100 Best Gardening Books of All Time (Updated for 2026)

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1

All New Square Foot Gardening

Mel Bartholomew

5.0

Do you know what the best feature is in All New Square Foot Gardening? Sure, there are ten new features in this all-new, updated book. Sure, it's even simpler than it was before. Of course, you don't have to worry about fertilizer or poor soil ever again because you'll be growing above the ground. However, the best feature is that anyone, anywhere can enjoy a square foot garden - children, adults

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2

The Vegetable Gardener's Bible

Edward C. Smith

4.7

Smith’s legendary high-yield gardening method emphasizes wide rows, organic methods, raised beds, and deep soil. Succeed with fussy plants, try new and unusual varieties, and learn how to innovatively extend your growing season. With thorough profiles of hundreds of popular varieties, The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible provides expert information and an inspiring roadmap for gardeners of all skill lev

3

Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture

Toby Hemenway, John Todd

4.7

Permaculture is a verbal marriage of "permanent" and "agriculture." Australian Bill Mollison pioneered its development. Key features include:

- use of compatible perennials;
- non-invasive planting techniques;
- emphasis on biodiversity;
- specifically adaptable to local climate, landscape, and soil conditions;
- highly productive output of edibles.

Now, picture your backyard as one incredibly lush gard

4

The Backyard Homestead: Produce All the Food You Need on Just a Quarter Acre!

Carleen Madigan

4.6

This comprehensive guide to homesteading provides all the information you need to grow and preserve a sustainable harvest of grains and vegetables; raise animals for meat, eggs, and dairy; and keep honey bees for your sweeter days. With easy-to-follow instructions on canning, drying, and pickling, you’ll enjoy your backyard bounty all winter long.

Also available in this series: The Backyard Homest

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5

Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening

Louise Riotte

4.6

If you want to know whether it is kosher to plant onions between cabbage plants, this is the place to look.
-- Oklahoma Today

First published in 1975, this classic companion planting guide has taught a generation of gardeners how to use plants' natural partnerships to produce bigger and better harvests.
Over 500,000 in Print!

6

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Barbara Kingsolver

4.6

Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, they'd only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You

7

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World

Michael Pollan

4.5

Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—s

Recommended by David George Haskell and Kenneth Cox.

David George Haskell

Through the stories of four familiar plant species–apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes–he demolishes the erroneous impression that we’re in charge. [source]

Kenneth Cox

You can’t fail to be fascinated by this exposition of the motivations of plants to cuddle up to humans. One of several excellent Michael Pollan books, it’s a fun read. [source]

8

Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners

Suzanne Ashworth, David Cavagnaro, Kent Whealy

4.5

Seed to Seed 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 harv

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9

Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long

Eliot Coleman, Kathy Bray, Barbara Damrosch

4.5

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. Eliot Coleman introduces the surprising fact that most of the United States has more winter sunshine than the south of France. He shows how North American gardeners can successfully use that sun to raise a wide variety of traditional winter vegetables in backy

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10

Second Nature: A Gardener's Education

Michael Pollan

4.4

This is an account of one man's experience in his garden. The book invites an exploration of unexamined feelings about nature and the place of society in the landscape, and what gardening has to teach about the troubled borders between nature and culture.

11

Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre

Brett L. Markham

4.4

Mini Farming describes a holistic approach to small-area farming that will show you how to produce 85 percent of an average family’s food on just a quarter acre—and earn $10,000 in cash annually while spending less than half the time that an ordinary job would require. Even if you have never been a farmer or a gardener, this book covers everything you need to know to get started: buying and saving

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12

Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities

Amy Stewart and Briony Morrow-Cribbs

4.4

Recommended by Asher Wolf.

Asher Wolf

So @Zemmiph0bia loaned me an amazing book https://t.co/vwJmtd8qBA [source]

13

Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens

Douglas W. Tallamy

4.3

As development and subsequent habitat destruction accelerate, there are increasing pressures on wildlife populations. But there is an important and simple step toward reversing this alarming trend: Everyone with access to a patch of earth can make a significant contribution toward sustaining biodiversity.

There is an unbreakable link between native plant species and native wildlife—native insects c

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14

Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces

Gayla Trail

4.3

Your patio, balcony, rooftop, front stoop, boulevard, windowsill, planter box, or fire escape is a potential fresh food garden waiting to happen. In Grow Great Grub, Gayla Trail, the founder of the leading online gardening community (YouGrowGirl.com), shows you how to grow your own delicious, affordable, organic edibles virtually anywhere.

