Solar Gardening

Solar Gardening
Author: Leandre Poisson
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 289
Release: 1994-09-01
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1603581235

Download Solar Gardening Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Solar Gardening shows how to increase efforts of the sun during the coldest months of the year and how to protect tender plants from the intensity of the scorching sun during the hottest months through the use of solar "mini-greenhouses." The book includes instructions for building a variety of solar appliances plus descriptions of more than 90 different crops, with charts showing when to plant and harvest each. The result is a year-round harvest even from a small garden. In Solar Gardening the Poissons show you how to: Dramatically increase the annual square-foot yield of your garden. Extend the growing and harvest season for nearly every kind of vegetable. Select crops that will thrive in the coldest and hottest months of the year, without artificial heating or cooling systems. Build solar appliances for your own garden. Armed with nothing but this book and a few simple tools, even novice gardeners can quickly learn to extend their growing season and increase their yields, without increasing the size of their garden plot.

Intensive Gardening Round the Year

Intensive Gardening Round the Year
Author: Paul Doscher
Publisher: Penguin Group
Total Pages: 168
Release: 1981
Genre: Gardening
ISBN:

Download Intensive Gardening Round the Year Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener

The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener
Author: Niki Jabbour
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2011-12-14
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1603427856

Download The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Even in winter’s coldest months you can harvest fresh, delicious produce. Drawing on insights gained from years of growing vegetables in Nova Scotia, Niki Jabbour shares her simple techniques for gardening throughout the year. Learn how to select the best varieties for each season, the art of succession planting, and how to build inexpensive structures to protect your crops from the elements. No matter where you live, you’ll soon enjoy a thriving vegetable garden year-round.

The Year-Round Hoophouse

The Year-Round Hoophouse
Author: Pam Dawling
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1771422505

Download The Year-Round Hoophouse Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Design and build a hoophouse or polytunnel, and grow abundant produce year-round in any climate Growing in hoophouses – also known as high tunnels or polytunnels – reduces the impact of an increasingly unpredictable climate on crops, mitigates soil erosion, extends the growing season and keeps leafy greens alive through the winter, and enables growers to supply more regional food needs. The Year-Round Hoophouse is a comprehensive guide to to designing and building a hoophouse and making a success of growing abundant, delicious fresh produce all year, whatever your climate and land size. Chapters include: Hoophouse siting, size, style, frame construction, and tools Bed layout, soil, crop rotations, and extensive coverage of various crops for all seasons Organic solutions to pests and diseases Disaster preparation Tested resources for each chapter. The Year-Round Hoophouse is ideal for farmers who wish to move into protected growing, as well as beginning farmers in rural and urban spaces. It is an essential reference resource for professors and students of courses in sustainable agriculture, as well as interns and apprentices learning on the job.

No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture

No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture
Author: Bryan O'Hara
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2020-02-21
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 160358854X

Download No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

From a veteran organic grower: a unique agricultural methodology that delivers higher yields, higher quality, and higher profitability—absolutely free of herbicides or pesticides No-till farming has rapidly grown in popularity among vegetable growers due to its high-quality, high-yield, high-profit results. Renowned organic grower Bryan O’Hara perfected the technique during the multi-year transition of his Connecticut vegetable farm to a no-till system. His vibrantly healthy, resilient plants are testaments to the value of allowing the inherent biological functions in soil to do their work. In No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture, O’Hara describes the methods he has developed, which are completely free of herbicides or other pesticides and require only a few acres of land and minimal capital investment. He asserts that this flexible, ecological methodology is as important for soil fertility as it is for his economic success. This comprehensive manual delves into all facets of a dynamic, holistic growing system, including: No-till bed preparation techniques Seeding and transplanting methods Irrigation Use of fertilizers (including foliar feeds) Composting (preparation and application) Culture of indigenous microorganisms to support soil biology Pest and disease management Year-round growing Harvest and storage techniques O’Hara also explores the spiritual dimension of managing a farm ecosystem: observing the natural balance between plants, soil, air, water, and sunlight and the ways in which working to maintain that balance influences practical production decisions. Whether you’re a high-yield producer, a homesteader, or a market gardener, No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture is the go-to vegetable grower’s manual for the twenty-first century. O’Hara’s advanced yet accessible methodology will both help you respond to natural systems and adapt to meet future challenges.

Sustainable Market Farming

Sustainable Market Farming
Author: Pam Dawling
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Total Pages: 459
Release: 2013-02-01
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1550925121

Download Sustainable Market Farming Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Growing for 100 - the complete year-round guide for the small-scale market grower. Across North America, an agricultural renaissance is unfolding. A growing number of market gardeners are emerging to feed our appetite for organic, regional produce. But most of the available resources on food production are aimed at the backyard or hobby gardener who wants to supplement their family's diet with a few homegrown fruits and vegetables. Targeted at serious growers in every climate zone, Sustainable Market Farming is a comprehensive manual for small-scale farmers raising organic crops sustainably on a few acres. Informed by the author's extensive experience growing a wide variety of fresh, organic vegetables and fruit to feed the approximately one hundred members of Twin Oaks Community in central Virginia, this practical guide provides: Detailed profiles of a full range of crops, addressing sowing, cultivation, rotation, succession, common pests and diseases, and harvest and storage Information about new, efficient techniques, season extension, and disease resistant varieties Farm-specific business skills to help ensure a successful, profitable enterprise Whether you are a beginning market grower or an established enterprise seeking to improve your skills, Sustainable Market Farming is an invaluable resource and a timely book for the maturing local agriculture movement.

Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening

Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening
Author: Peter Burke
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2015-08-21
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1603586164

Download Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The Low-Tech, No-Grow-Lights Approach to Abundant Harvest Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening offers good news: with nothing more than a cupboard and a windowsill, you can grow all the fresh salad greens you need for the winter months (or throughout the entire year) with no lights, no pumps, and no greenhouse. Longtime gardener Peter Burke was tired of the growing season ending with the first frost, but due to his busy work schedule and family life, didn’t have the time or interest in high-input grow lights or greenhouses. Most techniques for growing what are commonly referred to as “microgreens” left him feeling overwhelmed and uninterested. There had to be a simpler way to grow greens for his family indoors. After some research and diligent experimenting, Burke discovered he was right—there was a way! And it was even easier than he ever could have hoped, and the greens more nutrient packed. He didn’t even need a south-facing window, and he already had most of the needed supplies just sitting in his pantry. The result: healthy, homegrown salad greens at a fraction of the cost of buying them at the market. The secret: start them in the dark. Growing “Soil Sprouts”—Burke’s own descriptive term for sprouted seeds grown in soil as opposed to in jars—employs a method that encourages a long stem without expansive roots, and provides delicious salad greens in just seven to ten days, way earlier than any other method, with much less work. Indeed, of all the ways to grow immature greens, this is the easiest and most productive technique. Forget about grow lights and heat lamps! This book is a revolutionary and inviting guide for both first-time and experienced gardeners in rural or urban environments. All you need is a windowsill or two. In fact, Burke has grown up to six pounds of greens per day using just the windowsills in his kitchen! Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening offers detailed step-by-step instructions to mastering this method (hint: it’s impossible not to succeed, it’s so easy!), tools and accessories to have on hand, seeds and greens varieties, soil and compost, trays and planters, shelving, harvest and storage, recipes, scaling up to serve local markets, and much more.

Backyard Bounty

Backyard Bounty
Author: Linda Gilkeson
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2011-04-01
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1550924745

Download Backyard Bounty Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Grow more food with less work in any yard

The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables

The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables
Author: Ben Hartman
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2017
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1603586997

Download The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

At Clay Bottom Farm, author Ben Hartman and staff practice kaizen, or continuous improvement, cutting out more waste--of time, labor, space, money, and more--every year and aligning their organic production more tightly with customer demand. Applied alongside other lean principles originally developed by the Japanese auto industry, the end result has been increased profits and less work. In this field-guide companion to his award-winning first book, The Lean Farm, Hartman shows market vegetable growers in even more detail how Clay Bottom Farm implements lean thinking in every area of their work, including using kanbans, or replacement signals, to maximize land use; germination chambers to reduce defect waste; and right-sized machinery to save money and labor and increase efficiency. From finding land and assessing infrastructure needs to selling perfect produce at the farmers market, The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables digs deeper into specific, tested methods for waste-free farming that not only help farmers become more successful but make the work more enjoyable. These methods include: Using Japanese paper pot transplanters Building your own germinating chambers Leaning up your greenhouse Making and applying simple composts Using lean techniques for pest and weed control Creating Heijunka, or load-leveling calendars for efficient planning Farming is not static, and improvement requires constant change. The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables offers strategies for farmers to stay flexible and profitable even in the face of changing weather and markets. Much more than a simple exercise in cost-cutting, lean farming is about growing better, not cheaper, food--the food your customers want.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Year-Round Gardening

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Year-Round Gardening
Author: Delilah Smittle
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 501
Release: 2010-02-02
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1101195681

Download The Complete Idiot's Guide to Year-Round Gardening Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Enjoy and benefit from the garden all year long. Whether it's onions in the summer, lettuce in the winter, or orchids any time, 'The Complete Idiot's Guide® to Year-Round Gardening', covers every step of the process of both outdoor and indoor gardening. From seeds, soil, compost, equipment, and fertilizers to all types of covers and greenhouses, and even gardening and harvesting in root-cellars during winter, this guide is a must-have for any dedicated gardener. Over 7 million households nationwide plan to grow their own fruits, vegetables, herbs and berries. The trend has recieved a boost from Michelle Obama's White House garden - aswell as from the desire to save money on food. The only book that covers both outdoor covered gardening and greenhouse gardening, as well as root-cellar gardening and harvesting, written by an expert in the field of greenhouse gardens.