100 Best Permaculture & Homesteading Books: The Ultimate Reading List for Sustainable Living

If you've ever considered getting into Permaculture, or if you're a veteran Permaculturist who's looking for a new skill to master, the following resources are the absolute best places for you to get started. Each of these books has the potential to introduce you to a whole new skill that you can enjoy for literally the rest of your life!

You will find here links to over 60 Free eBook previews and full eBooks!

Feel free to post down at the bottom if there are other books you would include on this list.

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Sophia

Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway - The first edition of Gaia’s Garden sparked the imagination of America’s home gardeners, introducing permaculture’s central message: Working with Nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens.

This revised and updated edition also features a new chapter on urban permaculture, designed especially for people in cities and suburbs who have very limited growing space. Whatever size yard or garden you have to work with, you can apply basic permaculture principles to make it more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful. Best of all, once it’s established, an ecological garden will reduce or eliminate most of the backbreaking work that’s needed to maintain the typical lawn and garden.

• eBook preview: Gaia's Garden, Second Edition

Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison - Abundantly illustrated with detailed diagrams and line drawings throughout. Includes a listing of useful Permaculture plants with descriptions and uses, and a further species list in useful categories. The book is set out as a step-by-step introduction to Permaculture with detailed instructions. Using simple language it describes the range of Permaculture for general consumption.

• Full eBook online: Bill Mollison - Permaculture Design Courses Series
• + see also: Permaculture, a Beginners Guide by Graham Burnett - Free exerpts online

3.
The Basics Of Permaculture Design by Ross Mars- Packed with useful tips, clear illustrations, and a wealth of experience, it guides you through designs for gardens, urban and rural properties, water harvesting systems, animal systems, permaculture in small spaces like balconies and patios, farms, schools, and ecovillages. This is both a do-it-yourself guide for the enthusiast and a useful reference for permaculture designers.

Permaculture in a Nutshell by Patrick Whitefield - is a concise and accessible introduction to the principles and practice of permaculture in temperate climates. It covers how permaculture works in the city, the country and on the farm and explores ways in which people can work together to recreate real communities. This inspiring book clearly describes how we can live fruitfully and sustainably and is essential reading for anyone wishing to reduce their environmental impact.

• eBook preview: Permaculture in a Nutshell

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Getting Started In Permaculture: 50 Practical Projects to Build and Design Productive Gardens by Ross Mars, Jenny Mars - delivers step-by-step knowledge for a variety of useful projects including: making herb fertilizers, compost, organic sprays for pest control, and much, much more. It also includes how to recycle your soft drink bottles, waste paper, and tires in a number of useful projects such as ponds, fruit fly traps, retailing walls, and solar stills. Permaculture experts Ross and Jenny Mars outline the steps to transform your garden into a productive living system.

The Permaculture Way: Practical Steps to Create a Self-Sustaining World by Graham Bell - shows us how to consciously design a lifestyle which is low in environmental impact and highly productive. It demonstrates how to meet our needs, make the most of resources by minimizing waste and maximizing potential, and still leave the Earth richer than we found it. Graham Bell is the former editor of Permaculture News.

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Earth User's Guide to Permaculture by Rosemary Morrow - Fundamentally, permaculture is design science and in this new edition design is emphasised. This book will be most beneficial if you apply it to the space where you live and work. The same principles apply for becoming more sustainable and living lightly whether you live in a small city apartment with a balcony, in a house with a garden in the suburbs, or on acreage in the country.

8.

Permaculture: A Designers' Manual by Bill Mollison - This is the definitive Permaculture design manual in print since 1988. It is the textbook and curriculum for the 72-hour Certificate course in Permaculture Design. Written for teachers, students and designers, it follows on and greatly enlarges on the initial introductory texts, permaculture One (1978) and Permaculture Two (1979) both of which are still in demand over twenty years after publication. It covers design methodologies and strategies for both urban and rural applications, describing property design and natural farming techniques.

• Full eBook online: Bill Mollison - Permaculture Design Courses Series

Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren - For students and teachers of Permaculture this book provides something more fundamental and distilled than Mollison's encyclopedic Designers Manual. For the general reader it provides refreshing perspectives on a range of environmental issues and shows how permaculture is much more than just a system of gardening. For anyone seriously interested in understanding the foundations of sustainable design and culture, this book is essential reading. Although a book of ideas, the big picture is repeatedly grounded by reference to Holmgren's own place, Melliodora, and other practical examples.

