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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 to humans as well as other forms of life. But there is an alternative to this vicious circle: to garden in a way that strengthens, rather than destroys, the soil food web — the complex world of soil-dwelling organisms whose interactions create a nurturing environment for plants. By eschewing jargon and overly technical language, the authors make the benefits of cultivating the soil food web available to a wide audience, from devotees of organic gardening techniques to weekend gardeners who simply want to grow healthy, vigorous plants without resorting to chemicals. -
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Designs to nurture our land and ourselves. -
An authoritative guide to making your own body, skin and hair care preparations, complete with a glossary of commercial and natural cosmetic ingredients. -
Coming Soon
A guide to over 100 edible plants, berries, mushrooms, seaweed and shellfish - all beautifully illustrated. Advice on when to gather, what to pick and how to cook it. -
The Permaculture Guide to Reed Beds is a comprehensive overview of reed bed systems and treatment wetlands for household effluent treatment. Going from system selection and design to construction, planting and maintenance; this guide offers the reader a complete how-to manual for getting your own reed bed system up and running. -
A comprehensive guide with over 1,250 detailed photographs of mushrooms and other fungi. -
Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass , Kimmerer brings these two ways of knowledge together. Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings - asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass - offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return. -
The ultimate portable guide for quick and easy identification of garden birds. Features species descriptions of all the birds you are most likely to see in your garden, town, or park. -
Now recognised as one of the most influential books of the 20th century, Silent Spring exposed the destruction of wildlife through the widespread use of pesticides. -
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Coming Soon
In this illuminating new book, Manchán Magan sets out on a journey, through bogs, across rivers and over mountains, to trace these ancestor’s footsteps. He uncovers the ancient myths that have shaped our national identity and are embedded in the strata of land that have endured through millennia – from ice ages through to famines and floods -
Learn how to prune and train fruit bushes, fruit trees, roses, and woody ornamentals with this best-selling plant-by-plant guide - now in its 4th edition. Written and updated by the experts at the Royal Horticultural Society, RHS Pruning & Training provides step-by-step guidance on how to prune and shape more than 800 different plants, including climbing plants, fruiting vines, conifers, and palm trees. Simple instructions accompanied by clear photography and illustrations demonstrate precisely where, how, and when to make those crucial cuts. Whether you need help pruning wisteria, have a small garden that needs controlling, fancy trying garden ideas such as topiary, need to reinvigorate a leggy rose bush, or want advice on pruning a fruit tree into an attractive - and productive - espalier or fan shape, this complete pruning bible will guide you every step of the way. -
The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them. They can change our minds, heal our bodies and even help us avoid environmental disaster; they are metabolic masters, earth-makers and key players in most of nature's processes. In Entangled Life , Merlin Sheldrake takes us on a mind-altering journey into their spectacular world, and reveals how these extraordinary organisms transform our understanding of our planet and life itself. This is the new illustrated version with over 100 spectacular full-colour images, showcasing this wondrous and wildly various lifeform as never before. -
Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses. -
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Coming Soon
Plan, Plant and Maintain Fruit from Garden to Field -
Coming Soon
Septic Tank Options & Alternatives is a user-friendly guide through the maze of selecting an eco-friendly sewage treatment option for your home. With so many different treatment systems and technologies available, it can be a challenge to make the choice that really reflects your values and priorities. This book lists conventional and alternative sewage treatment systems and outlines the pros and cons of each in a straightforward and nontechnical way. -
The ultimate portable guide for quick and easy identification of birds. Covers the 230 birds most often found in Britan & Europe. -
Supported in part by the Department of Rural and Community Development and Pobal through the Community Services Programme. We confirm that our organisation complies with The Governance Code for the Community, Voluntary and Charitable Sector in Ireland.
