This is a new edition of a classic of early 17th-century food writing. The book was written by the Italian refugee, educator and humanist Giacomo Castelvetro who had been saved from the clutches of the Inquisition in Venice by the English ambassador, Sir Dudley Carleton in 1611. When he came to England, he was horrified by our preference for large helpings of meat, masses of sugar and very little greenstuff. The Italians were both good gardeners, and had a familiarity with many varieties of vegetable and fruit that were as yet little known in England. He circulated his Italian manuscript among his supporters, dedicating it to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, herself a keen gardener and patron of literature. Gillian Riley's translation of this hitherto unpublished document has been recognised as being fluent, entertaining and accurate from its first appearance in 1989. Castelvetro takes us through the gardener's year, listing the fruit and vegetables as they come into season, with simple and elegant ways of preparing them. Practical instructions are interspersed with tender vignettes of his life in his native city of Modena, memories of his years in Venice and reminiscences of his travels in Europe. He writes of children learning to swim in the canals of the Brenta, strapped to huge dried pumpkins to keep them afloat; Venetian ladies ogling passers-by from behind screens of verdant beanstalks; sultry German wenches jealously hoarding their grape harvest; and his intimate chats with Scandinavian royalty about the best way to graft pear cuttings and discomfort the Pope. English cooking was on a cusp. It had yet to absorb the new ways of Europe, although some of the best practice of Dutch and French gardening was having its effect on our diet. But there were still many new styles of cooking and recipes to absorb, as well as new plants to enjoy (for instance broccoli), and new ways to set them out on the table. This treatise anticipates many of the changes that were to come about over the next one hundred years. Castelvetro urges that we should eat more salads with the same enthusiasm that was evinced by John Evelyn in his book on salad-stuff of 1699. This edition is printed in two colours, has a graceful typography (using the Galliard typeface) and generous layout, and is equipped with a knowledgeable and informative introduction by the translator.

' How to Grow Plants from Seeds is a great little book - a hand-holding, step-by-step guide with clear pictures and instructions. It demystifies the process and covers flowers as well as vegetables and herbs. A most useful present for anyone wanting to get started on sowing seeds.' Country Living 'Whether you want to grow a cutting garden or a harvest of fresh produce, discover the basic rules for success.' The Garden How To Grow Plants From Seeds does away, once and for all, with the idea that there's something difficult about growing direct from seed. There's no need to rely on the professionals to raise seedlings for you: seeds are not only cheap to buy and environmentally friendly but, if you follow a few basic rules, they're also fantastically rewarding, not least because a single packet will usually leave you with plenty of spares to swap with fellow enthusiasts. Whether you're a novice or an experienced gardener, if you want to nurture an impressive cutting garden or aim to have a bounteous harvest of fruit and vegetables, here's what you need to know, presented in a straightforward and accessible way. You'll discover the basic rules for different seeds, their sowing preferences (Indoor, under cover or direct- to-plot? Surface-sow or cover up? Water or spray?), how long they take to germinate, and how to prick out, pot on and raise your infant plants to become sturdy, productive adults. The book opens with a basic primer showing how seeds work, to give every grower the best chance at success. This is followed by extensive chapters on raising food and flowers from seed with plenty of detailed plant profiles included, and finally there's a guide to collecting seeds from your plants and how to save and swap - so that you, too, can become a seed evangelist.