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The Earth Care Manual: A Permaculture Handbook For Britain & Other Temperate Climates by Patrick Whitefield - The long-awaited exploration of permaculture specifically for cooler Northern Hemisphere climates is finally here! Already regarded as the definitive book on the subject, The Earth Care Manual is accessible to the curious novice as much as it is essential for the knowledgeable practitioner. Patrick Whitefield is a permaculture teacher, writer, designer, and consulting editor for Permaculture Magazine. He is the author of the mini-classic Permaculture in a Nutshell, which has been translated into four languages.

• eBook preview:  The Earth Care Manual

Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening - In this book, Holzer shares the skill and knowledge acquired over his lifetime. He covers every aspect of his farming methods, not just how to create a holistic system on the farm itself, but how to make a living from it. Holzer writes about everything from the overall concepts, down to the practical details. Sepp Holzer farms steep mountainsides in Austria 1,500 meters above sea level. His farm is an intricate network of terraces, raised beds, ponds, waterways and tracks, well covered with productive fruit trees and other vegetation, with the farmhouse neatly nestling amongst them. This is in dramatic contrast to his neighbors' spruce monocultures.

12.

Permaculture Pioneers: Stories from the New Frontier - This book charts a history of the first three decades of permaculture, through the personal stories of Australian permaculturists. From permaculture co-originator David Holmgren, to ABC TV's Gardening Australia presenter Josh Byrne, the authors span the generations and the continent.

These stories represent the scope, depth and diversity of permaculture in Australia and around the world. They explore some of the influences on those who have embraced it, record milestones and highlight recurring themes.

Bioshelter Market Garden: A Permaculture Farm by Darrell Frey - At the heart of Three Sisters is its bioshelter—a solar greenhouse that integrates growing facilities, poultry housing, a potting room, storage, kitchen facilities, compost bins, a reference library, and classroom area. Bioshelter Market Garden examines how the bioshelter promotes greater biodiversity and is an energy-efficient method of extending crop production through Pennsylvania's cold winter months. Both visionary and practical, this fully illustrated book contains a wealth of information on the application of permaculture principles.

• eBook preview: Bioshelter Market Garden

14.
Chicken Tractor: The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil, Homestead (3rd) Edition by Andy Lee- This is the book that tells you how to integrate small flocks of poultry in with family food production. There is a back to the land movement happening across the world, and it's happening in backyards and on small parcels of land. Chicken tractor systems have become so popular that the term chicken tractor; is a household word. This is the definitive book that leads the way.

The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country by Peter Bane - The Permaculture Handbook is a step-by-step, beautifully illustrated guide to creating resilient and prosperous households and neighborhoods, complemented by extensive case studies of three successful farmsteads and market gardens. This comprehensive manual casts garden farming as both an economic opportunity and a strategy for living well with less money.

Edible Forest Gardens (2 volume set) by Dave Jacke, Eric Toensmeier - is a groundbreaking two-volume work that spells out and explores the key concepts of forest ecology and applies them to the needs of natural gardeners in temperate climates.

Volume I lays out the vision of the forest garden and explains the basic ecological principles that make it work.

In Volume II, Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier move on to practical considerations: concrete ways to design, establish, and maintain your own forest garden. Along the way they present case studies and examples, as well as tables, illustrations, and a uniquely valuable "plant matrix" that lists hundreds of the best edible and useful species.

• Edible Forest Gardens, Vol. 1: Ecological Vision, Theory For Temperate Climate Permaculture

• Edible Forest Gardens, Vol. 2: Ecological Design And Practice For Temperate Climate Permaculture

Taken together, the two volumes of Edible Forest Gardens offer an advanced course in ecological gardening—one that will forever change the way you look at plants and your environment.

Buy Edible Forest Gardens directly from authors here: http://www.edibleforestgardens.com/

17.
Creating a Forest Garden: Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops by Martin Crawford - tells you everything you need to know - whether you want to plant a small area in your back garden or develop a larger plot. It includes advice on planning, design (using permaculture principles), planting and maintenance, and a comprehensive directory of over 450 trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials, herbs, annuals, root crops and climbers - almost all of them edible and many very unusual. Forest gardens offer one solution for a long-term, sustainable way of growing food without compromising soil quality, food quality or biodiversity.

