Hide An environmentally friendly sourcebook that is actually two books in one, providing everything the gardener needs to know about setting up a healthy growing environment within a sunspace, plus a complete guide to growing flowers, vegetables and herbs in the greenhouse. Highly recommended.

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Learn how to grow (and where to buy) a wonderful selection of lesser-known fruits, including hardy kiwi, medlars, persimmons, beach plums, pawpaws, Juneberries, che fruits and raisin trees. Highly recommended.

Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to its readers. For more than 30 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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This classic paperback shows how to create beautiful native-plant gardens. Through 500 color photographs of 35 gardens, Ken Druse introduces nature's original plant communities — grasslands, drylands, wetlands and woodlands. Listings of plant sources, places to visit, and societies and organizations.

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This book truly is "The Ultimate Guide to Backyard Bugs." Written by Extension entomologist Whitney Cranshaw, the 650-page book includes hundreds of color insect photos, plus great advice on the least-toxic controls for vegetable, fruit and ornamental pests, and a big chapter on beneficial bugs.

Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to its readers. For more than 30 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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A perfect leek from France. Flavorful zucchini from Italy. An infamous potato from Ireland, and a humble lentil from Ethiopia. 100 VEGETABLES offers a veritable cornucopia of vegetables and stories from around the world — from Argentina to Zimbabwe, from Australia to the United States. William Woys Weaver — veggie connoisseur, gardener, and historian — tomatoes, greens, and a whole lot more.

Not every carrot is the same. All beans aren't equal. Take the Petaluma Gold Rush bean, a rugged legume, grown for over 150 years and brought to California by an American whaler from Peru. Or the violet carrot, which the Greeks brought back from India following the conquests of Alexander the Great.

Mixing history, culinary suggestions, practical information and personal anecdotes, William Woys Weaver introduces us to unusual heirloom vegetables and enriching our knowledge of common favorites. He provides answers to general questions and presents lively portraits of 100 vegetable varieties.

Organized alphabetically by common name, this 289-page book includes beautifully detailed drawings throughout, plus a helpful appendix of seed resources.

About the author:

William Woys Weaver is an organic gardener, food historian, and author of eight books — including Heirloom Vegetable Gardening and Pennsylvania Dutch Country Cooking, both of which received Julia Child awards for food reference. He and his kitchen garden have been the subject of articles in the New York Times, Country Home, the Chicago Tribune, and Food Arts. He lives in Devon, Pennsylvania, where he maintains an 1830s-style garden, featuring some three thousand varieties of heirloom vegetables, flowers, and herbs.

Recommended product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to its readers. For nearly 40 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $34.95 AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

In this comprehensive and inspirational compendium, Jo Ann Gardner and Karen Bussolini have selected and vividly illustrated the best candidates for a broad range of growing and design needs. Whether you decide to add a dash of quicksilver or the soothing perfume of an ancient herb, this in-depth guide to plants of uncommon beauty is certain to change the way you see and plant your garden.

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The decline of cheap oil is inspiring increasing numbers of North Americans to achieve some measure of backyard food self-sufficiency. In hard times, the family can be greatly helped by growing a highly productive food garden, requiring little cash outlay or watering.

Currently popular intensive vegetable gardening methods are largely inappropriate to this new circumstance. Crowded raised beds require high inputs of water, fertility and organic matter, and demand large amounts of human time and effort. But, except for labor, these inputs depend on the price of oil. Prior to the 1970s, North American home food growing used more land with less labor, with wider plant spacing, with less or no irrigation, and all done with sharp hand tools. But these sustainable systems have been largely forgotten. Gardening When It Counts, a MOTHER EARTH NEWS book, helps you rediscover traditional low-input gardening methods to produce healthy food.

Designed for readers with no experience and applicable to most areas in the English-speaking world except the tropics and hot deserts, this book shows that any family with access to 3-5,000 sq. ft. of garden land can halve their food costs using a growing system requiring just the odd bucketful of household waste water, perhaps two hundred dollars worth of hand tools, and about the same amount spent on supplies — working an average of two hours a day during the growing season.

About the Contributor:

Steve Solomon is a well-known west coast gardener and author of five previous books, including Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades which has appeared in five editions.

Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to its readers. For more than 30 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $34.95 AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Lush photographs and vividly illustrated drawings make this 200-page book a must-have for the small-home builder. Explore how to make the most of your site, how to optimize the relationship between the indoors and outdoors and how to use details to bring it all together.

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Author Ed Smith shares advice on choosing containers, how to provide balanced nutrition using his secret soil formula, and what additional tools benefit the container gardener. The reader will also find advice on starting from seed versus buying plants, which vegetables thrive in containers and which might be more challenging, along with tips on pairing plants in single containers.