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NEW! American Household Botany -
A History of Useful Plants 1620-1900 (2004)

By Judith Sumner
2004, 396 pages,$28
US Canada Elsewhere
$31.00 $38.00 $40.00

In this fascinating book, celebrated author Judith Sumner rescues from the pages of history the practical experience and botanical wisdom of generations of Americans. Crossing the disciplines of history, ethnobotany, and horticulture — and with a flair for the colorful anecdote — Sumner underlines a part of the American story often ignored or forgotten: how European settlers and their descendents made use of the "strange" new plants they found, as well as the select varieties of foods and medicines they brought with them from other continents. From "turkie wheat" (corn) to "tuckahoe" (a Native American source of starch), Sumner describes the transition from wonderment to daily use, as homesteads were built upon and prospered from the plants of the New World. It is a remarkable story of the interdependence of plants and the American home. Historians, herbalists, home gardeners, and ethnobotanists will find American Household Botany a treasure trove of original research and insight.

NEW! The Backyard Vintner:
An Enthusiast's Guide to Growing Grapes
and Making Wine at Home
by Jim Law
2005, 176pp., $20
US Canada Elsewhere
$23.00 $28.00 $31.00

Anyone who ever wanted to have homemade wine and never thought they had the space or ability to make it will love this book. The Backyard Vintner is a handy guide to at-home wine making that teaches readers the tips and tricks of the trade. It is perfect for those who want to bring the feeling of wine country right into their own backyard.

The Backyard Vintner teaches readers how to start and maintain a vineyard, providing vital information on topics such as planting, trellising, and proper pruning techniques for grapes; which grape varieties will grow best in every climate or region; and the wines that can be made from each variety. Basic recipes for wines, and advice on topics such as bottling, storing, and serving wines, are also provided.

Natural BeekeepingNEW! Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture
by Ross Conrad (Author), Gary Paul Nabhan (Foreword)
$35, 246pp., 2007

US Canada Elsewhere
$38.50 $43..00 $46.00

The various chemicals used in beekeeping have, for the past decades, held Varroa Destructor, a mite, and other major pests at bay, but chemical-resistance is building and evolution threatens to overtake the best that laboratory chemists have to offer. In fact, there is evidence that chemical treatments are making the problem worse. Natural Beekeeping flips the script on traditional approaches by proposing a program of selective breeding and natural hive management.

Conrad brings together the best organic and natural approaches to keeping honeybees healthy and productive here in one book. Readers will learn about nontoxic methods of controlling mites, eliminating American foulbrood disease (without the use of antibiotics), breeding strategies, and many other tips and techniques for maintaining healthy hives. Conrad's reservoir of knowledge comes from years of experience and a far-flung community of fellow beekeepers who are all interested in ecologically sustainable apiculture. Specific concepts and detailed management techniques are covered in a matter-of-fact, easy to implement way.

Natural Beekeeping describes opportunities for the seasoned professional to modify existing operations to improve the quality of hive products, increase profits, and eliminate the use of chemical treatments. Beginners will need no other book to guide them. Whether you are an experienced apiculturist looking for ideas to develop an Integrated Pest Management approach or someone who wants to sell honey at a premium price, this is the book you've been waiting for.

NEW! The Backyard Beekeeper:
An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Keeping Bees
in Your Yard and Garden

by Kim Flottum
US Canada Elsewhere
$23.00 $28.00 $31.00
2005, 168pp, $20

This book isn't just a guide to beekeeping or a honey cookbook; it's both. No other book on the market provides an in-depth review of beekeeping and what honey is good for and how to use it.

Beautifully illustrated, the Backyard Beekeeper is perfect for the health-conscious person who wants to sweeten up their life by saying no to processed sugars and yes to eating organic, healthy food.

This book is the complete "honey bee" resource with general information on bees; a how-to guide to the art of bee keeping and how to set up, care for, and harvest your own hives; as well as tons of fun facts and projects that are bee related. The second half of the book is the complete guide to honey. It reviews the different types of honey and their health effects as well as provides hundreds of ideas and recipes for using honey in recipes, cosmetically in facemasks and shampoos, and for medicinal uses.

About the Author
After receiving a degree in horticulture from UW Madison, Kim Flottum worked four years in the USDA Honey Bee Research Lab, studying pollination ecology. After that, he spent two years raising acres of fruits and vegetables, where bees played a large role. He brings this experience, plus nearly 20 years of writing and editing articles for beekeepers in the monthly magazine Bee Culture.

Insects and Gardens
by Eric Grissell
with photographs by Carll Goodpasture

US $28

Canada $31.00 Elsewhere $35

2001, 345pp (with more than a hundred exquisite photos), $30 $25

Let us make a truce in the war on insects and end the annual application of a billion pounds of pesticides in America's ecosystems. With a sound basis in science and a practical grounding in gardening experience, Grissell aims to introduce the reader to insect biology and the role of insects in garden ecology. Unlike other books on insects, this is not a handbook on how to recognize and eliminate "pests". Instead, Insects and Gardens casts a more appreciative eye on them and seeks to find a middle ground in which both humankind and insectkind can share the garden to mutual benefit. Very high -quality hardcover book.

NEW!
All Flesh is Grass:
Pleasures & Promises Of Pasture Farming

US $22.00 Canada $25.00 Elsewhere $29.00

By Gene Logsdon, 2004, 272 pages, $19

Logsdon, an Ohio farmer who has written more than 20 books, brings his gentle iconoclasm to the case against the grain feeding of livestock in favor of pasture farming. His arguments against grain feeding: the too-heavy investment in machinery for sowing and harvesting of grain, the need for pesticides to protect monocultural grain crops, the environmental costs required to haul grain to livestock farmers, storage costs, the need to dispose of manure from livestock feedlots, and the steep labor costs to manage all of this. His arguments for pasturing: "The animals do the harvesting, apply their manure for fertilizer, and eat most of the weeds." As it has for years, Logsdon's conversational style makes his material immediately appealing, but there is also solid advice on how to pasture various kinds of livestock (cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, horses, mules, donkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys), how to rotate grass crops, which grasses work best, how to water livestock, how to incorporate some grains into the animals' diets, and which fences make for the best neighbors. A deceptively important book for the working, the would-be, and the armchair farmer alike.

