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!

Grow your own fruit and veg with trusted advice from the experts at the RHS. This ultimate guide to vegetable and fruit gardening features the cream of each crop, with 100 illustrated profiles and quick reference recommendations to make choosing what to grow easy. From growing tomatoes to caring for your pepper plant, you'll get practical advice on key aspects of cultivation, including sowing and harvesting, and troubleshooting pests and diseases. Clear, easy-to-follow advice on the basic principles of growing fruit and vegetables helps you plan your plot and choose the right seed or plant for your garden space. Now in paperback (previous ISBN 9781405361804), RHS Grow Fruit and Veg is full of essential cultivation advice for grow-your-own beginners and experienced gardeners alike.

Discover everything you need to know to grow your garden in containers. Even if you only have a balcony or small patio, you can grow more than you ever thought possible in pots, wall planters and hanging baskets! This is your no-fuss guide to container gardening. Are you interested in making your outdoor space greener but don't know where to start? This urban gardening guide for beginners will help you choose and care for more than 80 different plant varieties, all specially chosen for their ability to thrive in containers. Discover the quickest way to bring nature into your home all year round! From suntraps to shady corners, this easy gardening guide will show you how to brighten up even the trickiest areas with beautiful plants. You don't have to be a horticulture expert to get started, this indispensable reference book will take you through every single step! It includes: - Tips on how to care for more than 80 different container plant varieties - Packed with practical, jargon-free know-how and simple gardening techniques - Easy-to-follow format to help grow your gardening knowledge Let It Grow! Gorgeous, full-colour photography provides plenty of inspiration and styling ideas! Expert tips and step-by-step instructions on every page help make sure that you care for your plants in the right way for them to flourish. Grow Containers shows you how to leverage every square inch of your gardening space. It's perfect for first-time gardeners, especially renters and small homeowners with paved-over gardens. Complete the Series: Make your green-fingered dreams a reality with the Grow series from DK. Learn how to sow, grow and harvest vegetables successfully in Grow Easy Veg, or discover how to garden more sustainably in Grow Eco-Gardening. Alternatively, there are more titles to explore such as Grow Pruning & Training and Grow Houseplants.

This is best-selling author Ed Smith's complete guide to growing a bounty of vegetables in small spaces and without land. This is a completely updated and expanded edition of "Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers", now including conventional containers of all sizes, from window boxes to tubs. "The Vegetable Gardener's Container Bible" provides information on growing everyone's favourite vegetables in all kinds of containers. And Ed Smith delivers his wealth of container gardening knowledge in the friendly, accessible style that his readers love. He explains how to choose the rights plants, select appropriate containers and tools, provide balanced nutrition, care for plants throughout the growing season, control pests without chemicals, and much more. He even includes plans for small-space container gardens that urban and suburban gardeners will love.

Want to get home-grown spices in the middle of winter? Eat fresh vegetables in the spring? Sow in the summer to harvest in the fall? Lena Israelsson's book, Year-Round Edible Gardening, is a practical guide for those who want to extend their growing season. And double, perhaps triple, their harvest. Growing year-round is possible, and this book can teach you the best methods to do it the right way. Year-Round Edible Gardening includes inspiring and expert tips on which vegetables, herbs, and spices suit the different seasons. Certain plants can even be harvested in the middle of winter if handled correctly. Others, like microgreens, herbs, and hydroculture, can create the perfect indoor gardens. This book will teach readers to know the difference between cold and hot weather plants, which growing methods are best suited for different plants, and when to plant and harvest. They'll learn about sowing; coverage with plastic, glass, or fiber weaves; and fertilization-creating a fruitful and fertile soil is the linchpin of all cultivation and one of the book's most important parts.

The American Midwest is an ideal place to grow a huge variety of vegetables, and there are plenty of healthful and economic benefits to having your own garden. Whether you have a traditional backyard space or several containers on a high-rise balcony, you can grow a season-long supply of tasty produce. Best-selling garden writer Laura Peters provides all you need to know to dig in: * Basics such as light, soil, exposure and frost tolerance * Almost infinite garden styles, including raised beds and limited space gardening * Preparing the garden and selecting which vegetables to grow where * Recommended varieties, including new, traditional, heirloom and unusual selections * Seasonal care, including mulching, weeding and watering * Tips throughout, including how to extend the growing season and what to do with your harvest * Organic approaches to management of pests and diseases * An appendix featuring companion plants and relationships * Helpful hardiness maps, and delicious colour photos throughout.