Grow Great Grub packs in tips and essential information ab

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15

Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web

Jeff Lowenfels, Wayne Lewis

4.3

Smart gardeners know that soil is anything but an inert substance. Healthy soil is teeming with life — not just earthworms and insects, but a staggering multitude of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. When we use chemical fertilizers, we injure the microbial life that sustains healthy plants, and thus become increasingly dependent on an arsenal of artificial substances, many of them toxic

16

The One-Straw Revolution

Masanobu Fukuoka

4.3

Fukuoka demonstrates how the way we look at farming influences the way we look at health, the school, nature, nutrition, spiritual health and life itself. He joins the healing of the land to the process of purifying the human spirit and proposes a way of life and a way of farming in which such healing can take place.

17

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World

Peter Wohlleben

4.3

Preview Summary

In The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben shares his deep love of woods and forests and explains the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in the woodland and the amazing scientific processes behind the wonders of which we are blissfully unaware. Much like human families, tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, and support them as they

Recommended by Emma Watson.

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18

The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener

Eliot Coleman, Sheri Amsel, Molly Cook Field

4.3

With more than 45,000 sold since 1989, The New Organic Grower has become a modern classic. In this newly revised and expanded edition, master grower Eliot Coleman continues to present the simplest and most sustainable ways of growing top-quality organic vegetables. Coleman updates practical information on marketing the harvest, on small-scale equipment, and on farming and gardening for the long-te

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19

Vegetable Gardener's Container Bible

Edward C. Smith

4.3

Harvest tomatoes on a patio, produce a pumpkin in a planter, and grow broccoli on a balcony! Best-selling author Ed Smith shows you everything you need to know to successfully create and care for an edible container garden, from choosing the right plants and selecting appropriate containers through controlling pests without chemicals and harvesting fresh vegetables. You’ll discover that container

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20

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer

Novella Carpenter

4.3

Novella Carpenter loves cities-the culture, the crowds, the energy. At the same time, she can't shake the fact that she is the daughter of two back-to-the-land hippies who taught her to love nature and eat vegetables. Ambivalent about repeating her parents' disastrous mistakes, yet drawn to the idea of backyard self-sufficiency, Carpenter decided that it might be possible to have it both ways: a h

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21

Western Garden Book: More than 8,000 Plants - The Right Plants for Your Climate - Tips from Western Garden Experts

Editors of Sunset Books and Kathleen Norris Brenzel

4.3

Gardeners throughout the region will be welcoming a thoroughly updated and fresh-looking 8th edition of the "bible of Western gardening." With a new, easy-to-read design, more plant photography, larger illustrations, and more than 8,000 plant listings--500 of them new--it's THE essential book for gardeners in the Western states. What plants to grow, how to nurture them, and where they do the very

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22

How to Grow More Vegetables: And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine

John Jeavons

4.3

A classic in the field of sustainable gardening, HOW TO GROW MORE VEGETABLES shows how to produce a beautiful organic garden with minimal watering and care, whether it's just a few tomatoes in a tiny backyard or enough food to feed a family of four on less than half an acre. Updated with the latest biointensive tips and techniques, this is an essential reference for gardeners of all skill levels s

23

Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener's Handbook: Perfectly Timed Gardening for Your Most Bountiful Harvest Ever

Jennifer Kujawski

4.3

Whether you’re a seasoned gardener determined to increase crop yields or starting your very first vegetable garden, the Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook will help you manage your schedule and prioritize what’s important. Detailed weekly to-do lists break gardening down into simple and manageable tasks so that you always know what needs to be done and when to do it, from starting seeds an

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24

Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!

Patricia Lanza, Jane D. Ramsey, Douglas Schneider, Elayne Sears

4.3

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25

McGee & Stuckey's Bountiful Container: A Container Garden of Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits and Edible Flowers

Maggie Stuckey, Rose Marie Nichols McGee

4.3

With few exceptions-such as corn and pumpkins-everything edible that's grown in a traditional garden can be raised in a container. And with only one exception-watering-container gardening is a whole lot easier. Beginning with the down-to-earth basics of soil, sun and water, fertilizer, seeds and propagation, The Bountiful Container is an extraordinarily complete, plant-by-plant guide.

Written by tw

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26

The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett

4.3

"One of the most delightful and enduring classics of children's literature, The Secret Garden by Victorian author Frances Hodgson Burnett has remained a firm favorite with children the world over ever since it made its first appearance. Initially published as a serial story in 1910 in The American Magazine, it was brought out in novel form in 1911.

The plot centers round Mary Lennox, a young Engli

Recommended by Clare Morpurgo and M G Leonard.

Clare Morpurgo

The book is about a girl coming to live in England from India. She is a sickly child who had a pretty awful early childhood in India. [source]

M G Leonard

The redemptive power of the natural world and gardening was something that struck a chord with me. [source]

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27

The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting Pruning Techniques

Tracy DiSabato-Aust

4.3

With more than 180,000 copies sold since its original publication, The Well-Tended Perennial Garden has proven itself to be one of the most useful tools a gardener can have. Now, in this expanded edition, there's even more to learn from and enjoy.