Forest Gardening: Cultivating an Edible Landscape by Robert Hart - An English classic revised and expanded for North America - Forest Gardening is a way of working alongside nature—an approach that results in great productivity with minimal maintenance, and a method for transforming even a small cottage garden into a diverse and inviting habitat for songbirds, butterflies, and other wildlife. Based on the model of a natural woodland, a forest garden incorporates a wide variety of useful plants, including fruit and nut trees, perennial herbs, and vegetables.

• eBook preview:  Forest Gardening

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How to Make a Forest Garden by Patrick Whitefield - A forest garden is a food-producing garden, based on the model of a natural woodland or forest. It is made up of fruit and nut trees, fruit bushes, perennial vegetables and herbs. It can be tailored to fit any space, from a tiny urban back yard to a large rural garden. This highly practical, yet inspiring book gives you everything you need to know in order to create a beautiful and productive forest garden. It is also a low-maintenance way of gardening. Once established there is none of the digging, sowing, planting out and hoeing of the conventional kitchen garden. The main task is picking up the produce!

• eBook preview:  How to Make a Forest Garden

20.

The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times by Carol Deppe - Scientist and expert gardener Carol Deppe draws from emerging science in many fields to develop the general principles of gardening for resilience. Gardeners will learn through Deppe's detailed instructions on growing, storing, and using the five crops central to self-reliance: potatoes, corn, beans, squash, and eggs. The Resilient Gardener presents gardening techniques that stand up to challenges ranging from health problems, financial problems, and special dietary needs to serious disasters and climate change.

• eBook preview:  The Resilient Gardener

Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables From Your Home Garden All Year Long by Eliot Coleman - This story of sunshine, weather patterns, old limitations and expectations, and new realities is delightfully innovative in the best gardening tradition. Four-Season Harvest will have you feasting on fresh produce from your garden all through the winter. If you love the joys of eating home-garden vegetables but always thought those joys had to stop at the end of summer, this book is for you.

• eBook preview:  Four-Season Harvest

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The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre! by Carleen Madigan - From a quarter of an acre, you can harvest 1,400 eggs, 50 pounds of wheat, 60 pounds of fruit, 2,000 pounds of vegetables, 280 pounds of pork, 75 pounds of nuts. The Backyard Homestead shows you how it's done. And when the harvest is in, you'll learn how to cook, preserve, cure, brew, or pickle the fruits of your labor.

All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew - Square foot gardening - it's an ingenious planting method based on using square foot blocks of garden space instead of rows. Gardeners build up, not down, so there's no digging and no tilling after the first year. And the method requires less thinning, less weeding, and less watering. When he created the "square foot gardening" method, Mel Bartholomew, a retired engineer and efficiency expert, found the solution to the frustrations of most gardeners.

• eBook preview:  All New Square Foot Gardening

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Aquaponic Gardening: A Step-By-Step Guide to Raising Vegetables and Fish Together by Sylvia Bernstein- is the definitive do-it-yourself home manual, focused on giving you all the tools you need to create your own aquaponic system and enjoy healthy, safe, fresh, and delicious food all year round. Aquaponics systems are completely organic. They are four to six times more productive and use ninety percent less water than conventional gardens. Other advantages include no weeds, fewer pests, and no watering, fertilizing, bending, digging, or heavy lifting--in fact, there really is no downside! Anyone interested in taking the next step towards self-sufficiency will be fascinated by this practical, accessible, and well-illustrated guide.

Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners by Suzanne Ashworth, Kent Whealy - is a complete seed-saving guide that describes specific techniques for saving the seeds of 160 different vegetables. This book contains detailed information about each vegetable, including its botanical classification, flower structure and means of pollination, required population size, isolation distance, techniques for caging or hand-pollination, and also the proper methods for harvesting, drying, cleaning, and storing the seeds.

