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Luscious peaches, crisp apples, and sweet plums right off the tree are hard to beat.

For gardeners yearning for the pleasures of home-grown fruit plucked straight from the tree, this deliciously encouraging guide cuts the subject down to size. Colby Eierman, garden designer and fruit expert, shows how trees can easily be tucked into the tiniest spots and still yield a bumper crop of gorgeous fruit.

Fruit Trees in Small Spaces covers everything a gardener needs to know about choosing and nurturing the most delicious small-space varieties, including selection, pruning, training, irrigation, and disease prevention. With inspiring ideas for spaces of all shapes and sizes and creative recipes for your incredible harvest, you'll want to plant a mini-orchard in every intimate corner.

For the gardener with space limitations, bountiful fruit trees are now within arm's reach.

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Much of modern garden design is about controlling nature to achieve a desired effect. But for the eco-conscious homeowner, the best garden designer is Mother Nature, and following her lead can result in a beautiful low-maintenance landscape that requires fewer resources, attracts natural wildlife, and saves time and money.

In The Naturescaping Workbook, author Beth O'Donnell Young sets forth an easy-to-follow, do-it-yourself plan for gardeners of all skill levels. Her step-by-step approach teaches gardeners to understand their own natural habitat and to nurture the native eco-systems that exist in their yard. And the payoff is huge. By simply becoming aware of the natural wonders in the backyard, anyone can gain a more beautiful garden and take a big step toward bringing nature home.

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Millions of people now are gardening in America today. And the good news is that the "tipping point" for organic gardening is here to stay. Green is the new black. Grow Organic is an easy-to-read book that includes eight chapters on everything from soil management, to companion planting, to beneficial bugs for flowers and veggies. Each chapter contains quick tips for beginning gardeners and advanced quick tips in every chapter for experienced gardeners more than 250 in all. Co-authors Doug Oster and Jessica Walliser have nearly 50 years of gardening experience between them. Each chapter also includes "Tell-All" sections that share special methods they ve learned in their own gardens 'been there, done that' lessons.

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Gardeners, like everyone, are too short on time and money to waste either on plants that only look good for a few weeks. You want hardworking, eye-catching plants that provide beauty for multiple seasons.

You want powerhouse plants - plants with colorful spring flowers and summer fruits, or summer fruits and fall foliage, or summer flowers, fall foliage and winter stems ... or any combination of two or more of these desirable features. Like flowering dogwood that boasts summer flowers and fall fruit and foliage. Or honeysuckle that has fragrant spring flowers, summer and fall foliage, and fall fruit.

Powerhouse Plants by Graham Rice features multiseasonal perennials, annuals, groundcovers, vines, shrubs and trees. Profiles include basic plant information, such as size, hardiness and preferred growing conditions.

With this indispensable guide in hand, you can leave the slacker plants behind and get the most from your money and landscape.

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Once a fringe topic, permaculture is moving to the mainstream. Gardeners who are ready to take their organic gardening to the next level are discovering the wisdom of a simple system that emphasizes the idea that by taking care of the earth, the earth takes care of you.

The Vegetable Gardener's Guide to Permaculture teaches gardeners of every skill level - with any size space - how to live in harmony with both nature and neighbors to produce and share an abundant food supply with minimal effort. Permaculture teacher Christopher Shein highlights everything you need to know to start living off the land lightly, including how to create rich, healthy and low-cost soil; blend a functional food garden and decorative landscape; share the bounty with others; and much more.

This inspiring, easy-to-follow, information-packed, practical guide will help you transform your garden into a food forest that feeds you for years to come.

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Sepp Holzer is known around the world for bringing deserted landscapes back to life using his unique methods of creating water-retention basins. In Desert or Paradise, he applies his core philosophy - for increasing food production, promoting the earth's health and reconnecting mankind with nature - to reforestation and water conservation across the world. He urges us to look beyond failed solutions to drought by learning from his lengthy catalog of successes in arid, rainfall-dependent regions such as Greece, Turkey, Spain and Portugal.

You'll find here a wealth of information for the gardener, homesteader, permaculture designer and sustainable farmer. Yet the book's greatest value lies in the attitudes it teaches - and in its demonstration that the simple principles found in nature and used to create Holzer's productive systems can be applied anywhere.

Holzer also outlines his 10 points of sustainable self-reliance and how these methods can help feed the world. They include recognizing the need to:

• Regulate water usage
• Eliminate factory livestock farming
• Bring more fallow or unused land into production
• Enlarge crop areas by using terracing and Holzer-style raised beds
• Engage in community building
• … And much more

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Want the best-looking yard in your neighborhood? Or a sprawling green lawn that welcomes visitors as they make their way up your driveway? With the help of the GRIT Guide to Field and Lawn Care you'll discover how to grow and maintain the sharpest lawn, as well as tips for safe mowing, advice for rejuvenating your lawn, and so much more.

Packed from cover to cover with expertise on field and lawn care, this helpful guide can assist you as you decide which mower will work best for your yard. And whether you need an economical pushmower or a time-saving zero turn machine, you'll find advice on routine maintenance that will keep your mower or garden tractor on track all summer long. Read 10 ways to sustainably manage the unwanted weeds that sprout up every year. Master the ins and outs of lawn maintenance and keep your yard looking its best all summer. Plus, learn how to lawn stripe your yard: Not only will it look professionally mowed, but fertilizing and overseeding will be that much easier!

Other articles include:

• Rules of Engagement: Before operating any mower, it's imperative to wrap your mind around basic mowing safety.
• (Electric) Wave of the Future: Mowers and bots that will cut your grass, without gas.
• Mowing the Old-Fashioned Way: Use a scythe to make hay and trim your lawn.
• Mowing and More with your ATV: Save money by turning your all-terrain vehicle into a top hand.
• All the Trimmings: From string trimmers and edgers to the old reliable ax, here are all the tools you'll need to keep your landscape neat and tidy.