Did you know Avocados contain around 20 minerals and vitamins which are essential to good health? But a medium avocado contains more calories than a Mars bar? Who cares? They're delicious and can be used in everything from salad to soup. And make a fabulous face mask! Super Food: Avocado contains Feature spreads - covering the history of avocados, plus health benefits, how to use avocado to dye fabric and grow your own. Delicious food and drink recipes - from snacks, starters, mains and desserts. Enjoy a bacon and egg baked avocado with a mango, avocado and spinach smoothie for breakfast! Health and beauty recipes - make your hands beautiful with an avocado, olive oil and lemon treatment, or brighten dull skin with an avocado exfoliant. Food is super! There's all sorts of things you can do with fruit and veg - and not always what you'd expect. Whether it's cooking delicious dishes, looking after your teeth or making facepacks, there's all kinds of interesting, healthy uses for fruit and veg. Each book in the Super Foods series takes a look at one ingredient and shows a host of uses - both practical and delicious. The first books in the series are: Avocado, Cucumber, Pomegranate, Lemon, Beetroot and Coconut.

"Small is Bountiful" covers everything you need to start growing your own food, however small the space available to you. Whether you have never grown anything before or are a seasoned gardener looking for new ideas, you'll find both inspiration and practical tips on planting, harvesting and nurturing. Each chapter takes you through the different stages of how to get the very best from your garden: Big Ideas for Small Spaces looks at the space and site you have available for growing crops. Small Bites offers ideas for planting fast-growing crops such as leafy salads, edible flowers, and herbs, and Bigger Servings explains how to increase the yield of fruiting and root crops. Here you'll find favourites such as potatoes for the patio and a crate of cook's herbs. There is advice on choosing the right plants, planting ideas, and detailed care instructions, plus recipes and tips on how to store and preserve your bountiful harvest. The featured planting has been developed around planting 'recipes', based on how you would use the harvest in the kitchen - for example the container "A Taste of Italy" gives you a marvellous tomato and basil combination. With beautiful photography and clear instructional text, the 34 projects look as good as they taste.

Biochar, charcoal made from wood or another type of biomass, has become the new darling of organic gardeners, embraced for its outstanding abilities to enrich the soil and improve plant growth. Gardening with Biochar is the first comprehensive guide to understanding, making, and using it effectively in the home garden. In this highly accessible handbook, long-time garden writer Jeff Cox explains what biochar is and provides detailed instructions for how it can be made at home, along with specific guidelines for using it to enrich soil, prevent erosion, and enhance plant growth. Now widely available at garden centers, biochar is also being lauded for its ability to sequester carbon in the soil, making it good for the health of the planet, as well as the plants.

A colourful illustrated story about Elliot and his dad growing their own vegetables to make a delicious soup - and finding that a gardening adventure involves more than welly boots and sowing seeds. Digging for treasure, pirates, a friendly neighbour and hordes of wildlife intent on eating the crops. All for a small pot of broth... Dad suggests that Elliot can help in the garden to grow what they need to make a big pot of broth. Elliot, (aided by his mum, big sister and brother), sets out enthusiastically to give his dad assistance - clad, of course, in his welly boots, just like a proper gardener. But Elliot's good intentions begin to go astray as his imagination takes over from garden duties. Digging in the back garden leads to finding all sort of 'treasure', and he is soon picturing himself as a Victorian Gent complete with watch chain, a Roman Centurion, and a Pictish warrior. Helping Dad build the raised beds, Elliot becomes a pirate walking the plank. Weeds? These are dinosaur food. As the shoots begin to grow, they have hopes and dreams for a bumper harvest. And when the beans begin to sprout, Elliot pictures himself climbing a giant beanstalk. Elliot discovers the nest of a field-mouse, and when Robert Burns is duly quoted, we realise that the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley. As the garden flourishes, we discover that a variety of wildlife is just as interested in eating what is growing all around, as Elliot is. Perhaps this gardening project will not quite go according to plan ... To protect his crops from being is being eaten by the local birds, mice and rabbits, Elliot bravely volunteers to stand guard overnight in his homemade tent. Armed with his torch and a flask of cocoa, he soon finds the spooky noises of the evening send his imagination soaring again. The distant hooting owl, the cry of the fox, the cat rustling in the undergrowth - even the fluttering bats - quickly see him run for safety indoors. However with the garden protected by nets and windmills to scare off crows, the crops recover a little. The family harvest what is left to make the soup, including tiny beetroot, some thin-looking leeks and some wonky-shaped carrots. "They'll be fine once they're chopped up and in the broth!" declares Dad. Instead of the huge pot of broth that Elliot had imagined, there is just enough to fill their smallest pot. Dad remains upbeat: "Well, it's enough to give everyone a taste." However the day is saved by their next-door green-thumbed neighbour, who comes to rescue with an armful of carrots and leeks from her own garden. The family then gets busy cleaning the vegetables, chopping and stirring. The big pot is needed after all ... and Elliot sits down at last to enjoy his home-grown broth.