This is the first, and still the most thorough, book to detail essential practices of perennial care such as deadheading, pinching, cutting back, thinni

28

Edible Landscaping

Rosalind Creasy

4.2

Since Rosalind Creasy popularized the concept of landscaping with edibles a quarter-century ago, interest in eating healthy, fresh, locally grown foods has swept across the nation. More and more Americans are looking to grow clean, delicious produce at home, saving money and natural resources at the same time. And food plants have been freed from the backyard, gracing the finest landscapes—even th

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29

You Grow Girl

Gayla Trail

4.2

This is not your grandmother's gardening book. You Grow Girl is a hip, humorous how-to for crafty gals everywhere who are discovering a passion for gardening but lack the know-how to turn their dreams of homegrown tomatoes and fresh-cut flowers into a reality.
Gayla Trail, creator of YouGrowGirl.com, provides guidance for both beginning and intermediate gardeners with engaging tips, projects, and

30

Cut Flower Garden

Erin Benzakein

4.2

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31

Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times

Steve Solomon

4.2

The decline of cheap oil is inspiring increasing numbers of North Americans to achieve some measure of backyard food self-sufficiency. In hard times, the family can be greatly helped by growing a highly productive food garden, requiring little cash outlay or watering.

Currently popular intensive vegetable gardening methods are largely inappropriate to this new circumstance. Crowded raised beds requ

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32

The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (Process Self-Reliance Series)

Kelly Coyne, Erik Knutzen

4.2

The Urban Homestead is the essential handbook for a fast-growing new movement: urbanites are becoming gardeners and farmers. Rejecting both end-times hand wringing and dewy-eyed faith that technology will save us from ourselves, urban homesteaders choose instead to act. By growing their own food and harnessing natural energy, they are planting seeds for the future of our cities.

If you would like t

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33

Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Classic Children's Tales

Marta McDowell

4.2

A New York Times Bestseller
Winner of the Garden Writers Association Gold Award

There aren’t many books more beloved than The Tale of Peter Rabbit and even fewer authors as iconic as Beatrix Potter. Her characters—Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle Duck, and all the rest—exist in a charmed world filled with flowers and gardens. In Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, bestselling author Marta McDowell explores

34

Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden

Eleanor Perenyi

4.2

Recommended by Monty Don.

Monty Don

This is one of the first gardening books that I read as literature. What I really love about her is her low key seriousness. [source]

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35

Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, a Gardener's Guide to Over 100 Delicious and Easy to Grow Edibles

Eric Toensmeier, Elayne Sears, Ben Watson

4.2

There is a fantastic array of vegetables you can grow in your garden, and not all of them are annuals. In Perennial Vegetables the adventurous gardener will find information, tips, and sound advice on less common edibles that will make any garden a perpetual, low-maintenance source of food.

Imagine growing vegetables that require just about the same amount of care as the flowers in your perennial b

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36

The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden

William Alexander

4.2

Bill Alexander had no idea that his simple dream of having a vegetable garden and small orchard in his backyard would lead him into life-and-death battles with groundhogs, webworms, weeds, and weather; midnight expeditions in the dead of winter to dig up fresh thyme; and skirmishes with neighbors who feed the vermin (i.e., deer). Not to mention the vacations that had to be planned around the harve

37

The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks

Amy Stewart

4.2

Every great drink starts with a plant. Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley. Gin was born from a conifer shrub when a Dutch physician added oil of juniper to a clear spirit, believing that juniper berries would cure kidney disorders. "The Drunken Botanist" uncovers the enlightening botanical history and the fascinating science and chemistry of over 150 plants, flowers, trees

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38

Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening

Sepp Holzer

4.2

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.In this book, Holzer shares the skill and knowledge ac

39

Rosemary Gladstar's Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner's Guide

Rosemary Gladstar

4.2

Widely recognized as the godmother of modern herbalism, Rosemary Gladstar is renowned worldwide for her inspired teaching and trustworthy knowledge of healing herbs. With Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner's Guide, Gladstar offers a fresh introduction for a new generation of gardeners and natural health and self-sufficiency enthusiasts.

