Hide 

MOTHER EARTH NEWS and GRIT come together to bring you 600 pages of expert advice, recipes, do-it-yourself projects and more information on living a self-sufficient life. This set covers everything from organic gardening to bees and honey, from backyard rabbits to self-reliance and country skills. The do-it-yourself projects include energy-saving household updates as well as instructions for constructing chicken coops, outdoor bread ovens and permanent garden beds. Follow recipes for baking sourdough bread, preparing rabbit meat, fixing delicious egg dishes, and cooking with honey. Discover how to save money with energy-saving tips for your home, and how to cut your food bills in half by growing your own food right in your own backyard.

This set includes:
MOTHER EARTH NEWS Guide to Organic Gardening, 4th Edition
This glossy-paged guide is perfect for beginners or expert gardeners. It covers everything from perennial vegetables to choosing a greenhouse, from organic pest control to making compost. Read how poultry is the secret weapon for organic pest control. Learn how to make the best homemade tomato cages. Or plan out your kitchen garden with four delightful herb gardens plans.

MOTHER EARTH NEWS Guide to Self-Reliance and Country Skills, 2nd Edition
With more than 20 articles, this guide has hundreds of great ideas for self-reliant living. From preserving food to small-space gardening, from backyard chickens to making your own yogurt and cheese, this special guide has a wide variety of information that will help you lead a sustainable life.

GRIT Guide to Homemade Bread, 3rd Edition
Bread, bagels, pretzels, pizza crust, cookies and more! All of these delicious homemade creations can be found in this Guide to Homemade Bread. This guide includes more than 53 keys to successful bread making, outdoor bread oven plans, fail-proof no-knead breads, top bread machines tips and more.

GRIT Guide to Backyard Rabbits, 2nd Edition
You'll find more than 25 keys to a successful rabbit-raising enterprise in this special Barnyard Series guide. Learn about raising rabbits for meat and breeding stock. Build rabbit homes and learn what equipment you'll need. Read about a basic bunny diet that will keep them happy and healthy, and also discover so much more.

GRIT Guide to Backyard Chickens, 4th Edition
Calling all chicken enthusiasts! The fourth edition of this popular guide is overflowing with expert advice, key facts and easy chicken coop plans that will have both beginner and seasoned chicken owners crowing for joy! Read how to build a broiler coop on a shoestring budget. Build the perfect chicken tractor. Learn which heritage hens are the best for laying eggs. Follow the wide variety of delicious chicken recipes this book has to offer.

GRIT Guide to Backyard Bees and Honey, 3rd Edition
This treasure-trove of bee knowledge has more than 75 ways to get more from your bees. Cover-to-cover, this guide includes tips on saving money while building your own beehive or honey extractor with simple materials available at your local hardware store. Read how to use a top-bar hive, a less expensive method to raising bees that will pollinate your crops and provide tasty honey fresh from the comb.

Hide 

The Edible Flower Garden is a beautiful collection of flowers that can be used for cookery: from candied violets and roses to decorate appetizers and cakes, to nasturtiums for a colorful shrimp salad, to daylily buds, pink clover and wild mustard flowers that are tossed together in a spectacular stir-fry.

Hide 

Enjoy growing your own food and cutting your bills in half this year. MOTHER EARTH NEWS Guide to Growing Your Own Food is filled from cover to cover with the best articles on gardening, preserving, backyard chickens, beekeeping and more. With the help of this 100-page guide, you'll get the satisfaction of saving money and eating homegrown food all year long.

Read about 20 crops that will keep and how you can store them. Follow vertical gardening tips and techniques so you can grow bigger beans, tomatoes, cantaloupes and more. Not only can you eat homegrown food, but your backyard flock can, too, when you learn to grow your own all-natural poultry feed. Discover new facts about growing blueberries, potatoes, Asian greens and radishes.

Other articles include:

• Cut Your Food Bills in Half! - It's true! You can enjoy better and healthier food while spending much less to feed your family.
• Building Fertile Soil - Use cover crops, mulches and no-till permanent beds to boost soil health and your garden yields.
• Wise Watering - Conservation-based watering techniques and equipment will keep your crops healthy and yields abundant.
• Keep Bees, Naturally! - Enjoy the sweet rewards of beekeeping by learning how to harvest fresh, delicious honey from your own backyard.
• Grow Chives! - Snip fine-flavored, crispy green chives over a baked potato or salad for a colorful, tasty garnish.
• The Incredible Versatility of Eggs - Pastured, free-range eggs can star in numerous egg recipes, from simple fried eggs and bacon to an elegant soufflé.

Hide 

Are you confused by all the choices when you visit a nursery? Do you get sticker shock when you see how much that nice little shade tree costs? Let Jim Fox, a nursery professional with more than 20 years of experience, show you how to become a savvy garden consumer and get the most for your hard-earned landscaping dollars.

How to Buy the Right Plants, Tools and Garden Supplies will arm you with a wealth of knowledge! You'll learn how to determine if a plant is healthy, choose the right size, correctly read the plant tag, choose the best tools and supplies for your needs, and confidently recognize a well-made tool. In addition to helping you navigate the nursery, this book tells you what you need to know before you get there and offers helpful tips on how to successfully garden once you get home.