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Greenhouse Gardener's Companion, Revised: Growing Food & Flowers in Your Greenhouse or Sunspace by Shane Smith - The most comprehensive book on greenhouse gardening available today. Today, greenhouses and sunrooms are real living spaces where gardeners spend as much time with a book and a cup of coffee as they do with a watering can and a pair of pruning shears. In this fully revised edition of a best-selling classic, veteran gardener Shane Smith embraces this new "lifestyle" approach to greenhouse gardening.

• eBook preview:  Greenhouse Gardener's Companion

The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Pest and Disease Control: A Complete Guide to Maintaining a Healthy Garden and Yard the Earth-Friendly Way by Fern Marshall Bradley, Barbara W. Ellis, Deborah L. Martin - The plant-by-plant guide features symptoms and solutions for 200 popular plants, including flowers, vegetables, trees, shrubs, and fruits. The insect-and-disease encyclopedia includes a photo identification guide and detailed descriptions of damage readers may see. The extensive coverage of the most up-to-date organic control techniques and products, presented in order of lowest impact to most intensive intervention, makes it easy to choose the best control.

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The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming by Masanobu Fukuoka - Call it “Zen and the Art of Farming” or a “Little Green Book,” Masanobu Fukuoka’s manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. Whether you’re a guerrilla gardener or a kitchen gardener, dedicated to slow food or simply looking to live a healthier life, you will find something here—you may even be moved to start a revolution of your own.

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses by Eliot Coleman - 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." 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.

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The Organic Farming Manual: A Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Running a Certified Organic Farm by Ann Larkin Hansen- is a comprehensive guide to growing, certifying, and marketing organic produce, grains, meat, and dairy. Beginning farmers committed to launching an organic operation and experienced farmers hoping to transition from traditional farming techniques will find all the information they need. The organic certification process is lengthy and demanding, but author Ann Larkin Hansen clarifies every USDA requirement and offers complete advice on selecting equipment, tending the land, caring for animals, and marketing farm products.

Small-Scale Grain Raising: An Organic Guide to Growing, Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains, for Home Gardeners and Local Farmers by Gene Logsdon - offers an entirely new generation of readers the best introduction to a wide range of both common and lesser-known specialty grains and related field crops, from corn, wheat, and rye to buckwheat, millet, rice, spelt, flax, and even beans and sunflowers. In this book, Gene Logsdon proves that anyone who has access to a large garden or small farm can (and should) think outside the agribusiness box and learn to grow healthy whole grains or beans--the base of our culinary food pyramid--alongside their fruits and vegetables.

• eBook preview:  Small-Scale Grain Raising

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The Apple Grower: A Guide for the Organic Orchardist by Michael Phillips - Phillips presents intriguing ideas about orchard soils. Since people started growing apples in orchards, those orchard soils have largely been bacterially based, meaning that fertility has been maintained by the addition of bacteria-laden manure. Sheep and cattle were allowed to graze the grass and eat dropped apples, adding manure to the soils, and often the orchard was formerly pasture or hayfield, where manure was regularly added to maintain fertility. Bacteria-based soils are great for grasses and hay crops, but not necessarily for trees.

• eBook preview:  The Apple Grower

The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change by Albert Bates - explores the dual function of biochar as a carbon-negative energy source and a potent soil-builder. Created by burning biomass in the absence of oxygen, this material has the unique ability to hold carbon back from the atmosphere while simultaneously enhancing soil fertility. Author Albert Bates traces the evolution of this extraordinary substance from the ancient black soils of the Amazon to its reappearance as a modern carbon sequestration strategy. Combining practical techniques for the production and use of biochar with an overview of the development and future of carbon farming, The Biochar Solution describes how a new agricultural revolution can reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to below zero while increasing world food reserves and creating energy from biomass wastes.

• eBook preview: The Biochar Solution

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Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan by F. H. King - Professor King provides intriguing glimpses of Japan, China, Manchuria, and Korea, with information about the customs of the common people; utilization of waste; methods of irrigation, reforestation, and land reclamation; and the cultivation of rice, silk, and tea. An invaluable, profusely illustrated resource for organic gardeners, farmers, and conservationists.

• Full eBook online: Farmers of Forty Centuries

35.

Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World by Paul Stamets - is a manual for the mycological rescue of the planet. That’s right: growing more mushrooms may be the best thing we can do to save the environment, and in this groundbreaking text from mushroom expert Paul Stamets, you’ll find out how.