Thirty-three of the most common and versatile healing plants are prof

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40

Roots, Shoots, Buckets Boots: Gardening Together with Children

Sharon Lovejoy

4.2

Plant a pumpkinseed with a child, and cultivate wonder. This simple act of reconnecting with children with nature is Sharon Lovejoy's purpose and joy and gift. Author of Sunflower Houses: Garden Discoveries for Children of All Ages and Hollyhock Days: Garden Adventures for the Young at Heart, Sharon Lovejoy is a nationally known garden writer whose books, television specials, and projects at her l

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41

The Edible Front Yard: The Mow-Less, Grow-More Plan for a Beautiful, Bountiful Garden

Ivette Soler

4.2

“Front lawns, beware: The Germinatrix has you in her crosshairs! Ivette Soler is a welcome voice urging us to mow less and grow some food—in her uniquely fun, infectious yet informative way.” —Garden Rant

People everywhere are turning patches of soil into bountiful vegetable gardens, and each spring a new crop of beginners pick up trowels and plant seeds for the first time. They're planting tomatoe

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42

Botany for Gardeners

Brian Capon

4.2

“An outstanding and enjoyable introduction to botany, whether the reader is a gardener, or just a garden visitor.” —Bloomsbury Review

What happens inside a seed after it is planted? How are plants structured? How do plants reproduce? The answers to these and other questions about complex plant processes can be found in the bestselling Botany for Gardeners. Written in accessible language, this mus

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43

Epic Tomatoes: How to Select and Grow the Best Varieties of All Time

Craig LeHoullier

4.2

Savor your best tomato harvest ever! Craig LeHoullier, tomato adviser for Seed Savers Exchange, offers everything a tomato enthusiast needs to know about growing more than 200 varieties of tomatoes — from sowing seeds and planting to cultivating and collecting seeds at the end of the season. He also offers a comprehensive guide to the various pests and diseases of tomatoes and explains how best to

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44

Raised Bed Gardening for Beginners: Everything You Need to Know to Start and Sustain a Thriving Garden

Tammy Wylie

4.2

Learn all about raised beds—and up your gardening game.

Worried about space? Interested in bigger and better yields? Raised-Bed Gardening for Beginners shows you all the amazing advantages of raised-bed gardens—and how easy creating them can be.

A complete primer for fresh and experienced planters alike, this book contains everything you need to know to start a happy and healthy raised-bed garden.

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45

Down the Garden Path

Beverley Nichols

4.2

Down the Garden Path has stood the test of time as one of the world’s best-loved and most-quoted gardening books. From a disaster building a rock garden, to further adventures with greenhouses, woodland gardens, not to mention cats and treacle, Nichols has left us a true gardening classic.

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46

Paradise Lot: Two Plant Geeks, One-Tenth of an Acre, and the Making of an Edible Garden Oasis in the City

Eric Toensmeier, Jonathan Bates

4.2

When Eric Toensmeier and Jonathan Bates moved into a duplex in a run-down part of Holyoke, Massachusetts, the tenth-of-an-acre lot was barren ground and bad soil, peppered with broken pieces of concrete, asphalt, and brick. The two friends got to work designing what would become not just another urban farm, but a "permaculture paradise" replete with perennial broccoli, paw paws, bananas, and morin

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47

The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times

Carol Deppe

4.2

Scientist/gardener Carol Deppe combines her passion for organic gardening with newly emerging scientific information from many fields -- resilience science, climatology, climate change, ecology, anthropology, paleontology, sustainable agriculture, nutrition, health, and medicine. In the last half of The Resilient Gardener, Deppe extends and illustrates these principles with detailed information ab

48

The Market Gardener: A Handbook for Successful Small-Scale Organic Farming

Jean-Martin Fortier

4.2

Les Jardins de la Grelinette is a micro-farm located in eastern Quebec, just north of the American border. Growing on just 1.5 acres, owners Jean-Martin and Maude-Helène feed more than two hundred families through their thriving CSA and seasonal market stands and supply their signature mesclun salad mix to dozens of local establishments. The secret of their success is the low-tech, high-yield prod

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49

Permaculture: A Designers' Manual

Bill Mollison

4.1

Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possib

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50

Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits Vegetables

Mike Bubel, Nancy Bubel

4.1

Stretch the resources of your small backyard garden further than ever before, without devoting hundreds of hours to canning! This informative and inspiring guide shows you not only how to construct your own root cellar, but how to best use the earth’s naturally cool, stable temperature as an energy-saving way to store nearly 100 varieties of perishable fruits and vegetables.

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51

Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades: The Complete Guide to Natural Gardening

Steve Solomon

4.1

This is the bible of vegetable gardening for anyone turning the soil west of the Cascade Mountains -- from Western British Columbia to Northern California. It includes the basics of soil, when best to plant, the art of composting, what varieties grow well here, which seed companies are reliable, information on handling pests, and an extensive section on the cultivation of each vegetable.

52

The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love

Kristin Kimball

4.1

"This book is the story of the two love affairs that interrupted the trajectory of my life: one with farming—that dirty, concupiscent art—and the other with a complicated and exasperating farmer."

