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A perfect lawn may not always be a good thing, as manicured lawns are high-maintenance, chemical-dependent water guzzlers. This handsome, informative and amusing book should serve as an inspiration to those who are tired of manicured lawns.

Alternatives to the traditional lawn effectively cut down on water usage and may also play host to beneficial insects and birds. Once the desire to do away with grass takes root, readers can turn to author Liz Primeau for help in rejuvenating a front yard so that flowers, foliage textures and hardscaping come together in inviting swaths to both beautify and benefit the environment.

Useful as a source book, this volume presents photographs and text that suggest potential ideas to increase curb appeal through the transformation of front yards and parkways.

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Beginning with the down-to-earth basics of soil, sun and water, fertilizer and seeds and propagation, The Bountiful Container is an extraordinarily complete guide to container gardening. Written by two seasoned container gardeners and writers, Rose McGee and Maggie Stuckey share their expertise and experience in the art of container gardening.

Armed with this manual, frustrated apartment dwellers can indulge their passion for growing edible things. If there is an available balcony, porch, front or back steps, growing produce in containers can be easy and rewarding. With some limitations, it is even possible to grow foods in a window box or on an indoor windowsill.

This collection of practical advice includes detailed information on the types of containers to use, equipment needed, the right soil, when to plant which seeds and how best to deal with problems such as too much or too little sunlight. Written for the beginner as well as for those with a background in gardening, the book contains comprehensive, clearly written and frequently inspiring directions from authors McGee and Stuckey.

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Gardening A-Z brings you the best in vegetable gardening tips and instructions. With this handy, informative guide, you can choose the right varieties for your particular garden and discover new options you’ve never considered before. Our expert and time-tested advice will help you grow healthy, beautiful vegetables, which includes:

• Seven steps to growing superior asparagus spears
• Sweet beets, one of the sweetest and most nutritious of all vegetables
• Beautiful and bountiful broccoli
• Grow your own corn with the freshest flavor
• Start a cold-hardy crop of kale now for sweet soups and salads this winter
• Discover which types of onions are the best choices for your garden and kitchen
• Parsnips the ivory jewel of the root vegetables
• Fresh peas from the garden are a sweet and nutritious treat
• Peppers are easy to raise and as versatile as they are various
• Dozens of different varieties of potatoes you can grow in your garden

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $14.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Whether you're interested in starting a new garden or improving last year's bed, Mother Earth News' Gardening Made Easy E-Book has something for you. This new collection of articles guides you through the complete gardening process, from soil preparation to timing your harvest to get the best flavor for your efforts.

These helpful, informative articles come directly from our pages. We've combed through the Mother Earth News archive and put together the best pieces on everything from building fertile soil and finding and growing great seeds to choosing a tiller and building versatile, inexpensive hoop houses to improve your planting options and harvest.

Today's increased fuel costs continue to drive up the price of supermarket goods. News reports of the threats posed by chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers to both people and the environment appear with increasing frequency. In the midst of conflicting reports and often confusing information, homegrown food is a simple, healthful alternative for you and your family. Good for your pocketbook, great for your health and easy on the environment, a backyard garden is a win-win solution to many of the obstacles faced in today's conscientious living.

FREE SHIPPING!

*PC/Mac requirements: CD-ROM drive, Adobe Acrobat Reader (available from Adobe.com.)

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Mother Earth News Guide To Growing Your Own Food

This year, enjoy the benefits of growing and eating your own food! The latest installment of the Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series will help you save money and improve your health. Covering growing, harvesting, feasting and everything in between, this guide can help you save money with DIY projects, plans and ideas.

Tired of needing a science manual to understand a list of ingredients? Fed up with being dependent on rising food costs? Now you can control what you eat with the Guide To Growing Your Own Food. Learn how to make no-dig garden beds. Find out the secret to successfully growing your favorite food plants in pots. Read the five key strategies for enjoying fresh tomatoes all year round! And more!

This is the downloadable e-book version of the Mother Earth News: Guide to Growing Your Own Food. To order a print copy by mail, click here.

