gardening books...

I love gardening books. I am always on hold for them while they are still on order, wait for months, and I browse and flip pages every quiet moment when they come in.

I think for me the gardening books I like the most are more about the garden as a whole living organism - gardens mixed and intermingled with edibles growing seemingly wild and dense yet somehow also looking neat, organized and healthy. I also like finding those books which have information such as grids and calendars for seed starting, calculating how much space and how many plants you need, and how to save seeds. These are the books that don't often have photos, but they help me wrap my head around the planning. I most often read garden books for inspiration during these last few months of winter and don't often go back to read anything during the actual growing season, soI relish turning their glossy pages and seeing beautiful photos.

Here are just a few in my pile right now (I have to pick only a few - really - it is hard to stop myself from listing dozens!!!!) - ask me next week and my list will change, but I am enjoying these:

Mini farming for self sufficiency by Markham, Brett L.

The organic gardeners handbook by Tozer, Frank.

Grow organic Dorling Kindersley

The great vegetable plot : delicious varieties to grow and eat by Raven, Sarah.

New kitchen garden : organic gardening with herbs, vegetables, and fruit by Caplin, Adam.

McGee & Stuckey's the bountiful container : a container garden of vegetables, herbs, fruits, and edible flowers by McGee, Rose Marie Nichols.


And my current favorite, which is much more than just a gardening book:





Gardening at the Dragon's Gate: At Work in the Wild and Cultivated World by Wendy Johnson








Of course if you ask 20 people to recommend a nice gardening book, you will get 20 answers. What is your favorite gardening book right now?

I have many more gardening books in my reading list (shows only a few at a time, but there are a lot in there!).

a few good books.

I usually can only read late at night after the house is asleep and my work is done. I always have a big stack of books next to the bed and read into the wee hours. Since reading is my way to unplug, unwind, and chill out, I like books that are peaceful, positive, or good for the brain. Here are two of my favorites so far this month...



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

I am liking this book! While I already do a lot of what is in the book and definitely enjoy the exercise I get from nodding my head throughout the entire book ( ;) ), it is written and organized well and I like the tidbits of information and resources for each section. For the small space/urban/suburban gardener - growing vegetables, growing fruit, sprouting, making yogurt and kefir, fermenting, growing mushrooms, raising bees and chickens, disaster planning - all great! Of course this book is not a deep 'how to' book, but an overview and guide with resources of what you can do in small spaces, where to find more information and supplies, and the benefits to be reaped with each thing. An easy read full of great info!





Baking Bread with Children by Warren Lee Cohen

This book is a wonderful resource for baking with children. It not only has the recipes - but also has activities, songs, and history to go along with it. There are chapters such as Recipes, Songs Poems & Blessings to Celebrate Bread, Building a Bread Oven, Enlivening the Senses, Seven Grains and Nutrition and more. Many of you know how we love to bake bread in this house, and my boys help with every step whether it is grinding flour or kneading...and having the stories and songs just makes it that much more fun and meaningful!


I also have a big stack of gardening books that I am really enjoying - I can re-read the same books every year and not get tired of them a bit! What are you reading this week?

wind generator.

Last weekend we were invited to a potluck to learn about and assemble a wind generator. Kids were welcome, and all of the materials were laid out with notes and comments so that we could all see all of the pieces before assembling. It was very interesting - each piece was fabricated, cut and molded from scratch - no kit here!


One of the coolest things for the boys (other than the tools, of course) was seeing and feeling the crazy high powered magnets on the plate. By holding a tiny battery in their hand, they could simply hold their hand over the magnetic plate and feel the strong pull through their hand. Wow!


The magnets were fun to watch as the dads tried to tighten bolts and the wrench kept crossing large air space and attaching itself to the magnet as they tried to pull against the force...and the subsequent struggle to get it off again.


Each step was explained along the way. Kids got to help with certain steps, and as you can see, A was very excited to have both a rubber mallet and a few wrenches. He even got to gently whack a few things into place. Oooh.


Once assembled, a few people cranked the arms and sure enough, the light bulb on the panel lit up - it generated energy even from just a push by hand! A success! After a few last touches, this windmill will now get mounted and installed off at its new home. Very cool stuff - I love science in action.

Of course all of that meant that A wants to know more about wind power, generators, and windmills. He also wants to find out more about magnets...lots of fun to come.

Here are a few interesting books that are getting us started:

Our Earth: Clean Energy.















Alternative Energy.
















Wind Power.











And if you are interested in learning more about how and what he constructed, plans are here!

Good reading.

We love books in this house. We visit the library a few times a week, and I am addicted to the online library system which connects the small library we visit to the 65 or so libraries in the entire system - I love being able to put things on hold, having a queue always going, and just having a big pile of books waiting for us when we visit.

Here are just a few of our favorites this week::


the urban homestead
by kelly coyne and erik knutzen

This is a great book. It has everything in it - gardening (anywhere), composting, fermenting, canning, using rain barrels and/or greywater, non-toxic cleaners, raising chickens, generating your own power, urban foraging...the list goes on and on. It is a small book, but it is comprehensive and while I am familiar with everything in the book, I enjoyed reading tips that apply specifically to urban/neighborhood/square foot challenged spaces. The authors have a great blog too...




i love dirt!
by jennifer ward

We spend a lot of time outdoors, exploring and observing nature. What I like about the book is that it is full of simple ideas which are organized seasonally. The writing is very lyrical and positive, and the ideas seem to fit our rhythm. All are nice reminders to slow down, look around, and enjoy the little things. Slug trails, moon shadows, rock hunting, mud puddles. All good.





grow it, cook it. simple gardening projects and delicious recipes.
DK book

This book was a nice surprise - I always check out new books on this subject to see what is out there and look for ideas, and this book has a bit of everything. Yes, it is about gardening for kids, and has recipes using home grown goodies for kids to make. But the book also has interesting info and projects such as making compost - as well as fun crafts like making plant markers or a seed organizer box. The recipes look good too!

Coughs & Classification.

Our days are getting back to normal, although the boys are still a bit worn down. The nights are hard...coughing little guys who cannot breathe. It hurts me to not be able to magically make the aching chests and throat feel better so they can simply sleep and get well.


This week we have a few new books that A is excited about. The other night, we were sitting and chatting with A, who was asking about names of rays and skates. He wanted to know how they get their names. Who got to name them? So we got to where we were chatting about the "fancy" real names of plants and animals, and then the common names which we use, since it is easier for regular people to remember. We just happened to have the new The Deep book (very cool book) in from the library, which has the scientific names with each image. From his questions, we ended up on Wikipedia, with him wanting to know how all animals are classified. He was so excited to know that there were actual scientific names that were much more interesting than the normal names - and he wanted to pronounce each one (well, as much as WE could pronounce them), and thought it was so cool that each animal had a kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and so on. We have several books coming from the library, and he is a bit excited to find out that the scientific world is categorized! :) I love watching his excitement and interest grow from things like this. Fun!