Highly valued for its unique flavors, textures, and colors, recent research has shown berry fruit to be high in antioxidants, vitamin C, fiber, folic acid, and other beneficial functional compounds. The food industry has also widely used berry fruits in beverages, ice cream, yogurts, and jams. With the rapidly growing popularity of this unique crop it is important to have a single resource for all aspects of the industry from production technologies to nutritional and health benefits. Drawing on the knowledge of leading international experts, Berry Fruit: Value-Added Products for Health Promotion is a comprehensive reference on the handling, use, and functional components of berry fruit. Beginning with an introduction to the current state of the industry, the book covers worldwide production and trends specific to each berry including annual, perennial, and off-season systems. The contributors go into great detail regarding the chemical composition of berries including carbohydrates, organic acids, enzymes, vitamins, and minerals; phytochemicals; antioxidants; and the functionality of pigments such as anthocyanins. Chapters address quality and safety concerns during post-harvest handling and storage, deterioration and microbial safety for the fresh market, and techniques to extend shelf-life including cold-storage and controlled atmosphere packaging. Finally, an extensive section highlights processing technologies and the production of value-added foods such as freezing, dehydrating, and canning; preserves, jellies, and jams; and the intelligent use of processing by-products. Presenting scientific background, research results, and critical reviews, as well as case studies andreferences, Berry Fruit: Value-Added Products for Health Promotion provides a valuable resource for current knowledge and further research and development of berry fruit for the food industry.

Grow your own beautiful multilayered food forest in your own backyard. Pippa Chapman is an RHS trained gardener who designs, plants and maintains abundant, biodiverse, edible and beautiful forest gardens. Here she shares her practical tips for realistically transforming your own plot, whatever its size, and with limited time, money and resources. A forest garden doesn't have to be big; you can grow a productive edible paradise in pots and containers too. Pippa explains how to create multiple layers on a small-scale to maximise your growing area, using polycultures and guilds for healthy, low-maintenance food. She shares how to use perennials for structure and for year-round food, and how to incorporate flowers for beauty, wildlife and for the kitchen. Chapters on permaculture design and forest gardening give practical advice on how to plan and plant your own garden, with guilds and plant profiles to give real-life examples to help you get started. Useful tips on propagation and seed saving help keep plant costs low and a handy chapter on the soil-food web will help you understand your own soil and how to keep it healthy.

Make your garden flourish with these 300 easy and inexpensive gardening hacks to help your plants blossom-perfect for any green thumbs, first-time horticulturalists, or reluctant gardeners! Think you don't have a green thumb? Think again! No matter your gardening woes, Gardening Hacks has the solution. Perfect for all gardening skill levels whether you're starting your first garden, looking to expand your crop, or simply searching for ways to make it easier to care for your extensive plant collection, you'll find everything you need to know to make your garden grow. Gardening Hacks includes helpful tips like: -Saving your eggshells, which can serve as everything from an organic seed starter to a natural snail and slug repellent. -Adding a pinch of cinnamon to help prevent fungal diseases that might prevent your plants from maturing. -Using the newspaper to help deter weeds from sprouting. -Creating your own DIY seed packet catalog to help keep your seeds organized as your garden grows. -And many more! No matter the size of your garden-from a small herb collection to an extensive variety of fruits and vegetables to any indoor plant that needs some perking up-Gardening Hacks will make your plants flourish!

