contains detailed information about each vegetable, including its botanical classification, flower structure and means of pollination, required population size, isolation distance, techniques for caging or hand-pollination, and also the proper methods for harvesting, drying, cleaning, and storing the seeds. Seed to Seed is widely acknowledged as the best guide available for home gardeners to learn effective ways to produce and store seeds on a small scale. The author has grown seed crops of every vegetable featured in the book, and has thoroughly researched and tested all of the techniques she recommends for the home garden. This newly updated and greatly expanded Second Edition includes additional information about how to start each vegetable from seed, which has turned the book into a complete growing guide. Local knowledge about seed starting techniques for each vegetable has been shared by expert gardeners from seven regions of the United States-Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast/Gulf Coast, Midwest, Southwest, Central West Coast, and Northwest.
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