Grapes are the most popular and widely grown fruit in the world. From the tropics to Alaska, grapes will grow successfully in almost every climate. Whether you raise them for fresh eating, or for making wine, juice, or jellies and preserves, the right grapes will reward you with abundant crops for a modest investment of time and effort. Now for the first time comes a book for grape growers who wish to use organic growing methods to raise healthy, thriving vineyards in the backyard or on a small commercial scale. The Grape Grower distills the broad knowledge and long-time personal experience of Lon Rombough, one of North America's foremost authorities on viticulture. From finding and preparing the right site for your vineyard to training, trellising, and pruning vines to growing new grapes from seeds and cuttings, The Grape Grower offers thorough and accessible information on all the basics. The chapters on grape species, varieties, and hybrids are alone worth the price of a college course in viticulture. Technical information on the major (and minor) insect pests and diseases that affect grapes, as well as their organic controls, makes this book an invaluable reference that readers will turn to again and again. Rombaugh also provides a wealth of information on hardy but little-known grapes that are native to North America, and on a wide range of topics, including: pruning neglected or overgrown vines growing grapes on arbors and in greenhouses controlling animal pests in the vineyard bunch grapes and muscadine grapes for the South winter protection, and how to increase the hardiness of grapes creating your own new varieties

From one of America's most sensitive and fervent nature writers comes this classic of herbal lore and legend, now in paperback. This is not strictly a gardening book (although there is plenty for the gardener to learn in it) but a singular example of a man thinking about what he grows-not onlyhowit grows, but its roots in religion, Bible, history and medicine. The book was written at Beston's home, Chimney Farm, the Maine home- stead immortalized inNorthern Farm' where he repaired in 1931 with his wife, Elizabeth Coatsworth, and where he died in 1968. Beston described his efforts as part garden book, part musing study of our relation to nature through the oldest group of plants knowntogardeners.But, asRogerSwainobservesinhismoving introduction, Herbs and the Earthhas an intensity that evokes the herbs themselves, as if, pressed between the pages, their aroma has seeped into the pages. The book is lovingly illustrated with the strong and simple woodcuts of the great stone-cutter/ letter-designer/craftsman John Howard Benson