Part-gardening bible, part-call to action, award-winning authors Kathleen Norris Brenzel and Mary-Kate Mackey present advice, tips, and how-tos for gardeners seeking better health, increased happiness, and stronger communities A gardening book for the times we live in, The Healthy Garden combines practical advice for starting a garden with a rare view into how home gardening builds resilience, personal happiness, and community strength. Filled with savvy tips from dozens of experts, each chapter celebrates the many ways gardening works to build health. These professionals and passionate plant people offer lively insights into landscape design, soil science, nutrition, and plant choices. With its can-do, Victory Garden approach, The Healthy Garden is essential for anyone seeking to live closer to nature in their own backyards.

Whether you’re an experienced gardener, homesteader, or market farmer, this A–Z, soil-to-table guide shows you how to reduce chemical inputs; naturally enrich your growing ecology; and create a hardy, nutrient-dense, and delicious crop. "There are few gardeners (or farmers) I know who wouldn’t benefit from reading Sally Morgan’s new book. . . . The Healthy Vegetable Garden is a detailed and indispensable resource."—Hobby Farms In The Healthy Vegetable Garden, expert organic gardener Sally Morgan explains how to use natural approaches to cope with the challenges of a changing climate through principles from regenerative gardening, agroecology, and permaculture—all to help your green space thrive. The Healthy Vegetable Garden shows you how to: Combat disease and keep pests at bay with natural predators, companion planting, and trap and barrier crops Choose the right plants to attract pollinators and pest predators Build a healthy soil full of organic matter, earthworms, and mycorrhizal fungi Regenerate soil through no-dig practices, composting, cover crops, and mulching Boost biodiversity through the use of crop rotations and polyculture Rewild your garden by creating a range of habitats, making use of walls and fences, log piles, water features, and wild corners Understand plant defenses and use biocontrols Make natural barriers, traps, and lures A healthy, productive garden should work in harmony with nature to produce and protect delicious fruits and vegetables and build a rich soil that is full of life. With The Healthy Vegetable Garden, growers of all levels will start reducing incidents of pests and diseases while creating a verdant habitat—all without the need for fertilizers, pesticides, or weedkillers.

Every spring, plant lovers around the world are faced with life-or-death questions such as: Will it be petunias or pansies? Marigolds or morning glories? Do I dare plant azaleas in the shade? Although most of us still rely on friends or dumb luck to figure things out, there is a better way. The Plant Doctor is a gardener's one-stop resource for common gardening questions. Whether you're a novice struggling to keep your day lilies alive or a more experienced green thumb pondering a new fertilizer for your roses, there's an answer for you. The book provides important basic information, such as which agricultural zone you live in so you will know which plants grow best in your neck of the woods. Included are answers to hundreds of fruit, flower, and vegetable-garden questions, such as advice on pruning apple trees, training climbing roses, and planting window boxes. This well-organized book is filled with tips on everything from planting bulbs to growing annuals and perennials from seed. Armchair gardeners will get an eyeful and a quick course in Latin plant names. The book examines a range of typical problems and provides prescriptions for ailments affecting plants, trees, and flowers.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The former First Lady, author of Becoming, and producer and star of Waffles + Mochi tells the inspirational story of the White House Kitchen Garden and how gardens can transform our lives and the health of our communities. Early in her tenure as First Lady, despite being a novice gardener, Michelle Obama planted a kitchen garden on the White House’s South Lawn. To her delight, she watched as fresh vegetables, fruit, and herbs sprouted from the ground. Soon the White House Kitchen Garden inspired a new conversation all across the country about the food we feed our families and the impact it has on the nutrition and well-being of our children. In American Grown, Mrs. Obama invites you inside the White House Kitchen Garden, from the first planting to the satisfaction of the seasonal harvest. She reveals her early worries and struggles—would the new plants even grow?—and her joy as lettuce, corn, tomatoes, collards and kale, sweet potatoes and rhubarb flourished in the freshly tilled soil. She shares the stories of other gardens that have moved and inspired her on her journey across the nation. And she offers what she learned about planting your own backyard, school, or community garden. American Grown features: • a behind-the-scenes look at every season of the garden’s growth • unique recipes created by White House chefs • striking original photographs that bring the White House garden to life • a fascinating history of community gardens in the United States From a modern-day vegetable truck that brings fresh produce to underserved communities in Chicago, to Houston office workers who make the sidewalk bloom, to a New York City school that created a scented garden for the visually impaired, to a garden in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, that devotes its entire harvest to those less fortunate, American Grown isn’t just the story of a single garden. It’s a celebration of the bounty of our nation and a reminder of what we can all grow together.