The basic science goes like this: Microscopic cells called “mycelium”--the fruit of which are mushrooms--recycle carbon, nitrogen, and other essential elements as they break down plant and animal debris in the creation of rich new soil. What Stamets has discovered is that we can capitalize on mycelium’s digestive power and target it to decompose toxic wastes and pollutants (mycoremediation), catch and reduce silt from streambeds and pathogens from agricultural watersheds (mycofiltration), control insect populations (mycopesticides), and generally enhance the health of our forests and gardens (mycoforestry and myco-gardening).

In this comprehensive guide, you’ll find chapters detailing each of these four exciting branches of what Stamets has coined “mycorestoration,” as well as chapters on the medicinal and nutritional properties of mushrooms, inoculation methods, log and stump culture, and species selection for various environmental purposes. Heavily referenced and beautifully illustrated, this book is destined to be a classic reference for bemushroomed generations to come.

Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web by Jeff Lowenfels, Wayne Lewis - By eschewing jargon and overly technical language, the authors make the benefits of cultivating the soil food web available to a wide audience, from devotees of organic gardening techniques to weekend gardeners who simply want to grow healthy, vigorous plants without resorting to chemicals. Healthy soil is teeming with life — not just earthworms and insects, but a staggering multitude of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms.

• eBook preview:  Teaming with Microbes

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The Soul of Soil: A Soil-Building Guide for Master Gardeners and Farmers by Grace Gershuny - Now back in print, this eminently sensible and wonderfully well-focused book provides essential information about one of the most significant challenges for those attempting to grow delicious organic vegetables: the creation and maintenance of healthy soil. The Soul of Soil offers everyone a basic understanding of what soil is and what we can do to improve our own patch of it. Seen in this light, this practical handbook will be an inspiration as well.

• eBook preview:  The Soul of Soil

Life in the Soil: A Guide for Naturalists and Gardeners by James B. Nardi - Lavishly illustrated with nearly three hundred color illustrations and masterfully-rendered black and white drawings throughout, Life in the Soil invites naturalists and gardeners alike to dig in and discover the diverse community of creatures living in the dirt below us. Biologist and acclaimed natural history artist James B. Nardi begins with an introduction to soil ecosystems, revealing the unseen labors of underground organisms maintaining the rich fertility of the earth as they recycle nutrients between the living and mineral worlds.

• eBook preview: Life in the Soil

39.
Secrets to Great Soil: A Grower's Guide to Composting, Mulching, and Creating Healthy, Fertile Soil for Your Garden and Lawn by Elizabeth Stell - In easy-to-understand terms, Elizabeth Stell teaches readers all about the properties and value of good garden soil. She explains how to improve soil health with amendments and fertilizer and gives tips for customizing soil for a variety of vegetables, flowers, fruits, trees, shrubs, and lawns.

The Rodale Book of Composting: Easy Methods for Every Gardener - The broad spectrum of information given will be useful from backyard urban gardening on up to industrial, municipal, and farm recycling. The first quarter of the book gives you all you ever wanted to know on the science of composting--and more--along with some history. A discussion of materials, methods, structures, equipment, and uses is followed by a brief look at large-scale composting.

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The Worm Book: The Complete Guide to Gardening and Composting with Worms by Loren Nancarrow, Janet Hogan Taylor - Worms are the latest (as well as, of course, perhaps the oldest!) trend in earth-friendly gardening, and in this handy guide, the authors of DEAD SNAILS LEAVE NO TRAILS demystify the world of worm wrangling, with everything you need to know to build your own worm bin, make your garden worm-friendly, pamper your soil, and much much more.

The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure by Joseph Jenkins - Written by a humanure composter with over thirty years experience, this classic work now includes illustrated, step-by-step instructions on how to build a "$25 humanure toilet," a chapter on alternative graywater systems, photos of owner-built humanure toilets from around the world, and an overview of commercial composting toilets and systems.

• Full eBook online: The Humanure Handbook

44.
Holy Shit: Managing Manure To Save Mankind by Gene Logsdon - In his insightful new book, Holy Shit, Managing Manure To Save Mankind, contrary farmer Gene Logsdon provides the inside story of manure—our greatest, yet most misunderstood, natural resource. He begins by lamenting a modern society that not only throws away both animal and human manure—worth billions of dollars in fertilizer value—but that spends a staggering amount of money to do so. This wastefulness makes even less sense as the supply of mined or chemically synthesized fertilizers dwindles and their cost skyrockets.

