Embrace off-grid green living with this all-encompassing guide to self-sufficiency alongside Dick Strawbridge and his son James. Introducing Practical Self-Sufficiency, your new go-to survival guide offering step-by-step instructions on all things environment-friendly, jam-packed with tips and tricks for off-grid living to anyone looking to embrace a life of sustainability. So what are you waiting for? Dive straight in to discover: -Detailed step-by-step guide covering diverse aspects of off-grid living -Featuring fully-illustrated step-by-step projecte visually demonstrating how to achieve key aspects of sustainable living from start to finish. -Encyclopaedic knowledge on a range of eco-friendly tasks such as brewing beer and making soap. Featuring full-page artworks showing how to tailor every environment for self-sufficient living Feel like becoming a better version of yourself this New Year? Why not stand out from the crowd and challenge yourself to adopting a healthy eco-friendly lifestyle and unleash your endless potential! Whether your goal is to become a green-fingered gardener or you're looking to lower your carbon footprint like never before, this all-encompassing horticulture book has something for everyone to love, with a diverse range of self-sufficiency skills to suit your individual needs and preferences. In fact, this perfect green gift features detailed advice for achieving a self-sufficient lifestyle no matter your outdoor space, and includes specific guides for getting the most out of urban gardens, allotments and much more! At DK, we believe in the power of discovery. From beer brewing to willow weaving, fermented foods to chicken coops, invest in this sustainability book to give green living a new name, and learn some top tips and handy life skills along the way! Join Dick Strawbridge and his son James as they embark on a journey to lead a greener life, and be inspired to revolutionise your relationship with the planet in your new sustainable all-green way of living. Test your limits and push your boundaries with this riveting read, and discover how to adapt to a zero waste lifestyle from here on out.

Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History is an engaging, beautifully illustrated introduction to these remarkable insects. Drawing on her experiences as a natural history instructor, dragonfly monitor, cancer survivor, grandmother, and steward, Crosby tells the stories of dragonflies: their roles in poetry and art, their fascinating sex life - unique within the animal kingdom - and their evolution from dark-water dwellers to denizens of the air. We follow Crosby and other citizen scientists into the prairies, wetlands, and woodlands of the Midwest, where they observe the environment and chronicle dragonfly populations and migration to decipher critical clues about our changing waterways and climate. Woven throughout are personal stories: reflections on the author's cancer diagnosis and recovery, change, loss, aging, family, joy, and discovering what it means to be at home in the natural world. Crosby draws an intimate portrait of a landscape teeming with variety and mystery, one that deserves our attention and conservation. As warm as it is informative, this book will interest gardeners, readers of literary nonfiction, and anyone intrigued by transformation, whether in nature or our personal lives.

The 'Victoria Library for Gentlewomen', a series of books 'Under the Patronage of HM the Queen and HRH the Princess of Wales', edited by W. H. Davenport Adams (1828-91), provided information and advice on various topics for those who aspired to gentlewomanly status. Davenport Adams himself was a journalist and author of popular science and history works, but little is known of the two authors of this 1892 work. Edith L. Chamberlain was a minor novelist who had also published a book on the dialect of west Worcestershire, and Fanny Douglas worked with Davenport Adams on other titles in the series. This book follows the fashion of late nineteenth-century works (often by women) which combine descriptions of gardens and gardening with historical and literary references. It is unusual in that its final chapter describes ways for educated 'gentlewomen' to enter gardening as a profession - a radical suggestion for the period.

A photographic celebration of British wildlife and the country way of life. A Year in the Country is a book about the beauty of the British countryside, featuring stunning photography from some of Britain's greatest wildlife photographers. The book will follow the changes in nature throughout the year and revel in the joy of the British countryside. Each season presents its own gifts to the nature lover: from the trumpeting of wild daffodils in spring to the hypnotic dive and twist of starlings gathering over roosting sites in autumn. The majesty of British wildlife is captured in stunning images that evoke a timeless country existence. Part celebration of nature, part nostalgia for a slower pace of life, this book will make a stunning gift. An escape from everyday life, A Year in the Country transports its audience to a world where the sun shines and the grass is always greener.

Over 400 plants are listed along with their traditional uses; an explanation of the spiritual relationship of the Cherokee people with their environment; material drawn from conversations with North Carolina Cherokee elders.

Bees are vital for the future of the planet, for without their dedicated pollinating skills many crops would eventually fail. This delightfully illustrated book is a homage to bees, revealing many facets of their lives, including homes, flight patterns and defence. It also describes how to attract bees to your garden and, essentially, the art of talking to them! The lives of bees are interwoven with our own, but how much do you know about them? Which scents do bees prefer? How do bees transport pollen? How far can bees fly? Do specific colours attract bees? Do bees prefer native flowers? Then there is honey - a near-miraculous elixir that in earlier generations was an integral part of life as a sweetener and food preserver. It can be fermented with water and yeast to create mead, a drink that has been enjoyed for thousands of years. This book is dedicated to bees and to ensuring that they continue to live in harmony with humans in bee-friendly gardens. Click on the image to look inside:

Adored for their charming shapes and colors, respected for their resilience and adaptability, and just plain fun to have around--succulents are the hottest home gardening trend today. A Beginner's Guide to Succulent Gardening is a friendly guide to popular succulents, walking novices through all the basics, like: Choosing your succulents--from Hens and Chicks (Echeveria) to bristly flowering cactus varieties Mixing the right soils for your succulents and preparing the growing environment Easy potting and transplanting techniques Succulent care--including watering, fertilizing and providing the right amount of sun for each variety Understanding peak periods as well as seasonal traits and needs, so you can have a beautiful succulent garden year-round This book contains all sorts of helpful tips on what to look for when buying a plant, how to troubleshoot when your succulent shows signs of distress, how to trim the leaves and stems, and how to start new plants from cuttings. Clear diagrams and at-a-glance fact sheets for each variety, as well as inspirational photos of attractively and happily-housed succulents, fill the pages of this book. Now is the time to give succulents a try! Let A Beginner's Guide to Succulent Gardening be your guide to get you started and grow your indoor garden one succulent at a time.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D., the internationally known poet, psychoanalyst, and author of the seminal classic Women Who Run With The Wolves (99 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, translated into eighteen languages, and a bestseller worldwide), touches our lives anew, rendering in the strong and lyrical voice for which she has become known a powerful series of her signature healing stories.