Single, thirtysomething, working as a writer in New York City, Kristin Kimball was living life as an adventure. But she was beginning to feel a sense of longing for a family and for home. When she intervi

53

Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation

Andrea Wulf

4.1

From the author of the acclaimed The Brother Gardeners, a fascinating look at the founding fathers from the unique and intimate perspective of their lives as gardeners, plantsmen, and farmers.
For the founding fathers, gardening, agriculture, and botany were elemental passions, as deeply ingrained in their characters as their belief in liberty for the nation they were creating. Andrea Wulf reveals

54

Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World

Paul Stamets

4.1

Mycelium Running 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 essenti

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55

Let it Rot!: The Gardener's Guide to Composting (Storey's Down-to-Earth Guides)

Stu Campbell

4.1

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56

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Four Season Vegetable Production Using Deep-Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses

Eliot Coleman, Barbara Damrosch

4.1

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

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57

Introduction to Permaculture

Bill Mollison

4.1

1995 Reprint, New Edition, Tagari. 216-page Softcover.

Introduction to Permaculture is an updated and revised version of the first two permaculture books, Permaculture One (Mollison and Holmgren, 1978) and Permaculture Two (Mollison, 1979), and replaces them. New material by Bill Mollison and Reny Mia Slay has been inserted, along with excerpts from Permaculture: A Designers' Manual and information

58

The Layered Garden: Design Lessons for Year-Round Beauty from Brandywine Cottage

David L. Culp, Adam Levine, Rob Cardillo

4.1

Brandywine Cottage is David Culp's beloved two-acre Pennsylvania garden where he mastered the design technique of layering and interplanting many different species in the same area so that as one plant passes its peak, another takes over. The result is a nonstop parade of color that begins with a tapestry of heirloom daffodils and hellebores in spring and ends with a jewel-like blend of Asian wild

59

The Way of the Wildflower: Gospel Meditations to Unburden Your Anxious Soul

Ruth Chou Simons

4.1

Discover how to live freely and release your burdens with gospel meditations that turn your focus to the God who cares deeply for you.Are you looking for a new way of living? A way to stop anxious thoughts and release heavy burdens you aren't meant to carry?In The Way of the Wildflower, bestselling author and artist Ruth Chou Simons invites you to draw inspiration for your weary soul from the flow

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60

Vegetable Gardening for Beginners: A Simple Guide to Growing Vegetables at Home

Jill McSheehy

4.1

Dig into vegetable gardening―a beginner’s guide to growing-it-yourself
Growing your own vegetables is a rewarding venture that’s both affordable and appetizing, but the beginning gardener may find it difficult to weed through an overwhelming landscape of resources. Whether you’re new to gardening or interested in saving costs, Vegetable Gardening for Beginners offers easy-to-follow steps for starti

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61

The Rodale Book of Composting: Easy Methods for Every Gardener

Grace Gershuny, Jerry Minnich

4.1

The essential guide to composting for all gardeners and environmentally conscious people

Composting is fast becoming a household word. Gardeners know it is the best way to feed the soil, while others look to composting as a way to dispose of grass clippings, autumn leaves, and tree trimmings. The Rodale Book of Composting edited by Grace Gershuny and Deborah L. Martin offers:

* Easy-to-follow instru

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62

American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America

Michelle Obama

4.1

In April 2009, First Lady Michelle Obama planted a kitchen garden on the White House’s South Lawn. As fresh vegetables, fruit, and herbs sprouted from the ground, this White House Kitchen Garden inspired a new conversation all across the country about the food we feed our families and the impact it has on the health and well-being of our children.

Now, in her first-ever book, American Grown, Mrs.

63

Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills

Abigail Gehring

4.1

Anyone who wants to learn basic living skills--the kind that were common to earlier generations--need look no further than this full-color, eminently practical guide. Created to both inspire and instruct, it returns readers to an era before power saws and fast food restaurants so they can rediscover the pleasures and challenges of a more self-sufficient, economical, and healthy lifestyle. Packed w

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64

The Gardener

Sarah Stewart, David Small

4.1

By the author-and-illustrator team of the bestselling The Library

Lydia Grace Finch brings a suitcase full of seeds to the big gray city, where she goes to stay with her Uncle Jim, a cantankerous baker. There she initiates a gradual transformation, bit by bit brightening the shop and bringing smiles to customers' faces with the flowers she grows. But it is in a secret place that Lydia Grace works o

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65

Starter Vegetable Gardens: 24 No-Fail Plans for Small Organic Gardens

Barbara Pleasant

4.1

Develop your green thumb as you learn to grow your own food. In this introductory guide to growing vegetables, Barbara Pleasant addresses common problems that first-time gardeners encounter. Using simple language and illustrated garden layouts, Pleasant shows you how to start, maintain, and eventually expand an organic vegetable garden in even the tiniest backyard. With handy tips on enriching soi