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!

-- Authoritative guide by a leading expert
-- A classic work, fully revised
-- Clearly covers every aspect of vegetable gardening, from soil preparation and planning to sowing and harvesting
-- Includes detailed information on the cultivation of over 100 vegetables
-- Contains all the information any gardener needs to create a highly productive plot
-- Follows an organic approach
-- The book for anyone who wants to enjoy the delights and satisfaction of growing their own vegetables.

Joy's authoritative, clearly organized and easy-to-follow advice covers every aspect of vegetable gardening, including preparing and looking after soil; manures, composts and fertilizers; growing techniques; pests, diseases and weeds; protection; and planning and making good use of space. The second half of the book provides information for over 100 vegetables, including soil requirements, cultivation, pests and diseases and cultivars.

Comprehensively revised, the book now includes unusual vegetables from the increasingly wide range available today, new varieties and modern techniques and up-to-date research. It addresses the concerns of 21st century gardeners and is totally organic in its approach. A joy to read, it is a classic guide for today's generation of vegetable growers.

Permaculture is an ecological movement popular among farmers, homesteaders, and a growing number of home gardeners. It is a systematic and holistic approach to living that includes everything from beekeeping and raising chickens, to foraging and fermentation, and leads to a life rich in healthy food, comfortable and safe housing, and renewable energy and resources.

Practical Permaculture for Home Landscapes, Your Community, and the Whole Earth provides home gardeners with the skills they need to start their first permaculture garden or to further their current involvement in the practice. Jessi Bloom, the bestselling author of Free-Range Chicken Gardens and an ecological landscape designer, and permaculture expert Dave Boehnlein explain the basic principles and ethics of permaculture, show the entire design process from land assessment to the completed master plan, and offer detailed information on the plants, water, waste, energy, shelter, food, animals, and structures that make up the garden.

Illustrations and color photographs provide instruction, inspiration, and glimpses into working permaculture gardens throughout the world. This comprehensive and accessible guide is the ultimate reference for anyone interested in learning more about permaculture.

"No Time to Grow?" is an invaluable guide which shows how with good planning, organisation and a little patience, the smallest piece of ground can be worked to make a significant contribution to a healthy diet. The philosophy is always that it is better to give it a go and produce something than not try and to produce nothing. The author sets out to demonstrate ways of working and thinking to enable the production of a relatively large amount of fruit and vegetables with minimal time investment. Using organic principles throughout, the book takes the reader from some general principles of low effort gardening, through clearing the land the easy way, establishing a basic cropping plan, to expanding it and making that plan sustainable. It also includes suggestions on the easiest ways of growing a wide selection of vegetables and fruit. These sections are complemented with a brief review of poultry keeping and a selection of recipes to use some of the garden's produce. "No Time to Grow?" sets out to provide a unique approach to back yard food production viewing the activity as an integrated whole rather than a list of separate crops to produce.

Scientist/gardener Carol Deppe combines her passion for organic gardening with newly emerging scientific information from many fields -- resilience science, climatology, climate change, ecology, anthropology, paleontology, sustainable agriculture, nutrition, health, and medicine. In the last half of The Resilient Gardener, Deppe extends and illustrates these principles with detailed information about growing and using five key crops: potatoes, corn, beans, squash, and eggs.

