Adults (18+)

The Homesteader's Herbal Companion is a beautiful guide for the modern day homesteader. From learning how to incorporate herbs and essential oils around your home, to learning how to enhance your family's health and well-being, this book is the go-to resource for those wishing to live a more natural homesteading lifestyle. This book takes readers through the basics of herbalism, including the different types of herbs and their uses. It also breaks down how herbs are used in tinctures, salves, essential oils, and infused oils. You'll learn how to efficiently incorporate herbs into your lifestyle, creating your own herbal remedy cabinet for yourself and for your livestock as well. And through encouragement and evidence-based information, you'll be confident using herbs, cooking with herbs, and sharing your herbal products with your friends and family. With an array of beautiful photos and easy to read terminology, just about any homesteader, new or seasoned, can learn from The Homesteader's Herbal Companion, and finally feel comfortable incorporating the many wonderful qualities of herbs around their homes and homesteads.

The Cut Flower Garden: Erin Benzakein is a florist-farmer, leader in the locaflor farm-to-centerpiece movement, and owner of internationally renowned Floret Flower Farm in Washington's lush Skagit Valley.

A stunning flower book: This beautiful gardening book and guide to growing, harvesting, and arranging gorgeous blooms year-round provides readers with vital tools to nurture a stunning flower garden and use their blossoms and cut flowers to create show-stopping arrangements. It makes a beautiful gift for any occasion, for friends, loved ones and gardening lovers alike!

Floret Farm's Cut Flower Garden: Cut Flower Garden is equal parts instruction and inspiration—a flower gardening book overflowing with lush photography of magnificent flowers and breathtaking arrangements organized by season. Find inspiration in this lush flower book:

• Irresistible photos of Erin's flower farm that showcase exquisite blooms
• Tips for growing in a variety of spaces and climates
• Step-by-step instructions for lavish garlands, airy centerpieces, and romantic florist design and décor for every season

If you liked Paris in Bloom, you'll love Floret Farm's Cut Flower Garden.

If concerns about the environment and the health and wellness of yourself and your family leave you longing to make a change, start growing and preserving your own organic foods. With the guidance found in The Modern Homestead Garden, you'll discover how little land and effort it takes to start growing healthy, nutritious food.

Modern homesteading is a lifestyle focused on living lightly on the land and increasing self-sufficiency. It doesn't matter whether "home" is 50 acres in the country, a suburban corner lot, or an apartment in the city; all you need is a desire to reduce your footprint on the earth and live a more sustainable life. To be a modern homesteader, you don't have to live off-grid and you don't have to give up contemporary conveniences.

For most modern homesteaders, it all starts with making the conscious decision to reduce your reliance on the commercial food supply chain. In The Modern Homestead Garden, author and YouTube gardening star Gary Pilarchik of The Rusted Garden walks you step-by-step through the process of building a homestead garden. From laying out the planting beds, nurturing the soil, and starting seeds, straight through to cooking and preserving the harvest, Gary serves as your warm and accessible guide, no matter how large or how small your homestead is. With the guidance found here, you'll move at your own pace, learn, share, and enjoy the journey as you slowly transform your home into an edible landscape.

• Practical advice to site and build your very first homestead garden
• Crop profiles to get you growing quickly
• Cost-effective ways to source seeds and plants
• The low-down on feeding plants in an earth-friendly way
• Methods for preparing planting beds and containers
• Soil prep advice every homesteader can use
• All natural trouble-shooting solutions
• How to include berries, cane fruits, vine crops, and fruit trees in your homestead plans
• Food preservation advice that's easy and delicious

Modern homesteading is as much an attitude as it is an action. It's not dependent on how much land you have or even how much food you can grow; it's about cultivating self-sufficiency and self-reliance, no matter its level. Welcome to The Modern Homestead Garden.

If you want to grow healthy vegetables at home, but have hesitated because it seems too hard and time consuming, Organic Gardening for Everyone is your perfect hands-on guide—an “if I can do it, you can do it” case study that addresses your concerns and gets you started.

Loaded with practical advice and step-by-step guidance, Organic Gardening for Everyone takes a very personal and friendly approach to a subject that can be intimidating. It is a first-class primer on organic vegetable gardening, and an inspirational story about how anyone can balance the rigors of gardening with the demands of a modern, family-oriented lifestyle.
 
