You won’t believe your eyes when you see the size of your harvest! Authors Colin McCrate and Brad Halm show you how you can make your food garden much more productive, no matter how big or small it is. You’ll learn their secrets for preparing the soil, selecting and rotating your crops, and mapping out a specific customized schedule that makes the most of your space and your growing season. Packed with all of the charts, tables, schedules, and worksheets you need — as well as record-keeping pages so you can repeat your successes next year — this book is an essential tool for the serious gardener.

Decades before the terms "eco-friendly" and "sustainable growing" entered the vernacular, How to Grow More Vegetables demonstrated that small-scale, high-yield, all-organic gardening methods could yield bountiful crops over multiple growing cycles using minimal resources in a suburban environment. The concept that John Jeavons and the team at Ecology Action launched more than 40 years ago has been embraced by the mainstream and continues to gather momentum. Today, How to Grow More Vegetables, now in its fully revised and updated 8th edition, is the go-to reference for food growers at every level: from home gardeners dedicated to nurturing their backyard edibles in maximum harmony with nature’s cycles, to small-scale commercial producers interested in optimizing soil fertility and increasing plant productivity. Whether you hope to harvest your first tomatoes next summer or are planning to grow enough to feed your whole family in years to come, How to Grow More Vegetables is your indispensable sustainable garden guide.

Want to read more? Preview this book: Building the Soil, Building the Future.

For more than four decades, the self-described “contrary farmer” and writer Gene Logsdon commented on the state of American agriculture. In Letter to a Young Farmer, his final book of essays, Logsdon addressed the next generation: young people moving back to the land to enjoy a better way of life as small-scale “garden farmers.” It’s a lifestyle that isn’t defined by accumulating wealth or by the “get big or get out” agribusiness mindset. Instead, it’s one that recognizes the beauty of nature, cherishes the land, respects our fellow creatures, and values rural traditions. It’s one that also looks forward and embraces “right technologies,” including new and innovative ways of working smarter, not harder, and avoiding premature burnout.

Spend less time in the garden … and get more results! This book demystifies the growing of fruit and vegetables and shows that, with the right approach, it can be done successfully as a weekend project or slotted into a busy week. This book will appeal to the complete novice planning a new vegetable garden as well as the more experienced gardener who is looking to save time and increase productivity.

Get Growing with Mother Earth News!

For years, millions of readers have turned to Mother Earth News for trusted advice on growing vegetables and fruits. This book harnesses decades of wisdom, bringing together all the indispensable techniques, complete growing guides, helpful tips, useful photographs, and inspiring illustrations for which Mother Earth News is known.

Plan for self-sufficiency with a garden focused on edibles! Choose from a variety of plans for kitchen gardens, browse strategies for small-space gardening, or up your gardening game by installing and maintaining permanent beds. Soil concerns? Get the dirt on building fertile soil, soil pH, compost, vermicompost – even biochar. Longtime gardeners are sure to find something new, from vertical gardening to plans for extending the seasons.

That’s right, garden through the seasons with dozens of vegetable- and fruit-specific growing guides. Start with your favorites or learn to love something new (Asian greens or fruit trees, anyone?). In slower-growing or more challenging seasons, Mother is there to help. Whether you need to know the best vegetables to grow in the shade or the top gardening tips for soil health in winter, this book has it all.

This unique chart presents gardening events in a "time phased" format so that it is possible to see at a glance the entire planting, growing and harvesting period. It shows proper indoor and outdoor planting times relative to spring and fall frost dates for 22 common garden vegetables. Since frost dates vary from region to region, the chart will slide, making it useful in most parts of the northern Hemisphere where frost is a critical gardening factor. The front of the chart shows the spring season, and the other side acts as a guide for fall gardeners. Frost dates are included in the directions. A must for new gardeners. View the video to see how it works!

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.

The ultimate guide to acquiring, assembling, and using lifesaving emergency communication systems, this book includes in-depth information on operating ham radios, walkie-talkies, shortwave radios, and citizens band (CB) radios. When disaster strikes, calls, texts and emails don’t work. After 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and Hurricane Sandy, cell phones were rendered useless when transmission towers were destroyed and networks became overloaded. Having an alternative way of reaching family and loved ones at these critical moments is essential. With this guide, learn the best tips, tricks, and expert secrets for surviving when phones and the internet fail. This comprehensive guide covers everything needed to be fully prepared for when the grid goes down.

Anyone can learn to store fruits and vegetables safely and naturally in a cool, dark space with the step-by-step advice in this book. Root cellaring is a way of using the earth's naturally cool, stable temperature to store perishable fruits and vegetables and preserve them for months to come. This book will show you a no-cost, simple, low-technology, energy-saving way to keep your harvest fresh all year long.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, Mother Earth News is recommending books and products to readers. For 40 years, Mother Earth News has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

The concept of silvopasture challenges our notions of both modern agriculture and land use. For centuries, European settlers of North America have engaged in practices that separate the field from the forest, and even the food from the animal. Silvopasture systems integrate trees, animals, and forages in a whole-system approach that offers a number of benefits to the farmer and the environment. Such a system not only offers the promise of ecological regeneration of the land, but also an economical livelihood and even the ability to farm extensively while buffering the effects of a changing climate: increased rainfall, longer droughts, and more intense storm events.

Silvopasture, however, involves more than just allowing animals into the woodlot. It is intentional, steeped in careful observation skills and flexible to the dynamics of such a complex ecology. It requires a farmer who understands grassland ecology, forestry, and animal husbandry. The farmer needn’t be an expert in all of these disciplines, but familiar enough with them to make decisions on a wide variety of time scales. A silvopasture system will inevitably look different from year to year, and careful design coupled with creativity and visioning for the future are all part of the equation.