In this book you'll learn how to:

-Garden in an era of unpredictable weather and climate change

-Grow, store, and use more of your own staple crops

-Garden efficiently and comfortably (even if you have a bad back)

-Grow, store, and cook different varieties of potatoes and save your own potato seed

-Grow the right varieties of corn to make your own gourmet-quality fast-cooking polenta, cornbread, parched corn, corn cakes, pancakes and even savory corn gravy

-Make whole-grain, corn-based breads and cakes using the author's original gluten-free recipes involving no other grains, artificial binders, or dairy products

-Grow and use popbeans and other grain legumes

-Grow, store, and use summer, winter, and drying squash

-Keep a home laying flock of ducks or chickens; integrate them with your gardening, and grow most of their feed.

The Resilient Gardener is both a conceptual and a hands-on organic gardening book, and is suitable for vegetable gardeners at all levels of experience. Resilience here is broadly conceived and encompasses a full range of problems, from personal hard times such as injuries, family crises, financial problems, health problems, and special dietary needs (gluten intolerance, food allergies, carbohydrate sensitivity, and a need for weight control) to serious regional and global disasters and climate change. It is a supremely optimistic as well as realistic book about how resilient gardeners and their vegetable gardens can flourish even in challenging times and help their communities to survive and thrive through everything that comes their way -- from tomorrow through the next thousand years. Organic gardening, vegetable gardening, self-sufficiency, subsistence gardening, gluten-free living.

The invaluable resource for home food gardeners
Ed Smith's W-O-R-D system has helped countless gardeners grow an abundance of vegetables and herbs. And those tomatoes and zucchini and basil and cucumbers have nourished countless families, neighbors, and friends with delicious, fresh produce. "The Vegetable Gardener's Bible" is essential reading for locavores in every corner of North America

EVERYTHING YOU LOVED about the first edition of "The Vegetable Gardener s Bible" is still here: friendly, accessible language; full-color photography; comprehensive vegetable specific information in the A-to-Z section; ahead-of-its-time commitment to organic methods; and much more.
Now, Ed Smith is back with a 10th Anniversary Edition for the next generation of vegetable gardeners. New to this edition is coverage of 15 additional vegetables, including an expanded section on salad greens and more European and Asian vegetables. Readers will also find growing information on more fruits and herbs, new cultivar photographs in many vegetable entries, and a much-requested section on extending the season into the winter months. No matter how cold the climate, growers can bring herbs indoors and keep hardy greens alive in cold frames or hoop houses.
The impulse to grow vegetables is even stronger in 2009 than it was in 2000, when Storey published "The Vegetable Gardener s Bible." The financial and environmental costs of fossil fuels raise urgent questions: How far should we be shipping food? What are the health costs of petroleum-based pesticides and herbicides? Do we have to rely on megafarms that use gasoline-powered machinery to grow and harvest crops? With every difficult question, more people think, Maybe I should grow a few vegetables of my own. This book will continue to answer all their vegetable gardening questions.

Praise for the First Edition:
"In every small town, there is a vegetable garden that people go out of the way to walk past. Smith is the guy who grew that garden." Verlyn Klinkenborg, "The New York Times Book Review
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"An abundance of photographs . . . visually bolster the techniques described, while frequent subheads, sidebars, and information-packed photo captions make the layout user-friendly . . . Smith s] book is thorough and infused with practical wisdom and a dry Vermont humor that should endear him to readers." "Publisher's Weekly
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"Smith . . . clearly explains everything novice and experienced gardeners need to know to grow vegetables and herbs. . . . " "Library Journal
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"this book will answer all your questions as well as put you on the path to an abundant harvest. As a bonus, anecdotes and stories make this informative book fun to read." - "New York Newsday""

'A beautifully photographed guide for gardeners' - Daily Telegraph 'Nick offers solutions for every season' - Country Living 'A thought-provoking and beautifully written book' - Fergus Garrett, Head Gardener, Great Dixter In 365 Days of Colour in Your Garden BBC Gardeners' World presenter Nick Bailey shows you how to plant and manage your garden, whatever its size, to ensure year-round colour and interest. Initially explaining simple colour theory principles and how to apply them to your garden, the book goes on to highlight beautiful plants and planting combinations for every season no matter what type of garden you have. With chapters covering the longest flowering plants, pot recipes and gorgeous plants for difficult sites, along with a comprehensive seasonal directory, this book will inspire and delight both experienced gardeners and beginners alike.