Consumers are increasingly aware of the dangers of garden chemicals. "The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Pest and Disease Control" offers a reliable and comprehensive guide that makes it easy to garden without the use of pesticides.

This extensively revised and expanded edition broadens the reach and depth of the permaculture approach for urban and suburban gardeners. The text's message is that working with nature, not against it, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens.

Discusses pest control

CLICK HERE to download sample native plants from Real Gardens Grow Natives For many people, the most tangible and beneficial impact they can have on the environment is right in their own yard. Aimed at beginning and veteran gardeners alike, Real Gardens Grow Natives is a stunningly photographed guide that helps readers plan, implement, and sustain a retreat at home that reflects the natural world. Gardening with native plants that naturally belong and thrive in the Pacific Northwest’s climate and soil not only nurtures biodiversity, but provides a quintessential Northwest character and beauty to yard and neighborhood! For gardeners and conservationists who lack the time to read through lengthy design books and plant lists or can’t afford a landscape designer, Real Gardens Grow Natives is accessible yet comprehensive and provides the inspiration and clear instruction needed to create and sustain beautiful, functional, and undemanding gardens. With expert knowledge from professional landscape designer Eileen M. Stark, Real Gardens Grow Natives includes: * Detailed profiles of 100 select native plants for the Pacific Northwest west of the Cascades, plus related species, helping make plant choice and placement. * Straightfoward methods to enhance or restore habitat and increase biodiversity * Landscape design guidance for various-sized yards, including sample plans * Ways to integrate natives, edibles, and nonnative ornamentals within your garden * Specific planting procedures and secrets to healthy soil * Techniques for propagating your own native plants * Advice for easy, maintenance using organic methods

Includes discussion on Hemp (Cannabis & Marijuana) cultivation, uses and prospects.

An approachable, comprehensive guide to the modern world of vegetables, from the leading grower of specialty vegetables in the country Near the shores of Lake Erie is a family-owned farm with a humble origin story that has become the most renowned specialty vegetable grower in America. After losing their farm in the early 1980s, a chance encounter with a French-trained chef at their farmers' market stand led the Jones family to remake their business and learn to grow unique ingredients that were considered exotic at the time, like microgreens and squash blossoms. They soon discovered chefs across the country were hungry for these prized ingredients, from Thomas Keller in Napa Valley to Daniel Boulud in New York City. Today, they provide exquisite vegetables for restaurants and home cooks across the country. The Chef's Garden grows and harvests with the notion that every part of the plant offers something unique for the plate. From a perfect-tasting carrot, to a tiny red royal turnip, to a pencil lead-thin cucumber still attached to its blossom, The Chef's Garden is constantly innovating to grow vegetables sustainably and with maximum flavor. It's a Willy Wonka factory for vegetables. In this guide and cookbook, The Chef's Garden, led by Farmer Lee Jones, shares with readers the wealth of knowledge they've amassed on how to select, prepare, and cook vegetables. Featuring more than 500 entries, from herbs, to edible flowers, to varieties of commonly known and not-so-common produce, this book will be a new bible for farmers' market shoppers and home cooks. With 100 recipes created by the head chef at The Chef's Garden Culinary Vegetable Institute, readers will learn innovative techniques to transform vegetables in their kitchens with dishes such as Ramp Top Pasta, Seared Rack of Brussels Sprouts, and Cornbread-Stuffed Zucchini Blossoms, and even sweet concoctions like Onion Caramel and Beet Marshmallows. The future of cuisine is vegetables, and Jones and The Chef's Garden are on the forefront of this revolution.