In this continuing series, the topic of vegetables embraces a wide range of pieces from English, American and overseas scholars. Their treatments encompass both a broader consideration of the vegetable diet and the history of the cultivation and consumption of specific varieties. Cookery and consumption are not highlighted at the expense of cultivation, so there are some interesting essays on allotments, market gardening in the Paris region, early-modern vegetable gardening in England and the development of markets in India. The theme has been treated with admirable latitude in contributions on vegetables and diplomacy, vegetable carving, and vegetables in Renaissance art. Essays include: (Don't) Eat Your Vegetables: A Historical Semiotics of Carving Legumes (Julia Abramson); The War of Vegetables: The Rise & Fall of the English Allotment Movement (Lesley Acton); The First Scientific Defense of a Vegetarian Diet (Ken Albala); Mukimono & Modoki: Japan's Culinary Trompe l'oeil (Elizabeth Andoh); The Bitter - and Flatulent - Aphrodisiac: Synchrony and Diachrony of the Culinary Use of Muscari Comosum in Greece and Italy' (Anthony Buccini); Eat Your Greens: Traditional Leafy Vegetables for Better Nutrition (Jeremy Cherfas); 'We Talked About the Aubergines: Some Minor Pleasures of European Diplomacy (Andrew Dalby); Akkoub ( Gundelia Tournefortii - Tournefort's gundelia): An Edible Wild Thistle from the Lebanese Mountains (Anissa Helou); Is There Salvation in Sweetness? Sugar Beets in America (Cathy Kaufman); The Potato in Irish Cuisine and Culture (Mairtin Mac Con Iomaire & Padraic Og Gallagher); Sweet As Notes on the Kumara or New Zealand Sweet Potato as a Taonga, or Treasure (Ray McVinnie); Wild Thing: The Naga Morich Story (Michael & Joy Michaud); 'Per rape et porri et per spinachi': Re-examining the Realities of Vegetable Consumption at the Monastery of Santa Trinita in Post-Plague Florence (Salvatore Musumeci); Les Maraichers - Market Gardeners of the Ile de France (Lizbeth Nicol); Keeping the Home Fires Burning: Culinary Exchanges, Sustainability and Traditional Vegetable Markets in India (Krina Patel); The Los Angeles Vegetable Cult (Charles Perry); From the Plate to the Palate: Visual Delights from the Vegetable Kingdoms of Italy (Gillian Riley); But Did the English Eat Their Vegetables? A Look at English Kitchen Gardens and the Vegetable Cookery they Imply, 1650-1800 (William Rubel); Renaissance Italy and the Fabulous, Flamboyant Inslata (June di Schino); Pomtajer (Karin Vaneker); A Vegetable Zodiac from Late Antique Alexandria (Susan Weingarten).

This book explains everything you need to know to grow a low maintenance edible polyculture. Do you dream of a low maintenance perennial garden that is full to the brim of perennial vegetables that you don't have to keep replanting, but only have a small space? Do you struggle with too little time for gardening or controlling the pests and diseases that eat your crops? Do you want to grow unusual vegetable varieties? You can do all of this with Edible Perennial Gardening. Anni Kelsey has meticulously researched the little known subject of edible perennials and selected her favourite, tasty varieties. She explains how to source and propagate different vegetables, which plants work well together in a polyculture, and what you can plant in small, shady or semi-shady beds as well as in sunny areas.

A brief, invaluable guide to the art of growing vegetables around the year and saving money in the process. Vegetable Growing is a practical guide to frugal allotmenteering, including planning your plot, looking after the plants and practical tips for keeping your costs down, such as clever ways of making freebie alternatives to common growing tools. An additional handy section offers advice on which fruit and veg will save you the most money, as well as a season-by-season guide and ideas for boosting your savings with foraged and wild food. Written by Jonathan Stevens of the Real Men Sow blog, who recently embarked on a mission to find out how much he could save by growing his own fruit and vegetables on a half-sized allotment plot.

Vegetables, fruits, and grains are a major source of vital nutrients, but centuries of intensive agriculture have depleted our soils to historic lows. As a result, the broccoli you consume today may have less than half of the vitamins and minerals that the equivalent serving would have contained a hundred years ago. This is a matter for serious concern, since poor nutrition has been linked to myriad health problems including cancer, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. For optimum health we must increase the nutrient density of our foods to the levels enjoyed by previous generations.

To grow produce of the highest nutritional quality the essential minerals lacking in our soil must be replaced, but this re-mineralization calls for far more attention to detail than the simple addition of composted manure or NPK fertilizers. "The Intelligent Gardener" demystifies the process while simultaneously debunking much of the false and misleading information perpetuated by both the conventional and organic agricultural movements. In doing so, it conclusively establishes the link between healthy soil, healthy food, and healthy people.

This practical step-by-step guide and the accompanying customizable web-based spreadsheets go beyond organic and are essential tools for any serious gardener who cares about the quality of the produce they grow.

Steve Solomon is the author of several landmark gardening books including "Gardening When it Counts" and "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades." The founder of the Territorial Seed Company, he has been growing most of his family's food for over thirty-five years.