With this essential guide in hand, you'll never experience buyer's remorse again!

Hide 

It's the holy grail of gardening: a plant that perfectly matches your tastes and the conditions in your garden. The hitch? You're not likely to find it at your local garden center. You're going to have to create it yourself.

But don't worry - it isn't hard. After all, gardeners have been doing it for centuries, simply by saving seeds of the varieties that tasted or performed best. But you'll get even better results by following the advice in Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener. You'll learn how to set achievable goals in your breeding program, the ins and outs of genetics, how to pick the best parent plants, how to cross-pollinate, the best techniques to use for popular vegetables and flowers, and how to harvest and store seeds.

In no time at all, you'll be producing a tomato perfect for your palate, a more fragrant rose or a pepper with just the right amount of heat!

Hide 

You'll learn how to set achievable goals in your breeding program, the ins and outs of genetics, how to pick the best parent plants, how to cross-pollinate, the best techniques to use for popular vegetables and flowers, and how to harvest and store seeds.

Hide 

This collection of sparkling and unpredictable essays ranging across the whole world of gardening, and sometimes slightly beyond, comes from the acclaimed author of The Transplanted Gardener and The Potting Shed Papers. Tales of great gardeners and heroic plant hunters share space with more personal revelations: exactly why every man needs a tractor, how to deal with woodchucks or a relentless west wind, the challenge of a knotweed infestation. Botanical frauds and heroic plant hunters, splendid gardens past and present, stirring discoveries and hopeless failures … all these and more fall beneath the writer's amused and endlessly curious eye.

Funny, informative and dependably entertaining, author Charles Elliott once again demonstrates why readers such as Bill Bryson have so enjoyed and praised his work.

Hide 

Invasive plants - such as kudzu, ragweed and Himalayan blackberry - won't go away on their own. Luckily, How to Eradicate Invasive Plants offers a clear, practical solution to an increasingly common problem.

Invasive plants are a growing threat to our home landscapes, affecting native plants and wildlife. Clearly written and easy-to-use, How to Eradicate Invasive Plants shows you how to recognize the invasive plant; offers eradication options, from simple, organic approaches to the safest and most responsible ways to use chemicals; and enables you to identify 200 of the most common invasive plants.

This comprehensive guide includes all types of invasive plants, including water and bog plants; annuals, biennials and tropical perennials; herbaceous perennials; grasses and bamboos; and vines, shrubs and trees.

Hide 

Live simply: save money, smile more. This theme runs through the MOTHER EARTH NEWS Guide to Living on Less special edition. In its 100 pages, you'll find expert advice, tips, instructions and more to help you live a more self-sufficient life. Its guidance covers everything from building better soil with free organic fertilizers to constructing tiny homes that are cozy, affordable and inspiring. The fourth edition of this handy guide will have you living on less and loving it!

Read reliable information about building a compact cabin or simple shelter that's enjoyable and affordable. Grow your own healing garden and find good health just outside your front door. Discover simple tips for creating nutrient-rich, root-welcoming soil, and grow your most abundant garden yet. Learn where to find healthy, farm-fresh eggs. Follow delicious recipes for making your own homemade root beer, ginger ale, grape soda and more.

Other articles include:

• Adding Insulation Can Save You Money: Figure out whether you should add insulation to your home, and which pieces of the job you can do yourself.
• Easy Ways to Preserve Fresh Food: Your guide to canning, freezing, dehydrating and other simple, seasonal storage methods.
• Instant, No-Dig Garden Beds: Create or expand your food garden with this time-saving technique.
• Want Milk? Get Goats: Dairy goats can supply your family with delicious milk, yogurt and cheese. The fun of raising these gregarious animals is just a bonus.
• Disease Prevention Basics: These techniques can prevent many of the diseases that plague your vegetables. They include wide spacing, trellising and careful use of organic pesticides.

Hide 

Gardening is on the rise as the desire for fresh, delicious homegrown vegetables grows. Growing your own vegetables is an easy hobby for a variety of lifestyles, as it doesn't take a large amount of space to yield nutritious carrots or lettuce. All it takes is a bit of passion, care and knowledge, and the rewards are soon there to enjoy.

Both down-to-earth and inspirational, Greens! describes the charm of growing your own vegetables. Swedish author Karin Eliasson runs a kitchen garden and guesthouse in Spain, but her tips are adapted to suit most climates and soil types. In this gardening guide, she gives advice on how to grow, harvest and store more than 100 different vegetable varieties and suggests easy recipes you can use in your own kitchen. With instructive and beautiful photographs, she explains the step-by-step principles of organic gardening-soil, plant feeding, digging, hoeing and watering-and shows how to combine blooming flowers and vegetables in attractive, colorful mixes to attract garden-friendly insects.

This book will not only arm you with the knowledge you need to get started, but also provide experienced and budding gardeners alike with a source for inspiration while they enjoy the beautiful photographs and tips on garden design.