"All Flesh is Grass explains the immense benefits of taking our livestock out of the feedlots and raising them in a natural setting on their native diets. It's all there: the history, the politics, the practices, and the passion."—Jo Robinson, creator of www.eatwild.com

Ecological Aquaculture : A Sustainable Solution
US $49.50 Canada $53.00 Elsewhere $69.00

by Laurence Hutchinson, 2005, $45, 149pp, 2 color foldout charts

This work, research and development, 25 years in the making and 4 years in the writing, presents a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the principles and objectives of freshwater resource management for aquatic diversification.
Enhance and improve your recreational fisheries through ecological design.

Small-Scale Aquaculture
US $27.00 Canada $31.00 Elsewhere $35.00

by Steven D. Van Gorder Alternative Aquaculture Association, Inc.; 2000, 190pp, $24.00

Learn how to culture delicious, nutritious fish in your backyard, farm pond, spring or greenhouse. This practical how-to book contains exclusive results of eight years of intensive Aquaculture research performed at The Rodale Institute. Using some basic biological concepts and innovative engineering techniques, we'll show you how small-scale fish culture can be both economical and technologically feasible for use in your backyard, basement or greenhouse.

Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance

US $22.00 Canada $26.00 Elsewhere $30.00

edited by Fernando Funes, Luis Garcia, Martin Bourque, Nilda Perez, and Peter Rosset
2002, $19.00, 307pp

This is a story of resistance against all odds, of Cuba's remarkable recovery from a food crisis brought on by the collapse of trade relations with the former socialist bloc and the tightening of the U.S. embargo. Unable to import either food or the farm chemicals and machines needed to grow it via conventional agriculture, Cuba turned inward toward self-reliance. Sustainable agriculture, organic farming, urban gardens, smaller farms, animal traction and biological pest control are part of the successful paradigm shift underway in the Cuban countryside. In this book Cuban authors offer details-for the first time in English-of these remarkable achievements, which may serve as guideposts toward healthier, more environmentally friendly and self-reliant farming in countries both North and South. Get the acclaimed Video / CD The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties:
The Gardener's and Farmer's Guide
to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving
US Canada Elsewhere
$31.00 $37.00 $39.00
by Carol Deppe.
2000, 384pp., $28

An authoritative and easy-to-understand guide to plant

breeding for the home gardener. Presents information essential to taking control of our food supply starting with seeds. Stabilize hybrids; domesticate wild plants; select for flavor, size shape, color, or hardiness. Explains all major breeding methods in clear language.

Seed to Seed:
Seed Saving Techniques for the Vegetable Gardener

US Canada Elsewhere
$28.00 $33.00 $36.00
by Suzanne Ashworth 2nd Edition 2002. 228pp. $25

A complete guide to saving seed from 160 vegetable crops, with detailed information on each vegetable: botanical classification, flower structure and pollination method, isolation distances, caging and hand-pollination techniques, and proper methods for harvesting, drying, cleaning and storing. Save your own seed...before the corporate corpses make it illegal! Here's how.

Cornucopia II: A Source Book of Edible Plants

US Canada Elsewhere
$43.00 $46.00 $50.00

by Stephen Facciola.
1998 2nd edition. 713 pp. $39

Updated with 30 new pages, a list, by genus and species, of 3000+ food plants, their uses, and where to acquire them! One of my all-time-favorite reference manuals. Highly recommended. A monumental work! New improved index makes it much easier to use. A must for designers.

Lost Language of PlantsThe Lost Language of Plants:
The Ecological Importance of Plant Medicines to Life on Earth

US Canada Elsewhere
$23.00 $26.00 $ 30.00

by Stephen Harrod Buhner
2002, 325 pp. $20

This is a devastating expose about how we are polluting our environment with the pharmaceuticals that Western medicine has developed to heal us. We are ingesting Prozac, Premarin, and antibiotics whether we want to or not.
Yet, as we foul our air and water with toxic residues, we overlook the power of the planet's natural healers, stabilizers, and chemists - plants - the fully sentient beings who adjust and fine-tune our environment as they have done for the last 500 million years. Until recently, humans shared the language of plants, but increasingly we have lost our ability to communicate with the natural world. Buhner shows us a path back to our shamanic roots.
"...a moving, intelligent, and compassionate plea for loving the living world, something each and all of us must do as if our lives depended on it...because in fact they do." Peter Bane

The Power of Duck: Integrated Rice & Duck Farming
by Takao Furuno
US Canada Elsewhere
$31.00 $34.00 $38.00

"A beautiful case history of sustainable agriculture -
Very finely worked out..."
Bill Mollison

2001, 94 pp. + 4 color plates, $28

By using human imagination and ingenuity, and by cooperating with nature rather than re-engineering it, Takao Furuno has cleared a path for a safe, diverse, sustainable, and profitable agricultural future. How profitable? Farmers have increased their yields by 20 to 50% or more in their first year while dramatically reducing their labor inputs. There are now more than 10,000 practitioners in Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Tanzania who know that ducks and rice were made for each other. Careful, well-illustrated, meticulously tested and documented description of a working integrated organic duck-rice-azolla-fish polyculture for paddy, yielding $75,000 per year from 5 acres in Japan. A pattern for domestic food security for half the world.