Root cellaring, as many people remember but only a few people still practice, is a way of using the earth's naturally cool, stable temperature to store perishable fruits and vegetables. Root cellaring, as Mike and Nancy Bubel explain here, is a no-cost, simple, low-technology, energy-saving way to keep the harvest fresh all year long.

In Root Cellaring, the Bubels tell how to successfully use this natural storage approach. It's the first book devoted entirely to the subject, and it covers the subject with a thoroughness that makes it the only book you'll ever need on root cellaring.

Root Cellaring will tell you:

* How to choose vegetable and fruit varieties that will store best

* Specific individual storage requirements for nearly 100 home garden crops

* How to use root cellars in the country, in the city, and in any environment

* How to build root cellars, indoors and out, big and small, plain and fancy

* Case histories -- reports on the root cellaring techniques and experiences of many households all over North America

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. Best of all, root cellars can easily fit anywhere. Not everyone can live in the country, but everyone can benefit from natural cold storage.

Greens are highly nutritious, contributing essential vitamins and minerals to the diet, and they are particularly tasty if they are home-grown and eaten soon after harvesting. In this book, the main types of greens are described and illustrated, with useful information about the different varieties that can be grown, their history, cultivation requirements and cooking uses. There are step-by-step instructions for planting greens, as well as keeping them in tip-top condition by dealing with pests and diseases. A must for novices and experienced growers alike, the book is ideal for anyone who wants to experiment with new varieties.

This is a directory of varieties and how to cultivate them successfully. It is an illustrated gardener's guide to the different varieties of bulb vegetables, their history and cooking uses. It features step-by-step instructions for preparing the soil, sowing from seed and from sets, and harvesting and storing. It includes practical advice on cultivating a wide range of bulbs, including onions, shallots, garlic, spring onions and scallions, leeks, chives and Florence fennel. It contains helpful hints on how to avoid pests and diseases, and what to do when problems occur. Bulb vegetables have leaves that are adapted to store food reserves below or just above the ground, creating fleshy leaf bulbs. This book describes and illustrates all the main types, and includes useful information about the different varieties that can be grown and their cooking uses. There is practical advice for preparing the soil for new crops, making compost and growing bulb vegetables both from seed and from sets, as well as guidance on growing and caring for vegetables and how to harvest and store them. There are also suggestions for dealing with any pests and diseases.This handy book is suitable for novices and experienced gardeners alike.

The Pig is a collection of restaurants with rooms in Hampshire, Devon, Dorset and Somerset - and soon in Kent, West Sussex and Cornwall. Now, everyone can enjoy The Pig from the comfort of their own homes. Among the pages of The Pig you will find an idiosyncratic, seasonal approach to the good life, with delicious recipes, how-to guides, tips, tricks and stories. Inside the pages of The Pig you will find: Classic recipes from Nan's rice pudding to proper fish pie, porchetta, gammon with parsley sauce, devilish devilled kidneys on toast, a right old eton mess and even a pink blancmange bunny. The Pig's Guide to Pigs from identifying different breeds and selecting the best cuts of meat to making your own sausages, crackling and charcuterie. How to pickle, forage and identify edible flowers and suggestions on how to bring the weird and wonderful vegetables, fruits and salads from the garden into the kitchen. Noble wine, simple food from classic cocktails to modern twists and all the best accompaniments. Interior design recreating the comfort and elegance of The Pig at home. Setting the scene, The Pigs top tips on hosting your own festivals, summer feasts and winter gatherings, including creating the perfect playlist to the best recipes to cook outdoors. Praise for the book: 'For us at home, the cookbook provides the perfect inspiration.' The Telegraph Magazine Praise for The Pig Hotels: Rick Stein: 'Dinner, bed and breakfast at The Pig, any Pig, is a comforting thought of some lovely flavoured pork, a British abundance of vegetables and some fabulous red wine.' The Sunday Times: 'There isn't a trace of cynicism here - just enthusiasm, craft and people who love what they do, creating a place you really, really don't want to leave.' The Financial Times 'Some inherited memory of a weekend with grandparents I never had... a little bohemian, and unbelievably good at cooking.' Tom Parker Bowles: 'The Pig revolutionised the country house hotel, creating a true home away from home. No pomp or pretence, just beautiful rooms and magnificent food with produce from their own kitchen gardens. Where The Pig goes, the others follow.'