CBD and other cannabis-based products are widely available and popular, with the number of dispensaries increasing exponentially every month. But not all products are equal in terms of quality. The best rule of thumb to know the grower or, even better, grow a small quantity of the plant in the home garden and make your own medicines. This beginner-friendly guide, written by a herbalist who specializes in every aspect of making and using cannabis medicine, teaches how to grow healthy cannabis plants outdoors for personal use, and make your own customized remedies for addressing a range of common ailments and chronic conditions. With step-by-step photography taken in her own garden, author Tammi Sweet, shows the growing phases of the plant and details techniques for planting, caring for, harvesting, drying, and curing the plant. A complete how-to guide to medicine-making shows the reader how easy it is to make potent, safe, and affordable whole-plant tinctures, salves, edibles, and oils.

Winner of the National Trust Outdoor Book of the Year 2011 The story of one man's unlikely quest to create out of a mountainous Welsh landscape a garden fit for inclusion in the prestigious Yellow Book - the 'Gardens of England and Wales Open for Charity' guide - in just one year. The son of two passionate gardeners, Antony Woodward was born with chlorophyll running through his veins. Unfortunately, growing up with Latin plant names took its toll, and he was ingrained early on with a profound loathing of both gardens and gardening. Buying Tair-ffynnon, a derelict smallholding 1,300 feet up in the Black Mountains of Wales, changed everything. Hooked by its beauty - when not buried in cloud - Woodward battles to meet the strict requirements of the famous 'Yellow Book' in this unlikely terrain. He finds himself driven by apparently inexplicable compulsions: wood chopping, hauling a 20-tonne railway carriage up a mountain, even beekeeping. Soon, his voyage along the rocky path to his own patch of paradise takes on a more personal tenor as he unearths the deep roots linking gardening and his childhood in this warm, funny and unlikely memoir. Beautifully written and effortlessly engaging, 'The Garden in the Clouds' is a compelling read for anyone who has ever gardened - or ever dreamt of doing so.

Approaching organic gardening can sometimes feel overwhelming. It can be hard enough to keep on top of the weeding without having to worry about using less plastic, avoiding pesticides and using too much water. Grow Green is a practical guide and tackles a topic close to Jen Chillingsworth's heart - growing sustainably. Packed with easy tips and advice, this little book reveals how to adjust your outdoor space and create a wildlife haven, while reducing your impact on the environment as you grow your own cut flowers, fruit and veg. Drawing on her wealth of knowledge, Jen will hold your hand as she takes you through all the gardening essentials, teaching you how to get started - no matter how small or big your space might be. From making your own fertiliser with leftovers, planting in pots, reducing energy consumption and conserving water, to dealing with pests and diseases, Jen removes the stress and simply shows you how to garden green. Whether you are a first-time gardener or have seasoned green fingers - discover how to get the most out of your space with Grow Green by gardening with intention. Live simply. Grow Green.

Elevate your own green space and become a more confident and creative gardener with lessons from experienced National Trust gardeners in this comprehensive horticultural guide. 'An accessible, informative guide for beginners, but full of ideas and tips for seasoned gardeners.' - Sunday Mirror Elevate your own green space and become a more confident and creative gardener with lessons from experienced National Trust gardeners in this comprehensive horticultural guide. The National Trust looks after hundreds of beautiful gardens of every imaginable shape and size across Britain - from the grandest country estate to the smallest cottage garden. They manage such internationally renowned gardens as Sissinghurst and Hidcote. National Trust garden staff receive countless questions from visitors about plants growing in the gardens and techniques that can be tried at home. This in-depth guide will pass on their wisdom and provide the answers you are looking for. This book is packed with images of National Trust gardens of all types, spanning over 300 years of horticultural heritage, to inspire keen amateur gardeners and aspirational novices to realise their green-fingered ambitions. Written by expert gardener Rebecca Bevan, with the help of National Trust gardeners, the National Trust School of Gardening will make you feel confident about developing your garden rather than overwhelmed with unnecessary technical detail. From herbaceous borders to gardening sustainably, roses and climbers to growing under glass, each chapter provides snippets of horticultural history, examples of best practice from National Trust gardens, unique gems of wisdom from talented NT gardeners, and lots of easy-to-follow practical advice. Featuring a wide range of National Trust gardens both large and small, formal and informal, famous and undiscovered, high maintenance and low key. The topics covered and the insightful practical guides shared are easily applicable to private gardens, enriching even the tiniest urban spaces.