How we eat is such a fundamental part of what we are; yet, in our present time-poor culture of prepackaged fast foods, food can become an expensive symptom of alienation and disempowerment. It doesn t have to be this way The Vegan Book of Permaculture gives us the tools and confidence to take responsibility for our lives and actions. Creating a good meal, either for ourselves or to share, taking time to prepare fresh, wholesome home- or locally grown ingredients with care and respect can be a deeply liberating experience. It is also a way of taking back some control from the advertising agencies and multinational corporations.In this groundbreaking and original book, Graham demonstrates how understanding universal patterns and principles, and applying these to our own gardens and lives, can make a very real difference to both our personal lives and the health of our planet. This also isn t so very different from the compassionate concern for "animals, people, and environment" of the vegan way.

Interspersed with an abundance of delicious, healthy, and wholesome exploitation-free recipes, Graham provides solutions-based approaches to nurturing personal effectiveness and health, eco-friendly living, home and garden design, veganic food growing, reforestation strategies, forest gardening, reconnection with wild nature, and community regeneration with plenty of practical ways to be well fed with not an animal dead This is vegan living at its best."

The Ecological Farm is a breakthrough resource for ecological fruit and vegetable growers at every scale who want to go beyond organic. Through a unique ecosystem-balancing approach focusing on reduced tillage, minimising farm and garden inputs and pest control, you’ll learn how to build higher soil quality and fertility by using fewer harmful inputs.   Farmer, consultant, and educator Helen Atthowe (along with her late husband, Carl Rosato) have decades of farming experience which is shared in this essential book. They guide readers on how to reduce or eliminate the use of outside inputs of fertiliser or pesticides – even those that are commonly used on certified organic orchards and market gardens. With clear, easy to action language and colour photography, charts, and graphs throughout, The Ecological Farm emphasizes the importance of managing the details of an entire growing system over the full life of an enterprise. The Ecological Farm features a crop-by-crop guide to growing more than 25 of the most popular and profitable vegetables and fruits, including specific management advice for dealing with pests and diseases. You’ll also learn how to: design a system that establishes a year-round root-in-soil system for microbial health strengthen the “immune system� of a farm or garden supply crop needs using only on-farm inputs such as cover crops and living mulch maximise the presence of beneficial insects and microbes minimise ecological impact in dealing with insect pest and disease problems The Ecological Farm makes complex, sometimes messy, ecological concepts and practices understandable to all growers, and makes healthy farming, in which nature is invited to participate, possible.

A Produce Reference Guide to Fruits and Vegetables from Around the World: Nature's Harvest answers the many questions consumers have about various fruits and vegetables. Providing basic, clear, and understandable information for each produce item, this reference guide gives you a synopsis of the fruit or vegetable, a short history of the item, the common and uncommon name, what it looks and tastes like, how it is used, and the time of year it is available. Information on nutrition, serving sizes, yields, and optimal storage conditions is also provided. From potatoes to shepherd's purse and from grapes to the Clementine tangor, A Produce Reference Guide to Fruits and Vegetables from Around the World covers both the familiar and the exotic. Other than the obvious fruits and vegetables (such as 12 varieties of cherries and 10 different kinds of squash) you?ll also read about herbs, mushrooms, sprouts, and nuts. A Produce Reference Guide to Fruits and Vegetables from Around the World is packed with useful information. From practical advice to interesting trivia, some of the things you?ll learn include: You should not eat any green parts of potatoes--it will make you sick.How to classify a peach--clingstone vs. freestone and white vs. yellow.The Texas 1015 Supersweet onion is named after its recommended planting date, October 15.Kiwis (originally from China, not Australia) contain an enzyme that tenderizes meat.Women in China once made a dye from the skin of eggplants to stain their teeth black.The famous mutiny by Captain Bligh's crew was caused by breadfruit.Gourds may have spread between continents by floating in the ocean, as they can float in sea water for 220 days without losing seed viability.The two nuts mentioned in the Bible--almonds and pistachios.As new methods in farming, storing, and shipping are allowing exotic fruits and vegetables unheard of a few years ago to become available, consumers are coming up with more and more questions that many professionals are unable to answer. A Produce Reference Guide to Fruits and Vegetables from Around the World is the tool you can use to find answers. The guide is especially useful for specialty produce outlets and wholesalers, importers/exporters of fruits and vegetables, produce brokers and buyers, supermarket and independent food store produce departments, military commissaries, and the general public.