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66

Edible Forest Gardens, Volume 1: Ecological Vision and Theory for Temperate Climate Permaculture

Dave Jacke, Eric Toensmeier

4.1

Edible Forest Gardens 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

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67

Great Garden Companions: A Companion-Planting System for a Beautiful, Chemical-Free Vegetable Garden

Sally Jean Cunningham

4.1

Discover the secrets of a naturally pest-proof vegetable garden with Great Garden Companions. Let master gardener Sally Jean Cunningham show you how to keep pests and diseases at bay with her unique companion-gardening system. By planting special combinations of vegetables, flowers, and herbs, you can minimize pest and disease problems and create a high-yielding, beautiful garden!

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The Complete Gardener: A Practical, Imaginative Guide to Every Aspect of Gardening

Monty Don

4.1

Written with passion and packed with practical information, Monty Don's The Complete Gardener is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn how to garden.

Here, Monty reveals the secrets of growing vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs while respecting the needs of the environment by gardening organically.

Grounded in his own experience, Monty's straightforward gardening advice is paired with extrao

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69

The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener: How to Grow Your Own Food 365 Days a Year, No Matter Where You Live

Niki Jabbour, Joseph De Sciose

4.1

Even in winter’s coldest months you can harvest fresh, delicious produce. Drawing on insights gained from years of growing vegetables in Nova Scotia, Niki Jabbour shares her simple techniques for gardening throughout the year. Learn how to select the best varieties for each season, the art of succession planting, and how to build inexpensive structures to protect your crops from the elements. No m

70

Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes

Thomas Rainer

4.1

“As practical as it is poetic. . . . an optimistic call to action.” —Chicago Tribune

Over time, with industrialization and urban sprawl, we have driven nature out of our neighborhoods and cities. But we can invite it back by designing landscapes that look and function more like they do in the wild: robust, diverse, and visually harmonious. Planting in a Post-Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia

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71

Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting

R.J. Ruppenthal

4.1

Books on container gardening have been wildly popular with urban and suburban readers, but until now, there has been no comprehensive "how-to" guide for growing fresh food in the absence of open land. Fresh Food from Small Spaces fills the gap as a practical, comprehensive, and downright fun guide to growing food in small spaces. It provides readers with the knowledge and skills necessary to produ

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72

40 Projects for Building Your Backyard Homestead: A Hands-on, Step-by-Step Sustainable-Living Guide

David Toht

4.1

A companion volume to Backyard Homesteading, 40 Projects for Building Your Backyard Homestead provides details on how to build more than 40 projects to enhance readers' sustainable living. Even if they are only moderately handy, they’ll discover the tools and techniques for building their own feeders, fences, and structures. In the process, they’ll save money and have the satisfaction of doing it

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73

From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden

Amy Stewart

4.0

Amy Stewart had a simple dream. She wanted a garden.

When she and her husband finished graduate school, they headed west to Santa Cruz, California. With little money in their pockets, they found a modest seaside cottage with a small backyard. It wasn’t much—a twelve-hundred-square-foot patch of land with a couple of fruit trees and a lot of dirt—but it was a good place to start.

From the Ground Up

74

Paint by Sticker (Official): Plants and Flowers: Create 12 Stunning Images One Sticker at a Time!

Workman Publishing

4.0

Create 12 Stunning Images of Plants and Flowers One Sticker at a Time! Peel the sticker, place the sticker, and watch your painting come to life. Like every great artist, find inspiration in nature. A blossoming activity for crafters and plant lovers alike, Paint By Stickers: Plants and Flowers includes everything you need to create 12 bold, colorful paintings: a saguaro cactus, a hanging basket o

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75

Free-Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard

Jessi Bloom, Kate Baldwin

4.0

“If your garden fantasies involve chickens, Jessi Bloom is here to make those dreams come true.” —The New York Times

Many gardeners fear chickens will peck away at their landscape. But you can keep chickens and have a beautiful garden, too! In this essential handbook, award-winning garden designer Jessi Bloom offers step-by-step instructions for creating a beautiful and functional space while main

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76

The Quarter-Acre Farm: How I kept the patio, lost the lawn, and fed my family for a year

Spring Warren

4.0

When Spring Warren told her husband and two teenage boys that she wanted to grow 75 percent of all the food they consumed for one year—and that she wanted to do it in their yard—they told her she was crazy.

She did it anyway.

The Quarter-Acre Farm is Warren’s account of deciding—despite all resistance—to take control of her family’s food choices, get her hands dirty, and create a garden in her subur

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77

Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden and Your Neighborhood Into a Community

Heather C. Flores

4.0

Gardening can be a political act. Creativity, fulfillment, connection, revolution--it all begins when we get our hands in the dirt.