A revised, redesigned and updated edition of the definitive and bestselling woodworker's bible. Authoritative, superbly crafted and easy to use, Collins Complete Woodworker's Manual is the UK bestseller and the one book every woodworker needs. This revised edition has been extensively rewritten and contains new photographs and illustrations. It includes new products and techniques developed since the last edition, as well as updated trees' conservation status. Every stage in crafting furniture and other decorative pieces are fully explained starting with the basics; the nature of wood, the tools required and setting up a workshop. The book then examines the principles of three-dimensional design from inspiration to construction. Step-by-step illustrations demonstrate how to make every type of joint and all the major crafts are given detailed coverage with the same step-by-step approach: bending wood, veneering and marquetry, woodcarving and finishing. The book also includes a chapter on using other materials, such as metal, glass and leather in combination with wood, plus a chapter on fixings and fittings.

Homesteading From Scratch is for people who want to do things differently the type of people who want to eat real food, grow herbs, make cheese, raise baby animals, hunt mushrooms, pick blackberries, unschool their children, can jelly, ferment kraut, farm organically, connect to nature, live intentionally, and more. Guiding readers from desire to full-blown off-the-grid living and everything in between this book covers farming, animal husbandry, food preparation, homeschooling, fiber arts, and even marketing. It provides inspiration from other homesteaders, with operations from small to large, who have made a go of it, outlining their successes and failures throughout the process. It helps to democratize the homesteading movement, by providing "ins" for nearly every level of dedication, from the container gardener to full-time farmers. It provides the knowledge necessary to discover homesteading as a movement and as a lifestyle. Inspired by From Scratch magazine, an online publication devoted to homesteading and intentional living, this book provides readers with continued support and community for information and resources online. This book serves as a reference, as well as a cheerleader, for those who want a bit more control and responsibility over where their food comes from, what they consume, and how they live their lives.

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. Now back in print, this eminently sensible and wonderfully well-focused book provides essential information about one of the most significant challenges for those attempting to grow delicious organic vegetables: the creation and maintenance of healthy soil. Chapter 2, "Understanding the Soil System," is alone worth the price of admission. Gershuny and Smillie give lay readers and experts a clear explanation of subjects--soil life and nutrient cycles--that have confounded most authors. Nowhere will the reader find simpler and more coherent descriptions of key concepts including cation exchange capacity and chelation. There are other books about soil available, including Grace Gershuny's comprehensive Start with the Soil, and there are books that feature chapters on soil building. What distinguishes The Soil of Soilis 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 Updates to the 1999 edition include analysis of Proposed Rules for the National Organic Standards, and expanded recommendations for private testing services and soil-testing equipment for home gardeners and organic farmers. All of us involved in the cultivation of plants--from the backyard gardener to the largest farmer--need to help regenerate a "living soil," for only in the diversity of the soil and its creatures can we ensure the long-term health of ourselves and our environment. The Soul of Soil offers everyone a basic understanding of what soil is and what we can do to improve our own patch of it. Seen in this light, this practical handbook will be an inspiration as well.

The vast North Woods, a land magnificently arrayed in the deep greens of pine, spruce, and fir and the brilliant blues of crystal clear lakes, spans the area from Minnesota to Maine and from Michigan to Hudson Bay. With a little help fromCanoe Country Flora, keen explorers will discover a world full of life and wonder in the plants that thrive in this beautiful lake country. Canoe Country Flora, a friendly field guide, introduces you to ninety-six of the most common trees, shrubs, wildflowers, fungi, ferns, lichens, and other plants you're likely to encounter during your travels north. Detailed line drawings and brief plant profiles help you recognize what you're seeing, while "Sparky" Stensaas's intriguing tales draw you into a deeper study of the plants's natural and cultural histories. Each plant is made identifiable and memorable by fascinating facts, handy checklists, diagrams and charts, and interesting activities that help adults and children learn by discovery. Use this book as a companion to Canoe Country Wildlife or alone as your guide to a unique North Woods adventure.