Beans are easy to grow, easy to cook, delicious, nourishing and beneficial for us and the planet. Growing your own beans not only helps you build healthy soil in your garden, it also provides you with a nutrient-rich diet. Beans can play a role in reducing the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer - they are good sources of protein, fibre, folate, iron and potassium - and they can reduce your carbon footprint and food miles as well! This fascinating book brings together Susan Young's 10 years of experimentation with multiple varieties of beans. She clearly explains how to sow, grow, harvest, dry, store and cook them, and shares her six 'must grow' varieties. Go on a tasty culinary journey around the world and discover a range of colourful and historic beans, from the pink 'Fagiolo di Lamon' of Italy to the black and white 'Bosnian Pole' bean. Learn which varieties are best for eating fresh from the pod and those that are best for drying and storing for later use. Beans offer year-round nutritious meals, and dried beans can be the star of the show with their fabulous diversity of flavours, colours and textures.

Welcome to modern matchmaking - for plants! All you need to do is be honest about what you can invest into your plant relationship (attentiveness, experience ... sunlight) and voila - The Modern Gardener will suggest the best matched plant partner for you. Nothing livens up a room, windowsill or small yard like the presence of leafy Swiss cheese plants, angular succulents, perennial peonies or your own little herb garden. And this comprehensive reference book starts by covering all the best types of plants and planting for every type of indoor room, patio and balcony - from decorative and beneficial, low maintenance or useful edible plants - you'll find everything you need to know about how to find the perfect plants for you and your lifestyle, and how help them to thrive. The second half of the book - the Personal Plant Selector - features an extensive directory of over 100 plants, in which you will be introduced to each species and their characteristics, benefits and needs, including quick facts on potting and repotting, correct care and more. This beautifully designed encyclopedia of plants also includes a comprehensive index and a cross-referencing system, to make it easy to find information quickly. It's the ultimate guide to your personal plant kingdom!

In this book, Sharon Amos explains how to design and create a beautiful garden for little or no money, offering tips on bartering for clippings, getting a bargain at garage sales or neighbourhood fairs, digging up suckers or adapting wild species and controlling them in a garden environment. She provides a comprehensive directory of 80 plants including detailed advice on where and how to grow a wide variety of garden favourites, from snowdrops to poppies. With beautiful illustrations, Plants for Free is the perfect gift book for cultivating your garden on a budget of next-to-nothing.

Take your love of plants to the next level and start growing some food with this modern, easy-to-follow guidebook that shows you everything you need to know to grow edible plants all year round!

Did you know you could grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs in containers? Well, now you can take your houseplants to the next level by growing home-grown produce and seasoning that will taste delicious in all of your favorite dishes.

How to Grow Your Own Food identifies 50 common, easy-to-grow edible plants from herbs to vegetables, along with detailed care instructions and beautiful illustrations of each plant. You’ll find everything you need to know about building your container garden including:

• How to choose the right size container for each plant
• How to water (and feed!) your plants for optimal growth
• When to harvest your crops for the best flavor
• And much more!

How to Grow Winter Vegetables shows that it is possible to enjoy an abundance of vegetables at the darkest time of year, whether stored or ready for harvesting when needed. It also covers growing for the 'hungry gap' from April to early June. Not much grows in winter, but a well-organised plot may nonetheless be quite full. You need to plan carefully, and well ahead (as early as spring) for sowing and planting at specific times through the year, so the main part of the book is an extensive month-by-month sowing, planting and growing calendar. Further sections cover harvesting, from garlic in July right through to the last of the overwintered greens in May, and storing your produce. Many salads can be grown in winter, especially with a little protection from fleece, cloches or larger structures. The book includes a whole section on frost-hardy salad plants, explaining how to ensure harvests of fresh leaves throughout winter. The beauty of winter and its produce is captured in glorious photographs from the author's garden.