• eBook preview: Holy Shit

45.

Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener's G... by Eric Toensmeier - Perennial vegetables are perfect as part of an edible landscape plan or permaculture garden. Profiling more than 100 species, illustrated with dozens of color photographs and illustrations, and filled with valuable growing tips, recipes, and resources, Perennial Vegetables is a groundbreaking and ground-healing book that will open the eyes of gardeners everywhere to the exciting world of edible perennials.


Eric Toensmeier (Edible Forest Gardens) introduces gardeners to a world of little-known and wholly underappreciated plants.

• eBook preview: Perennial Vegetables

Permaculture Plants: A Selection by Jeff Nugent - This is an easy-to-use guide to selecting hundreds of perennial species. It is indispensable for growers and designers working in subtropical and warm temperate/arid climates, and also includes some cool-tolerant species. Permaculture Plants: A Selection details hundreds of common and unusual edible, medicinal, and useful plants.

• eBook preview: Permaculture Plants: Agaves and Cacti 

• see also Full eBook: Plants For A Future: Survey and Research Project on 'The Field'

47.
What's Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?): A Visual Guide to Easy Diagnosis and Organic Remedies by David Deardorff, Kathryn Wadsworth - provides an easy system for visually diagnosing any problem, and matching it to the right cure. Whether your garden consists of herbs on a kitchen windowsill, a vegetable garden, an elaborate backyard border, or a container on a patio, What's Wrong With My Plant? is an indispensable resource. If you can see it, you can fix it. Curing a sick plant just doesn't get any easier.

• eBook preview: What's Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?)

Roots Demystified: Change Your Gardening Habits to Help Roots Thrive by Robert Kourik - explains simple solutions about growing healthy roots and, thereby, healthier plants. The book explores the subterranean part of every gardener's world, revealing how roots really grow while dispelling myths such as where most gardeners apply water, mulch, and fertilizer or compost. This is the first and only book in print for gardeners with such an extensive number of illustrations of garden and orchard roots. The roots covered are: lawns, prairies, shrubs, vegetables, fruit trees, and native and ornamental trees. Practical tips for how a gardener might use this new information to create more abundant vegetables, better lawns and sturdier trees and shrubs are offered with each of the 70 illustrations.

49.
Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener's & Farmer's Guide to Plant Breeding & Seed Saving by Carol Deppe - In this one-size-fits-all world of multinational seed companies, plant patents, and biotech monopolies, more and more gardeners and farmers are recognizing that they need to "take back their seeds." They need to save more of their own seed, grow and maintain the best traditional and regional varieties, and develop more of their own unique new varieties. Breed Your Own Vegetable Varietiesshows the way, and offers an exciting introduction to a whole new gardening adventure.

The New Seed Starter's Handbook by Nancy Bubel - For the most complete, up-to-date information on starting plants from seed, turn to The New Seed-Starter's Handbook. Written by a gardener with 30 years of experience, this easy-to-use reference explains everything you need to know to start seeds and raise healthy seedlings successfully. An encyclopedia section lists more than 200 plants--including vegetables and fruits, garden flowers, wildflowers, herbs, trees, and shrubs--with details on how to start each from seed.

51.
The Lost Language of Plants: The Ecological Importance of Plant Medicines for Life on Earth by Stephen Harrod Buhner - The book will affect readers on rational and emotional planes. It is grounded in both a New Age spiritual sensibility and hard science. The overall impact is a powerful, eye-opening expos' of the threat that our allopathic Western medical system, in combination with our unquestioning faith in science and technology, poses to the primary life-support systems of the planet. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned about the state of the environment, the state of health care, and our cultural sanity.

• eBook preview: The Lost Language of Plants

Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets - With updated production techniques for home and commercial cultivation, detailed growth parameters for 31 mushroom species, a trouble-shooting guide, and handy gardening tips, this revised and updated handbook will make your mycological landscapes the envy of the neighborhood. After years of living in awe of the mysterious fungi known as mushrooms-chefs, health enthusiasts, and home cooks alike can't get enough of these rich, delicate morsels.