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

Most gardeners know how rewarding it is to harvest ripe, sun-warmed tomatoes or pungent herbs straight from the garden. But those pleasures can be multiplied a hundredfold by creating a garden that is not only productive, but also a beautiful, well-integrated part of the home landscape. In this handsome volume, Jennifer Bartley shows how the traditional features of the classic kitchen garden, or potager, can be adapted to contemporary American needs and conditions. The book is informed by her conviction that the nurturing, preparing, and eating of fresh, home-grown vegetables contributes enormously both to our ties with the natural world and our ties to each other. Copiously illustrated with photographs and with the author's delightful watercolors, Designing the New Kitchen Garden offers the perfect blend of inspiration and practical guidance.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $29.95 AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

The reader will find much in this third book in a trilogy of information on growing giant pumpkins. How-to-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins, Third Edition presents the newest information on cultural methods, who’s who and records. New ideas about plant size and pruning strategies throw a whole new light on the grower with only a small area to devote to giant pumpkins. New discoveries involving the use of considerably more calcium in feeding programs, a steadily growing consensus on the use of nitrogen, the beginnings of a real effort at applying genetic theory in pollination strategies, how-to select the best seed, and the controversial subject of genetic manipulation, all required an airing-out here.

The explosion in the number of growers gathering information via the internet, either through website information, or through open forums with other growers via message boards, has become a major accelerator in the learning curve of all growers. Seed auctions, message boards, and a site devoted entirely to maintaining a database of pumpkin genetic backgrounds, all contribute to a shortening of the time it takes to succeed in this sport.

If you want to grow a world record giant pumpkin, you will find much in this book to to help you.

If your goal is 1500 pounds, then you’ve come to the right place.

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This e-book is packed with 20 customizable designs, gardening tips and tricks, and conventional wisdom about the many uses of herbs. Creating Custom Garden Spaces is a fabulous guide to planning an organized, beautiful and practical garden for any space, large or small. Whether you’re a first-timer or an avid gardener, our detailed illustrations and maps will help you give your garden personality with our easily understandable designs, including:

• Mexican herb and green salad food gardens
• Medicinal herb gardens
• Gardens for pots and for tight spaces
• Fragrant and flowering herb gardens
• Gardens for children
• Gardens that prevent deer
• Fence line and mailbox gardens
• Hammock and walkway gardens
• Gardens designed for use with a rain barrel
• Gardens that attract birds and butterflies

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This e-book on CD-ROM is packed with 20 customizable designs, gardening tips and tricks and conventional wisdom about the many uses of herbs. Creating Custom Garden Spaces is a fabulous guide to planning an organized, beautiful and practical garden for any space, large or small. Whether you’re a first-timer or an avid gardener, our detailed illustrations and maps will help give your garden personality with our easily understandable designs, including:

• Mexican herb and green salad food gardens
• Medicinal herb gardens
• Gardens for pots and for tight spaces
• Fragrant and flowering herb gardens
• Gardens for children
• Gardens that prevent deer
• Fence line and mailbox gardens
• Hammock and walkway gardens
• Gardens designed for use with a rain barrel
• Gardens that attract birds and butterflies

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From the best-selling author of The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest comes a revolutionary guide to year-round harvests of fresh, organic produce — with little or no energy inputs.

Choosing locally grown organic food is a sustainable living trend that’s taken hold throughout North America. Celebrated farming expert Eliot Coleman helped start this movement with The New Organic Grower, published 20 years ago. He continues to lead the way, pushing the limits of the harvest season while working his world-renowned organic farm in Harborside, Maine.

Now, with his long-awaited new book, The Winter Harvest Handbook, anyone can have access to his hard-won experience. Gardeners and farmers can use the innovative, highly successful methods Coleman describes in this comprehensive handbook to raise crops throughout the coldest of winters.

Building on the techniques that hundreds of thousands of farmers and gardeners adopted from The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest, this new book focuses on growing produce of unparalleled freshness and quality in customized unheated or, in some cases, minimally heated, movable plastic greenhouses.

Coleman offers clear, concise details on greenhouse construction and maintenance, planting schedules, crop management, harvesting practices and even marketing methods in this complete, meticulous and illustrated guide. Readers have access to all the techniques that have proven to produce higher-quality crops on Coleman’s own farm.

His painstaking research and experimentation with more than 30 different crops will be valuable to small farmers, homesteaders and experienced home gardeners who seek to expand their production seasons.

A passionate advocate for the revival of small-scale sustainable farming, Coleman provides a practical model for supplying fresh, locally grown produce during the winter season, even in climates where conventional wisdom says it “just can’t be done.”

Praise for The Winter Harvest Handbook:

"How do you produce first-rate food all year-round in northern places? This is the big question facing the local food movement, and Eliot Coleman, one of America's most innovative farmers, has come up with excellent answers. ... The Winter Harvest Handbook is an indispensable contribution." Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food

"If we are going to create a good, clean, fair food system, we've got to learn how to grow affordable, local food year-round and make a living at it. Eliot Coleman knows more about this than anyone I've met. Here he gives the detailed information needed to make it work." Josh Viertel, president, Slow Food USA.

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 and products to readers. For more than 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.