These elegantly interlocked tales of loss, survival, and fierce rebirth center around Dr. Estes's uncle, a war-ravaged Hungarian peasant farmer and refugee, a faithful gardener, and a storehouse of stories who was one of the "dancing fools, wise old crows, grumpy sages, and 'almost saints' who made up the old people" in Estés's childhood.

Discover the joys and self-nurturing benefits of plant parenthood, from learning how to begin building your own lush plant family to getting into those fun tips on how to care for your green gurls, with this beautiful, illustrated guide from the dazzling creator of the @plantkween Instagram account. "We all love some new growth, dahling." Six years ago, Christopher Griffin was just beginning the plant parenthood journey with one small Marble Queen Pothos. Today, this Black Queer non-binary femme plant influencer known as Plant Kween tends to a family of more than 200 healthy green gurls in the Brooklyn apartment they call home. You Grow, Gurl! is Kween's fun and fabulous guide to becoming a plant parent and keeping your green gurls growing and thriving. Anyone can be a plant parent! It's all about TLC-taking the time and energy to focus on a plant's needs, and ultimately your own. Featuring 200 full-color photos and illustrations, practical instructions and tips-on everything from propagating to measuring humidity to repotting-activities, and stories, this fun and joyful guide shows how to green-up any space and have it serving those lush lewks. Self-care takes many forms and tending to your plants' needs helps you grow too. In addition to information and advice on plant care, Kween provides meditations, mindfulness activities, playlists, and more to help you practice self-care through plant-care. As Kween says, "We can learn a lot about how we treat ourselves, how we treat others, and how we navigate the world from these green lil creatures." Healing and growing your heart, body, and soul takes time, love, and focus. Taking care of plants teaches you to apply that same attention and love to yourself and helps you find new pathways to explore on your own botanical adventure to self-love.

"Edible Forest Gardens" is a groundbreaking two-volume work that spells out and explores the key concepts of forest ecology and applies them to the needs of natural gardeners in temperate climates. Volume I lays out the vision of the forest garden and explains the basic ecological principles that make it work. In Volume II, Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier move on to practical considerations: concrete ways to design, establish, and maintain your own forest garden. Along the way they present case studies and examples, as well as tables, illustrations, and a uniquely valuable "plant matrix" that lists hundreds of the best edible and useful species.Taken together, the two volumes of "Edible Forest Gardens" offer an advanced course in ecological gardening--one that will forever change the way you look at plants and your environment.

A follow-up to Black Dog's bestselling "Country Wisdom and Know-How," the "Country Wisdom Almanac" provides hundreds of ideas and methods for living the good and simple life, plus information on weather, gardening, buying produce and cooking by season, holidays, frost dates, moon phases, and more.
Divided into the four seasons and then organized into 373 individual tips, the "Country Wisdom Almanac" presents a wide variety of ways to live a simpler, more self-sustained life year round. Each season offers home-improvement ideas (wallpaper a room in the Fall or build a stone wall in the Spring), crafts (create gorgeous homemade decorations for Christmas, Halloween, or the Fourth of July), recipes (use seasonal produce to create fresh, healthy meals), gardening advice (what and when to plant in order to get the maximum results from your land), and more.
Also included is year-round advice on caring for pets, creating your own health and beauty remedies, canning and preserving food, and more. Each season opens with a list of holidays and a guide to in-season produce. Appendices cover average weather by city and month, frost dates, and moon phases.

An estimated 10,000 baby boomers retire every day, and many of them are gardeners. As part of maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle, they need to adapt how they garden to ensure they can continue enjoying the hobby for years to come. In The Lifelong Gardener, popular garden speaker Toni Gattone shares adaptive gardening techniques that help readers garden smarter, not harder. Gattone offers tried-and-true methods that help eliminate the physical strain of gardening like buying new ergonomic tools, using raised beds, making small adjustments like using kneeling pads, and dozens of simple ways to make the garden comfortable. Throughout, Gattone maintains a positive and empowering tone that honors the garden and the gardener and focuses on the joy of aging. The perfect gift for older home gardeners, The Lifelong Gardener shows how a little advanced planning can make gardening a safe and fun daily activity.

Ernest Ballard (1870 1952) was a British horticulturalist who was noted as a breeder of Michaelmas daisies. In this book, which was first published in 1919, Ballard provides a richly detailed account documenting some of the more affecting moments in the British natural calendar. Written in a beautifully lyrical style, the text also contains 131 illustrative figures derived from photographs taken by the author. This is a highly readable book that will be of value to anyone with an interest in horticulture and botany."

Keep your lawn and garden lush without wasting resources by capturing and recycling the greywater that drains from your sink, shower, and washing machine. This accessible and detailed guide walks you through each step of planning for and installing a variety of greywater systems, including laundry-to-landscape and branched drain gravity-fed. After identifying greywater sources in your home and estimating flow rate, you'll learn to pinpoint where to redirect the wastewater for the greatest benefit. No matter which system you decide to build, doing so is quick and inexpensive and uses only basic tools and materials readily available at home supply stores.