If you are one of those people who haven't got time to hang around waiting for your garden to mature, then this is the book for you. It offers stylish and desirable rapid results for the time-poor and is ideal for anyone starting to garden or tackling a long-neglected plot. Look inside for garden facelifts you can achieve in a couple of hours - or a weekend at most. Discover the designer tips that will win your garden first-in-show prize every time. Find speedy garden fixes for instant results as well as long-term pleasure. See how to add maximum drama with minimum effort. Find out which plants your garden needs to pack a punch. Learn the simplest ways to keep your garden looking good all year long. No matter whether your garden's cricket-pitch size or just a window box, these handy tips, quick fixes and pearls of wisdom are exactly what you need to make your plot the envy of your friends.

The author describes the glorious but laborious work of converting what had been a general dumping-ground to a rich and productive wildlife haven. As work progressed, May took many photographs and kept observations of the varied wildlife she observed during the many evenings which were spent working and watching in the reserve. How she and her husband achieved their dream of creating their own nature reserve as part of the country house hotel they ran, makes illuminating and fascinating reading. This grand labour of love over fifteen years was rewarded as the reserve was visited or colonised by many species such as badgers, bats, foxes, and goshawks to the more unusual elephant hawkmoths and the very rare rhododendron lacewing. Interesting facts gradually emerged - an exceptionally fine collection of rhododendron which came from the Kingdom Ward Collection had originally been brought back from Chile, Burma and China for the Royal Horticultural Society many years previously. The award-winning nature reserve, with its countless animal and plant species, often featured in many wildlife documentaries and was officially opened by Professor David Bellamy. 'Just Before Dawn" will be an inspiring read for all lovers of nature and wildlife, and will be of particular appeal to gardeners and anyone who wishes to encourage and observe wildlife in their garden.

Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes presents the life and work of one of the foremost landscape designers of the early 1900s. Born into a prominent New York family (she was the niece of Edith Wharton), Farrand eschewed the traditional social life of the Gilded Age to pursue her passion for landscape and plants. Many of her clients were members of the highest echelon of society with estates in Newport, the Berkshires, and Maine, but Farrand ultimately became a consultant for university campuses, including Yale and Princeton, and for public gardens, including the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and the Rose Garden at The New York Botanical Garden. Perhaps her best-known work is the extensive garden at Dumbarton Oaks, originally a private residence and now a research institute of Harvard University. Deeply influenced by the English landscape designer Gertrude Jekyll, Farrand was known for broad expanses of lawn with deep swaths of borders planted in a subtle palette of foliage and flowers. Her gardens have been photographed at their peak especially for this book, and these lush illustrations are complemented by beautiful watercolor wash renderings of her designs, now preserved at the library of the University of California at Berkeley.

Why do so many people love gardening? What does your garden say about you? What is guerrilla gardening?

The Psychology of Gardening delves into the huge benefits that gardening can have on our health and emotional well-being, and how this could impact on the entire public health of a country. It also explores what our gardens can tell us about our personalities, how we can link gardening to mindfulness and restoration, and what motivates someone to become a professional gardener.

With gardening being an ever popular pastime, The Psychology of Gardening provides a fascinating insight into our relationships with our gardens.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction:

Why garden? Gardening facts and figures

Researching gardening and common themes

2. It’s my little bit of paradise

Identity and relationships

Home and place

3. Time stands still

‘Attention Restoration Theory’

‘Flow’ theory’

4. In touch with Nature

Evolutionary theories and Biophilia

Nature in control – the challenges

5. It keeps me sane

Gardening as therapy?

Nature and health?

