A story about dirt--and about sun, water, work, elation, and defeat. And about the sublime pleasure of having a little piece of French land all to oneself to till.
Richard Goodman saw the ad in the paper: "SOUTHERN FRANCE: Stone house in Village near Nimes/Avignon/Uzes. 4 BR, 2 baths, fireplace, books, desk, bikes. Perfect for writing, painting, exploring & experiencing la France profonde. $450 mo. plus utilities." And, with his girlfriend, he left New York City to spend a year in Southern France.
The village was small--no shops, no gas station, no post office, only a cafe and a school. St. Sebastien de Caisson was home to farmers and vintners. Every evening Goodman watched the villagers congregate and longed to be a part of their camaraderie. But they weren't interested in him: he was just another American, come to visit and soon to leave. So Goodman laced up his work boots and ventured out into the vineyards to work among them. He met them first as a hired worker, and then as a farmer of his own small plot of land.
French Dirt is a love story between a man and his garden. It's about plowing, planting, watering, and tending. It's about cabbage, tomatoes, parsley, and eggplant. Most of all, it's about the growing friendship between an American outsider and a close-knit community of French farmers.
"There's a genuine sweetness about the way the cucumbers and tomatoes bridge the divide of nationality."--The New York Times Book Review
"One of the most charming, perceptive and subtle books ever written about the French by an American."--San Francisco Chronicle"

Win the war against the world's most hated garden pests with a battle plan of 50 effective slug-killing tactics-all amusingly written and illustrated with cartoons. An at-a-glance profile reveals effective weapons to use against the slug (including beer), and there are smart new ways to confuse them and set them off track. Choose from those 50 slug-beaters, and inflict death the natural way, by chemical warfare, and by the "surprise" attack. Never has such a practical handbook been such fun to read.

For Rebecca Bushnell, English gardening books tell a fascinating tale of the human love for plants and our will to make them do as we wish. These books powerfully evoke the desires of gardeners: they show us gardeners who, like poets, imagine not just what is but what should be. In particular, the earliest English garden books, such as Thomas Hill's The Gardeners Labyrinth or Hugh Platt's Floraes Paradise, mix magical practices with mundane recipes even when the authors insist that they rely completely on their own experience in these matters. Like early modern "books of secrets," early gardening manuals often promise the reader power to alter the essential properties of plants: to make the gillyflower double, to change the lily's hue, or to grow a cherry without a stone. Green Desire describes the innovative design of the old manuals, examining how writers and printers marketed them as fiction as well as practical advice for aspiring gardeners. Along with this attention to the delights of reading, it analyzes the strange dignity and pleasure of garden labor and the division of men's and women's roles in creating garden art. The book ends by recounting the heated debate over how much people could do to create marvels in their own gardens. For writers and readers alike, these green desires inspired dreams of power and self-improvement, fantasies of beauty achieved without work, and hopes for order in an unpredictable world not so different from the dreams of gardeners today."

Step-by-step instructions lead readers through the process of creating their own rockwool hydroponic garden. Included are tips from professional growers for making plants grow faster and more lushly in rockwool.

This simple book is packed with information on hydroponic gardening. The graphic color and layout and design help to guide a hydroponic gardener from basic plant science and environment to purchasing a garden and appropriate supplies. Plans for making your own hydroponic garden, nutrient deficiencies, plant problems, and growing a garden beginning to end are all included in this invaluable guide.

Handy guide is packed with the best plant varieties you'll want for your garden: annula, perennials, trees and shrubs, vines, roses, bulbs, ornamental grasses and herbs.

It all began when Simon Griffiths decided that he and his whippet couldn't live in his tiny but gorgeous one-up one-down shopfront in Melbourne any more. He had a yearning for open spaces, country air and, most importantly, a garden of his own. On finding his cottage in Meadowbank, just outside Sydney, and trialling different plants, he gradually became part of the secret gardening network - the one where cuttings are exchanged between friends, and planting successes and failures are recounted over neighbourhood fences. Simon is a brilliant photographer, bringing warmth and joy to all his subjects, but he is also a very knowledgeable plantsman. In this book he has captured his favourite twenty country-style gardens and shares the knowledge he has gleaned from fellow garden lovers.