If you love the joys of eating home-garden vegetables but always thought those joys had to stop at the end of summer, this book is for you. Eliot Coleman introduces the surprising fact that most of the United States has more winter sunshine than the south of France. He shows how North American gardeners can successfully use that sun to raise a wide variety of traditional winter vegetables in backyard cold frames and plastic covered tunnel greenhouses without supplementary heat. Coleman expands upon his own experiences with new ideas learned on a winter-vegetable pilgrimage across the ocean to the acknowledged kingdom of vegetable cuisine, the southern part of France, which lies on the 44th parallel, the same latitude as his farm in Maine. This story of sunshine, weather patterns, old limitations and expectations, and new realities is delightfully innovative in the best gardening tradition. Four-Season Harvest will have you feasting on fresh produce from your garden all through the winter. To learn more about the possibility of a four-season farm, please visit Coleman's website www.fourseasonfarm.com.

Choosing locally grown organic food is a sustainable living trend that's taken hold throughout North America. Celebrated farming expert Eliot Coleman helped start this movement with The New Organic Grower published 20 years ago. He continues to lead the way, pushing the limits of the harvest season while working his world-renowned organic farm in Harborside, Maine.

Now, with his long-awaited new book, The Winter Harvest Handbook, anyone can have access to his hard-won experience. Gardeners and farmers can use the innovative, highly successful methods Coleman describes in this comprehensive handbook to raise crops throughout the coldest of winters.

Building on the techniques that hundreds of thousands of farmers and gardeners adopted from The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest, this new book focuses on growing produce of unparalleled freshness and quality in customized unheated or, in some cases, minimally heated, movable plastic greenhouses.

Coleman offers clear, concise details on greenhouse construction and maintenance, planting schedules, crop management, harvesting practices, and even marketing methods in this complete, meticulous, and illustrated guide. Readers have access to all the techniques that have proven to produce higher-quality crops on Coleman's own farm.

His painstaking research and experimentation with more than 30 different crops will be valuable to small farmers, homesteaders, and experienced home gardeners who seek to expand their production seasons.

A passionate advocate for the revival of small-scale sustainable farming, Coleman provides a practical model for supplying fresh, locally grown produce during the winter season, even in climates where conventional wisdom says it "just can't be done."

The most comprehensive, entertaining, down-to-earth one-volume gardening reference ever, and highly praised:
"Barbara Damrosch delivers the goods."--"Chicago Tribune"
"Best of the crop."--"House Beautiful"
"Barbara Damrosch's writing has the snap of a good snowpea and the spice of an old rose."--"The Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer"
"Covers just about everything you could think of and then some." -- "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution"
"An extraordinarily comprehensive guide." -- "The San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle"
"Takes your soaring visions of garden splendor and plants them firmly in the ground."--"The Toronto Star"
Now the beloved classic is revised front-to-back. The new edition has gone 100% organic, which in Barbara Damrosch's hands also means completely accessible. It reflects the latest research on plants, soils, tools, and techniques. There is updated and expanded information on planning a garden, recommended plants, and best tools. Ecological issues are addressed much more extensively, covering lawn alternatives, the benefits of native species, wildlife-friendly gardens, and how to avoid harmful invasive species. More attention is paid to plants appropriate to the South, Southwest, and West Coast, while cold-climate gardeners are given detailed advice on how to extend the growing season. Simply put, the book is a richer and fuller compendium than ever before, with more text, more illustrations and garden plans, expanded plant lists, and gardener's resources. But Barbara Damrosch's core of practical, creative ideas and friendly style remain--she is still an "old-fashioned dirt gardener" at heart.

Whether it's for love of gardening, love of the freshest produce, the desire to maintain good health, or economic thrift, more of us are looking to our yards as not only a source of beauty but as important source of food. For those looking to get started and for those who are started but in need of supportive and good advice, comes the full-colour, fully illustrated, thorough season-by-season guide to getting your garden up and running. Written by this country's foremost organic gardeners, Barbara Damrosch and Eliot Coleman, it is the complete resource for anyone who wants to grow more of what they eat, even if they've never before put trowel to dirt. "Since eating is one of the most important things we do, it is life-changing to regain control lover it," write the authors in the Introduction. Written with wit and charm and a joy that comes from a lifetime in the garden, Part 1 is a practical gardening step-by-step resource and part 2 is a cookbook with 120 farmhouse recipes created by Damrosch, who is also a master cook. Turn what you grow into Stuffed Squash Blossom Fritters, Shell Beans with Tomatoes and Sage, Red Thai Curry with Fall Vegetables, Provencal Pot Roast, Springtime Chowder, Baked Beet Salad with Mache, Blueberry Peach Cobbler, and a Chilled Raspberry Pie.