6. Conclusions:

Review and reflection - summary

Greenfingers and expertise: ‘being’ or ‘becoming’ a gardener

'Wonderfully intense and honest - a poignant manual of how to grow hope against the odds.' Chris Packham, TV presenter and author of Fingers in the Sparkle Jar Finding herself in a new home in Brighton, Kate Bradbury sets about transforming her decked, barren backyard into a beautiful wildlife garden. She documents the unbuttoning of the earth and the rebirth of the garden, the rewilding of a tiny urban space. On her own she unscrews, saws and hammers the decking away, she clears the builders' rubble and rubbish beneath it, and she digs and enriches the soil, gradually planting it up with plants she knows will attract wildlife. She erects bird boxes and bee hotels, hangs feeders and grows nectar- and pollen-rich plants, and slowly brings life back to the garden. But while she's doing this Kate's neighbours continue to pave and deck their gardens locking them away, the wildlife she tries to save is further threatened, and she feels she's fighting an uphill battle. Is there any point in gardening for wildlife when everyone else is drowning the land in poison and cement? Sadly, events take Kate away from her garden, and she finds herself back home in Birmingham where she grew up, travelling the roads she used to race down on her bike in the eighties, thinking of the gardens and wildlife she loved, witnessing more land lost beneath paving stones. If the dead could return, what would they say about the land we have taken, the ancient routes we have carved up, the wildlife we have lost?

"Explains how your garden can be a thriving, balanced community that gives more to your landscape than it takes." --Douglas W. Tallamy, author of The Nature of Oaks and Nature's Best Hope The birds, mammals, reptiles, and insects that inhabit our yards and gardens are overwhelmingly on our side--they are not our enemies, but instead our allies. They pollinate our flowers and vegetable crops, and they keep pests in check. In Garden Allies, Frederique Lavoipierre shares fascinating portraits of these creatures, describing their life cycles and showing how they keep the garden's ecology in balance. Also included is helpful information on how to nurture and welcome these valuable creatures into your garden. With beautiful pen-and-ink drawings by Craig Latker, Garden Allies invites you to make friends with the creatures that fill your garden--the reward is a renewed sense of nature's beauty and a garden humming with life.

There aren t many books more beloved than The Tale of Peter Rabbit and even fewer authors as iconic as Beatrix Potter. More than 150 million copies of her books have sold worldwide and interest in her work and life remains high. And her characters Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle Duck, and all the rest exist in a charmed world filled with flowers and gardens. Beatrix Potter s Gardening Life is the first book to explore the origins of Beatrix Potter s love of gardening and plants and show how this passion came to be reflected in her work. The book begins with a gardener s biography, highlighting the key moments and places throughout her life that helped define her, including her home Hill Top Farm in England's Lake District. Next, the reader follows Beatrix Potter through a year in her garden, with a season-by-season overview of what is blooming that truly brings her gardens alive. The book culminates in a traveler s guide, with information on how and where to visit Potter s gardens today. Richly illustrated and filled with quotations from her books, letters, and journals, it is essential reading for all who know and cherish Beatrix Potter s classic tales."

Free Plants!

From Simple Seed-Saving Techniques

Here's all the information and guidance you need to start saving seeds from your favorite vegetables, herbs, and flowers and grow even more plants next year.

Dozens of at-a-glance charts and over 300 step-by-step illustrations show you how to determine when seeds are ready for harvest, how to collect them, and how to store them. Plus, you get time-proven tips, the kind that only an experienced horticulturalist can share, for starting seeds right.

Seed Sowing and Saving is packed with solid advice and information that teaches you how to:

* Successfully harvest seeds from more than 100 common vegetables, annuals, perennials, herbs, and wildflowers

* Dry and store seeds, and test seeds for viability

* Sow seeds indoors to get a head start on the growing season

* Prepare soil and garden beds for transplants or direct sowing

Nature on the Doorstep reveals the simple pleasures of paying attention to the natural world in one's own backyard over the course of a year. In weekly letters, Angela Douglas shares the joys and curiosities of a decidedly ordinary patch of green in upstate New York cultivated through the art of "strategic neglect"-sometimes taking a hand to manage wildlife, more often letting nature go its own way. From the first flowers of spring to cardinals singing in the winter, Douglas shows us the magic of welcoming unexpected plant and animal life into one's backyard. A paean to the richness we find when we stop to look and let be, Nature on the Doorstep celebrates the role humble backyards play both in conservation efforts and in an expanded appreciation of the living world.