Food Not Lawns combines practical wisdom on ecological design and community-building with a fresh, green perspective on an age-old subject. Activist and urban gardener Heather Flores shares her nine-step permaculture design to help farmsteaders and city dwellers alike

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78

Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs

Rodale Press, Claire Kowalchik, William H. Hylton, Anna Carr

4.0

Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs is a virtually endless source of useful information and herbal know-how. Presented in A-to-Z format, supplemented with easy-to-use charts and lists, beautifully illustrated with drawings and color photographs, it is the only book on herbs you ever need to buy.

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79

Tasha Tudor's Garden

Tovah Martin, Richard W. Brown

4.0

Tasha Tudor's poignant art has fascinated adults and children for decades. Her nineteenth-century New England lifestyle is legendary. Gardeners are especially intrigued by the profusion of antique flowers -- spectacular poppies, six-foot foxgloves, and intoxicating peonies -- in the cottage gardens surrounding her hand-hewn house. Until now we've only caught glimpses of Tasha Tudor's landscape. In

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80

Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt

Kate Messner and Christopher Silas Neal

4.0

A companion to the new Over and Under the Pond and the beloved Over and Under the Snow, this sweet exploration of the hidden world and many lives of a garden through the course of a year "could not be more lovely," according to the Washington Post. Up in the garden, the world is full of green—leaves and sprouts, growing vegetables, ripening fruit. But down in the dirt there is a busy world of eart

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81

Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: The Indispensable Green Resource for Every Gardener

Deborah L. Martin, Fern Marshall Bradley, et al.

4.0

Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening has been the go-to resource for gardeners for more than 50 years, and the best tool novices can buy to start applying organic methods to their fruit and vegetable crops, herbs, trees and shrubs, perennials, annuals, and lawns. This thoroughly revised and updated version highlights new organic pest controls, new fertilizer products, improved garde

82

Field Guide to Urban Gardening: How to Grow Plants, No Matter Where You Live: Raised Beds - Vertical Gardening - Indoor Edibles - Balconies and Rooftops - Hydroponics

Kevin Espiritu

4.0

In Field Guide to Urban Gardening, author Kevin Espiritu of Epic Gardening shares the basics of growing plants, offers tips on how to choose the right urban gardening method, and troubleshoots the most common problems you’ll encounter.

If you think it’s impossible to grow your own food because you don’t have a large yard or you live in the city…think again. There is a plethora of urban gardening

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83

The One-Year Garden Plan: Create a Sustainable and Healthy Food Source for Your Family

Melissa K. Norris

4.0

Live a Bountiful Life

Do something good for your family by learning how to plant a garden that will yield healthy, wholesome food throughout the year.

Melissa K. Norris, host of the popular Pioneering Today podcast, will walk you through each step of the process, from planning your food crops and garden space to harvesting and preserving the food you grow. Even intermediate to experienced gardener

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84

The Curious Garden

Peter Brown

4.0

One boy's quest for a greener world... one garden at a time.

While out exploring one day, a little boy named Liam discovers a struggling garden and decides to take care of it. As time passes, the garden spreads throughout the dark, gray city, transforming it into a lush, green world.

This is an enchanting tale with environmental themes and breathtaking illustrations that become more vibrant as the

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85

Vertical Gardening: Grow Up, Not Out, for More Vegetables and Flowers in Much Less Space

Derek Fell

4.0

The biggest mistake gardeners make each season is starting out too big and then quickly realizing
their large plot requires too much weeding, watering, and backbreaking labor. Vertical gardening guarantees a better outcome from the day the trowel hits the soil—by shrinking the amount of "floor" space needed and focusing on climbing plants that are less prone to insects, diseases, and animal pests.

N

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86

Vertical Vegetables Fruit: Creative Gardening Techniques for Growing Up in Small Spaces

Rhonda Massingham Hart

4.0

For gardeners working in confined spaces, Rhonda Massingham Hart presents an ingenious solution for maximizing productivity: grow up! With tepees, trellises, hanging baskets, cages, wall pockets, and multilevel raised beds, you can reap bountiful harvests in even the tiniest growing areas. From kiwis on a clothesline to tomatoes dangling outside a window, Vertical Vegetables & Fruit shows you how

87

Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine

Andrew Chevallier

4.0

Helpful to enthusiasts and professionals alike, these volumes provide extensive coverage of hundreds of conditions and their remedies, including their sources and symptoms. Up-to-date research and in-depth explanations of today's most popular alternative therapies are enhanced by step-by-step photos of typical treatments, as well as symptoms charts and remedy ratings.