In 2012, a California mom decided to start an organic vegetable garden. But she went about it in an unusual way: she crowdsourced it by launching a YouTube channel under the name "CaliKim" and asking for help. And then she started planting. As questions came up, she turned to her viewers and subscribers and they replied with answers and advice. As she learned, her garden grew successfully—even in the hot, harsh California climate. Her expertise also grew, and now she answers many more questions than she asks and has become a very accomplished home gardener.

And CaliKim has a great story to tell: growing healthy organic vegetables for your family is not difficult, even for today’s time-challenged lifestyles. She provides complete step-by-step information on growing the most popular edibles organically, and also gives sound advice on how to take on the challenges of balancing a hectic lifestyle with successful growing—and how to involve the whole family in the process. 

You'll be rewarded for your effort every time you place a plate of natural, organic vegetables on the family dinner table knowing exactly what they are, what is in them, and where they came from.

Ideas, inspiration, and practical steps to transform your garden

Imagine your dream garden and make it happen with garden design expert and Gardeners' World host Adam Frost.

Does your yard need a revamp? Looking for fresh garden ideas that you can enjoy year after year? If you've ever been daunted by the idea of updating your outdoor space, Adam Frost is here to help. His relaxed, straightforward advice and know-how can help any home gardener achieve their garden design ambitions. Whatever your space--be it a small yard with a patio, a city roof terrace, or a classic English garden--Adam can show you how to create a space that suits your lifestyle, personality, and budget.

Garden design doesn't need to be complicated. As Adam says, "Gardens are about four things: people, space, plants, and a sense of place." His approach strips away complex design concepts and focuses on your wants and needs, with simple tools and techniques to help you plan and prepare for your garden makeover. Once you know what you want to do, step-by-step guides help you build key garden features, such as raised beds or water features, while sharing Adam's advice on caring for your new outdoor space so that you can enjoy it year after year.

Bit by bit, bed by bed, How to Create Your Garden shows you how to plan and plant a beautiful, functional, low-maintenance garden that works for you and your family--all without breaking the bank or needing to know endless scientific plant names.

Companion planting has a long history of use by gardeners, but the explanation of why it works has been filled with folklore and conjecture. Plant Partners delivers a research-based rationale for this ever-popular growing technique, offering dozens of ways you can use scientifically tested plant partnerships to benefit your whole garden. Through an enhanced understanding of how plants interact with and influence each other, this guide suggests specific plant combinations that improve soil health and weed control, decrease pest damage, and increase biodiversity, resulting in real and measurable impacts in the garden.

Elevate your backyard veggie patch into a work of sophisticated and stylish art. Kitchen Garden Revival guides you through every aspect of kitchen gardening, from design to harvesting—with expert advice from author Nicole Johnsey Burke, founder of Rooted Garden, one of the leading US culinary landscape companies, and Gardenary, an online kitchen gardening education and resource company.

Participating in the grow-your-own movement is important to both reduce your food miles and control what makes it onto your family’s table. If you’ve hesitated to take part because installing and caring for a traditional vegetable garden doesn’t seem to suit your life or your sense of style, Kitchen Garden Revival is here to show you there’s a better, more beautiful way to grow food.

Instead of row after row of cabbage and pepper plants plunked into a patch of dirt in the middle of the yard, kitchen gardens are attractive, highly tailored food gardens consisting of easy-to-maintain raised planting beds laid out in an organized geometric pattern. Offering both four seasons of ornamental interest and plenty of fresh, homegrown fruits, vegetables, and herbs, kitchen gardens are the way to grow your own food in a fashionable, modern, and practical way.

Kitchen gardens were once popular features of the European and early American landscape, but they fell out of favor when our agrarian roots were displaced by industrialization. With this accessible and inspirational guide, Nicole aims to return the kitchen garden to its rightful place just outside of every backdoor.

Learn the art of kitchen gardening as you discover: 

• What characteristics all kitchen gardens have in common
• How to design and install gorgeous kitchen garden beds using metal, wood, or stone
• Why raised beds mean reduced maintenance
• What crops are best for your kitchen garden 
• A planting, tending, and harvesting plan developed by a pro
• Season-by-season growing guides 

It's time to join the Kitchen Garden Revival and start growing your own delicious, organic food. 

In Complete Container Herb Gardening, herbal guru and certified horticulturist Sue Goetz walks you through the ins and outs of growing these fragrant and flavorful plant treasures in containers.

Herbs are among the easiest edible plants to grow, and when you cultivate your own fresh herbs, you can enjoy their abundant flavors, healing properties, and uses for natural home and beauty every day—plus reap big savings at the grocery store or farmer's market.

