gardening

“. . . we’re only as healthy as the environment in which we live.” This statement from the introduction to Grow Now is the underlying theme of this book. Every chapter makes a case for gardening beyond organic, rewilding your land, sequestering carbon, and supporting biodiversity. 

In the chapter on composting Murphy explains multiple techniques which might be right for you and your home. She leads with how compost sequesters carbon, protects soil and soil structure, decreases runoff, and keeps food waste out of landfills. Murphy says, “You may have heard it said that if food waste were a

"Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems." While I am emotionally in full agreement with Rainer Maria Rilke's poetic words on the season, when it comes to plunging my hands into the dirt to see what wonderful partnership I can form with Nature and her bounty--it is what I don't know that comes rushing to mind, muddling my enthusiasm in the confusion of what to do next. Whether you're interested in beautifying your landscape, planting edibles to munch on, or figuring out what to do with what you grow, books abound. But which ones offer easy-to-absorb advice that quickly get you back outside or whipping up magic in the kitchen?

Please, judge this book by its cover.

Dongen tells the story of the tulip from ancient times, when the tulip was first admired as early as the 1050s in the area of what is now China, Tibet and Russia. Tulips are also mentioned frequently in Arabic and Persian poetry.

The tulip was once a greatly desired plant. In the 1520s gardens devoted purely to tulips first appeared in Europe and tulip bulbs were introduced to the French court, where they became highly fashionable flowers. By 1630 there were 300 florists in Istanbul trading tulip bulbs.  By 1636 tulips traders made the current equivalent

In the introduction, Maria Rodale, granddaughter of organic gardening pioneer J.I. Rodale, says her book is a “season-by-season guide to covering all the basics, the beauty, and the fun”.  And it is that, but more so it’s a lovely book to be savored and perused over time.

Accompanied by beautiful photographs, Rodale begins her book with exercises that send you out in to your space: your proposed garden. By page 53, if you’ve been paying attention, you have spent time in your space, dreamt, and planned. You’ve been educated, entertained, and inspired.

Moving forward, each chapter has a

After seeing this book at the bookstore, I checked our catalog to see if we owned it. However, I thought it was something along the lines of badger, ground squirrel or some other rodent lifestyle. But once I figured out it was Possum Living, I couldn't get enough.

In a time where we are living on little, hoarding what we have and looking for peace in an uncertain economy, this book provides a few quotes that will knock your socks off...or at least mine anyway.

"People don't own possessions, their possessions own them." - Diogenes

"It's easier to learn to do without some of the things that