88

Floriography: An Illustrated Guide to the Victorian Language of Flowers (Volume 1) (Hidden Languages)

Jessica Roux

4.0

89

The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 50th Anniversary Edition: The Original Manual for Living off the Land & Doing It Yourself

Carla Emery

4.0

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90

Garden Alchemy: 80 Recipes and concoctions for organic fertilizers, plant elixirs, potting mixes, pest deterrents, and more

Stephanie Rose

4.0

Garden Alchemy is a hands-on guide for do-it-yourself gardeners who want to turn their garden into gold using natural recipes and herbal concoctions (while saving both time and money!).

This gardening recipe and project book is packed with over 80 ideas to naturally beautify your garden, using organic methods that regenerate your soil and revitalize your plants. By following the processes that are

91

The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity in the Home Garden

Rick Darke, Douglas W. Tallamy

4.0

“This thoughtful, intelligent book is all about connectivity, addressing a natural world in which we are the primary influence.” —The New York Times Books Review

Many gardeners today want a home landscape that nourishes and fosters wildlife, but they also want beauty, a space for the kids to play, privacy, and maybe even a vegetable patch. Sure, it’s a tall order, but The Living Landscape shows yo

92

The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession

Andrea Wulf

4.0

One January morning in 1734, cloth merchant Peter Collinson hurried down to the docks at London’s Custom House to collect cargo just arrived from John Bartram, his new contact in the American colonies. But it was not reels of wool or bales of cotton that awaited him, but plants and seeds…

Over the next forty years, Bartram would send hundreds of American species to England, where Collinson was one

93

The Old Farmer's Almanac Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook: Essential Step-by-Step Advice for Growing Vegetables and Achieving Success

Old Farmer's Almanac

4.0

Whether you’ve never touched a trowel in your life or have been harvesting at home for decades, you’re sure to grow your best vegetable garden ever with this easy-to-use guide from The Old Farmer’s Almanac—America’s trusted gardening resource since 1792!All of the information that you need for vegetable success is right here at your garden-gloved fingertips . . .Read step-by-step advice on growing

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94

The Language of Flowers

Vanessa Diffenbaugh

4.0

A mesmerizing, moving, and elegantly written debut novel, The Language of Flowers beautifully weaves past and present, creating a vivid portrait of an unforgettable woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own troubled past.

The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for p

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95

The Encyclopedia of Country Living

Carla Emery

4.0

The bible of sustainable living, food gardening, and living green, no home is complete without this one-of-a-kind encyclopedia! For more than thirty years, people have relied on the thousands of recipes, detailed how-to instructions, and personal advice provided in this definitive classic. It is the most complete source of step-by-step information about growing, processing, cooking, and preserving

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96

Merry Hall

Nichols, Beverley

4.0

First in a trilogy, Merry Hall is the account of the restoration of a house and garden in post-war England. Though Mr. Nichols's horticultural undertaking is serious, his writing is high-spirited, riotously funny, and, at times, deliciously malicious.

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97

The Backyard Gardener: Simple, Easy, and Beautiful Gardening with Vegetables, Herbs, and Flowers

Kelly Orzel

4.0

A beautiful and simple guide to edible gardening The "garden to table" movement is inspiring another generation of gardeners but many of them have questions. How important is composting? Is seed saving really worth it? Focusing on sustainable, organic growing practices and plants, The Backyard Gardener is a comprehensive handbook that will help get them started. Kelly Orzel covers everything from

98

Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs (Llewellyn's Sourcebook Series)

Scott Cunningham

4.0

Do you work magic with herbs? Do you use them in spells, for talismans or simply use their innate powers? If you don't have Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, you need to get it right away. This book has become a classic in its field. Paul Beyerl, a respected author on herbs calls it "…an essential reference book by students of herbalism and magick alike … Scott's personable charm touches

99

Floret Farm's A Year in Flowers: Designing Gorgeous Arrangements for Every Season (Flower Arranging Book, Bouquet and Floral Design Book)

Erin Benzakein

4.0

National Bestseller—New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Publisher's Weekly, Washington Post

Learn how to buy, style, and present seasonal flower arrangements for every occasion.

With sections on tools, flower care, and design techniques, Floret Farm's A Year in Flowers presents all the secrets to arranging garden-fresh bouquets.

Featuring expert advice from Erin Benzakein, world-renowned flower farm

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100

Trowel and Error: Over 700 Organic Remedies, Shortcuts, and Tips for the Gardener

Sharon Lovejoy

4.0

Hundreds of organic gardening tips and homespun remedies that come only from season after season of experience—a perfect gift for the green thumb.

Born of necessity and ingenuity and honed through years of “trowel and error,” these helpful hints include environmentally friendly ammunition against weeds and pests, shortcuts for cultivation and propagation, and clever uses for curious household item