Whether you grow on a suburban patio, an urban rooftop, a condo balcony, or on the front porch of your duplex, discovering which herbs grow best in pots, how to select the ideal containers for the job, and how to tend your container herb garden to maximize production (and flavor!) is key to your success.

Highlighted by gorgeous photography, Sue also presents over a dozen container “recipes” for mixing and matching your favorite herbs to create stunning and useful combinations. From the perfect culinary partnerships and natural aromatherapy combos to collections of herbs for natural beauty and chemical-free cleaning products, these herbal arrangements are no-fail and perfectly Instagram-worthy.

Complete Container Herb Gardening is the ideal roadmap for success, even for brand-new gardeners. Learn how to:

• Grow fresh kitchen herbs in small spaces
• Choose the best containers, soil, and tools for herbal success
• Make more herb plants…for free!
• Cultivate unique herbs and spices, like turmeric, saffron, and ginger
• Design herb containers that are both beautiful and highly productive
• Harvest armloads of herbs from a porch or patio
• Tend an indoor herb garden on a windowsill

Friendly, accessible, and packed with practical information, growing herbs has never been easier—even if you have just a small corner of space to spare. Unleash your inner #herbnerd with Complete Container Herb Gardening!

The word “meadow” conjures images of wide expanses of land, but a mini meadow — a kind of informal flower garden started with seed sown directly into the soil — can be any size; plus, it’s fun, easy to grow, and good for the planet. With as little as 50 square feet and for less than $20, gardeners can plant a colorful meadow that demands little in the way of space, mowing, or maintenance, uses less water than a traditional lawn, and provides habitat for pollinators — not to mention a natural exploration space for children.

From choosing the right variety of seeds, preparing the soil, sowing evenly, and watering well, author Mike Lizotte guides readers through the process of successfully creating a miniature meadow that suits their climate, soil, and growing goals, whether planting to beautify a hellstrip, halt erosion, fill a boggy spot, or establish a nesting area for bees and butterflies. Mini Meadows offers gardeners of all levels the keys to creating, caring for, and reaping the rewards of thriving meadows through the seasons, year after year. 

For anyone who has ever wanted to tend a little piece of ground but wasn’t sure where to begin, GrowVeg offers simple recipes for gardening projects that are both attainable and beautiful. Benedict Vanheems, editor of the popular website GrowVeg.com, guides aspiring green thumbs to success from the start, no matter what size gardening space you have. Get recommendations for veggie varieties for your first edible garden, plant a miniature orchard, and grow an edible archway, or keep your efforts contained by cultivating a rustic crate of herbs on a sunny balcony, a crop of carrots in a basket, or nutritious and delicious sprouts in a jar on the kitchen counter. The beginner-friendly instructions and step-by-step photography detail more than 30 approachable, small-scale gardening projects that will inspire and empower you to get growing!

A stylishly photographed guide to creating lush, layered, dramatic little gardens no matter the size of your available space--an urban patio, a tiny backyard, or even just a pot by your door.

Petite gardens align with the movement to live smaller and create a life with less stuff and more room for living. But a more eco-friendly and efficient space doesn't have to sacrifice style. In Small Garden Style, garden designer Isa Hendry Eaton and lifestyle writer Jennifer Blaise Kramer show you how to use good design to create a joyful, elegant, and exciting yet compact outdoor living space for entertaining or relaxing.

A style quiz helps you focus in on your own personal garden style, be it traditional, modern, colorful, eclectic, minimalist, or globally inspired, then utilize every inch of your yard by considering the horizontal, vertical, and overhead spaces. You'll learn how to design stunning planters and container gardens using succulents, grasses, vibrant-colored pots, and more. Hendry Eaton and Blaise Kramer recommend their favorite plants and decor for small gardens, along with lawn alternatives and inspiration for making garden accents such as a fire pit, front door wreath, instant mini orchard, boulder birdbath, patterned vines, perfumed wall, and faux fountain with cascading plants.

However small your garden, Small Garden Style will transform it into a magical, modern outdoor oasis.

In this second book in the internationally successful No-Waste Gardening series, learn how to recycle and repurpose your way to a successful, productive, and eco-friendly organic garden! 

In No-Waste Organic Gardening, author Shawna Coronado guides you toward a more sustainable landscape with dozens of tips, tricks, and solutions that save you time and money—all while saving the planet, too! A revision of Shawna's previous title,101 Organic Gardening Hacks, this new book tackles waste-reducing gardening in a clever, accessible way. 

Learn how to:

• Upcycle household discards to grow seedlings
• Turn yard debris into “black gold” in a DIY compost bin
• Control pests with traps made from household discards
• Build a rain barrel from an old trash can
• Mix up your own potting soil to reduce plastic bag waste
• Protect spring plantings with repurposed jugs, jars, and containers
• Build a new raised bed with everyday items—no power tools required! 

Plus, you’ll find solutions to common garden problems and plenty of innovative and resourceful ways to reduce your outgoing waste. Conquering the increasingly important art of responsible gardening is a whole lot easier than you might think, with help from No-Waste Organic Gardening. For more advice on living waste-free, explore the first book in the No-Waste Gardening series, No-Waste Kitchen Gardening. 

Over 1,000 Tips for Planting Vegetables, Flowers, Houseplants, Shrubs, Herbs, and Trees!

This comprehensive collection of practical tips covers all aspects of gardening, from flowers and houseplants to planting shrubs, vegetables, herbs, and trees. In addition, find advice for dealing with garden pests, learn about the tools that will make your life much easier, and find valuable ways to avoid the aches and pains that often go along with the hard work of gardening. Woven throughout are poems and proverbs, legends and lore, making this an enjoyable read and a perfect gift for the gardener in your life. 

• "Put broken eggshells in a watering can, fill with water, and leave overnight. This will extract the nutrients making an excellent and cheap plant feed."
• "To improve the growth of leeks, add a little soot to the soil."
• "Weeding between onion rows should be done by hand, as hoeing will damage the shallow roots."
• "An old wheel rim makes an ideal storage place for a garden hose when not in use. Hang on a garage or shed wall."
• "For organic insecticide spray, boil a whole bulb of chopped garlic until it's soft. Put it into 1 gallon of water and add 1 tablespoon of biodegradable detergent. Leave for a day, strain, and use as required."

Full of fascinating tidbits and brilliant suggestions, this book may transform the way you garden! Complete with lovely color illustrations throughout, this is a delightful and useful read for new and seasoned gardeners alike.

In The Healing Garden, Deb Soule, founder of Avena Botanicals, offers an inspiring guide to herb gardening and crafting herbal remedies that promote wellness of spirit and body. Soule combines her passion for plants gardens, and healing with her extensive experience working with medicinal herbs, flowers, roots, and berries. Her practical advice addresses each aspect of fostering a garden filled with helpful, healing plants: biodynamic gardening practices; gathering plants and setting up a drying room; and creating herbal teas, decoctions, tinctures, syrups, tonics, vinegars, essences, and more. A chapter outlining eighteen medicinal herbs provides detailed information on their cultivation and healing properties. Molly Haley's colorful photography showcases Avena Botanicals' lush herb gardens in all seasons. The Healing Garden is grounded in respect for the interconnectedness of all living beings and is an eloquent plea for spiritual awareness and the wholeness of individuals, communities, and our planet.

There are no stupid questions here. Everyone has to start somewhere, after all. In The First-Time Gardener: Growing Plants and Flowers, Sean and Allison McManus, the gardening pros behind the popular website and podcast Spoken Garden, answer all of your questions and more.

Caring for outdoor plantings can be intimidating, especially if the process is completely new to you. Before running to the hardware store to stock up on plastic bags of mulch and tools you don’t really need, arm yourself with the know-how to plant and tend outdoor areas correctly and safely. Doing so saves you time, money, and energy—and helps make the process a whole lot more fun!

With help from this easy-to-follow beginner gardening guide, you’ll learn:

• Tips for selecting the best plants and flowers for your growing conditions 
• The best planting techniques for different types of plants
• How to mulch trees, shrubs, and garden beds correctly 
• Pruning dos and don’ts for common garden plants
• Ways to keep weeds out of outdoor areas—without using synthetic herbicides
• How to recognize and manage different pests and diseases naturally
• Insider tips on everything from the difference between annuals and perennials to choosing the best organic fertilizer
• Plus, you’ll find time-management advice and tips for effective, resource-conscious gardening

You will close the book not only knowing how to care for your home's outdoor plantings using earth-friendly methods, but also knowing the satisfaction of a beautiful, all-natural landscape.

This book is part of The First-Time Gardener's Guides series from Cool Springs Press, which also includes The First-Time Gardener: Growing Vegetables. Each book in The First-Time Gardener's Guides series is aimed at beginner gardeners and offers clear, fact-based information that's presented in a friendly and accessible way, including step-by-step instructions and full-color illustrations throughout.