The Year-Round Hoophouse


Book Description

Design and build a hoophouse or polytunnel, and grow abundant produce year-round in any climate The Year-Round Hoophouse is the comprehensive guide to designing and building a hoophouse and making a success of growing abundant, delicious fresh produce all year, whatever your climate and land size. Chapters include: Hoophouse siting, size, style, frame construction, and tools Bed layout, soil, crop rotations, and extensive coverage of various crops for all seasons Organic solutions to pests and diseases Disaster preparation Tested resources for each chapter. The Year-Round Hoophouse is ideal for farmers who wish to move into protected growing, as well as beginning farmers in rural and urban spaces. It is an essential reference resource for professors and students of courses in sustainable agriculture, as well as interns and apprentices learning on the job. Growing in hoophouses – also known as high tunnels or polytunnels – reduces the impact of an increasingly unpredictable climate on crops, mitigates soil erosion, extends the growing season, keeps leafy greens alive through the winter, and enables growers to supply more regional food needs.




The Year-Round Hoophouse


Book Description

Design and build a hoophouse or polytunnel, and grow abundant produce year-round in any climate The Year-Round Hoophouse is the comprehensive guide to designing and building a hoophouse and making a success of growing abundant, delicious fresh produce all year, whatever your climate and land size. Chapters include: Hoophouse siting, size, style, frame construction, and tools Bed layout, soil, crop rotations, and extensive coverage of various crops for all seasons Organic solutions to pests and diseases Disaster preparation Tested resources for each chapter. The Year-Round Hoophouse is ideal for farmers who wish to move into protected growing, as well as beginning farmers in rural and urban spaces. It is an essential reference resource for professors and students of courses in sustainable agriculture, as well as interns and apprentices learning on the job. Growing in hoophouses – also known as high tunnels or polytunnels – reduces the impact of an increasingly unpredictable climate on crops, mitigates soil erosion, extends the growing season, keeps leafy greens alive through the winter, and enables growers to supply more regional food needs.










Four-Season Harvest


Book Description

"Eliot is the reason I’m cooking. . . . I’ve followed that path because Eliot made it possible, and exciting, to farm in the four seasons."—Dan Barber, chef "There is hardly a more well-known or well-respected name among organic farmers than Eliot Coleman."—Civil Eats Learn season-extending techniques and eat the best food—garden fresh and chemical free—all year long, with little effort or expense. 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 backyard cold frames and plastic covered tunnel greenhouses without supplementary heat. Inside, you’ll also learn: Composting techniques Simple Mineral Amendments Planning and preparing your garden site Seeds for four seasons How to build cold frames, high tunnels, and mobile greenhouses How to cope with snow How to create a root cellar and other storage techniques And much, much more! Coleman expands upon his own experiences with new ideas learned on a winter-vegetable pilgrimage across the ocean to the acknowledged kingdom of vegetable cuisine, the southern part of France, which lies on the 44th parallel, the same latitude as his farm in Maine. This story of sunshine, weather patterns, old limitations and expectations, and new realities is delightfully innovative in the best gardening tradition. Four-Season Harvest will have you feasting on fresh produce from your garden all through the winter. "The man, the farmer, the legend, is Eliot Coleman."—The Atlantic To learn more about the possibility of a four-season farm, please visit Coleman's website www.fourseasonfarm.com.




The Chinese Greenhouse


Book Description

“A prescription for survival in this gorgeously illustrated and accessible guide to the future of farming.” —Albert Bates, author of The Biochar Solution Grow vegetables year-round in a greenhouse powered only by solar energy! Originally developed in China to feed millions, Chinese greenhouses are earth-sheltered, solar-heated, east-west oriented, intelligently glazed, and well-insulated. They have proven highly effective in growing warm-weather vegetables and fruits like green peppers and tomatoes in cold climates through fall, winter, and early spring using passive solar energy as the sole heat source. The Chinese Greenhouse is a full-color comprehensive guide to these passive solar greenhouses for self-sufficiency and growing year-round in soil or aquaponic grow beds with no additional heat. Coverage includes: How to design, build, and operate a Chinese greenhouse How to improve performance via short-term and long-term heat banking How to provide additional heat to make your greenhouse operate even more effectively How to cool the greenhouse during the summer. Become a more self-sufficient gardener, growing and harvesting a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables year-round, with your own Chinese greenhouse. “Wonderfully researched . . . brilliant.” —Jean-Martin Fortier, farmer and author of The Market Gardener, editor of Growers Magazine “Essential reading for pioneers of Chinese greenhouses.” —Pam Dawling, author of The Year-Round Hoophouse and Sustainable Market Farming “Every enthusiastic vegetable farmer dreams of this winter-growing miracle, and Dan shows how to do it.” —Shawna Coronado, author of 101 Organic Gardening Hacks




The Winter Harvest Handbook


Book Description

"Brimming with ingenuity, hope, and eminently practical advice, The Winter Harvest Handbook is an indispensable contribution."—Michael Pollan "Useful, practical, sensible, and enlightening information for the home gardener."—Martha Stewart With The Winter Harvest Handbook, everyone can have access to organic farming pioneer Elliot Coleman’s hard-won experience. Gardeners and farmers can use the innovative, highly successful methods Coleman describes in this comprehensive handbook to raise crops throughout the coldest of winters. Building on the techniques that hundreds of thousands of farmers and gardeners adopted from Coleman's The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest, this book focuses on growing produce of unparalleled freshness and quality in customized unheated or, in some cases, minimally heated, movable plastic greenhouses. Inside, you'll find Coleman's clear, concise, and meticulous details [including many accompanying illustrations] on: Greenhouse construction and maintenance Planting schedules Crop management Harvesting practices Marketing methods Coleman’s painstaking research and experimentation with more than 30 different crops will be valuable to small farmers, homesteaders, and experienced home gardeners who seek to expand their production seasons. A passionate advocate for the revival of small-scale sustainable farming, Coleman provides a practical model for supplying fresh, locally grown produce during the winter season, even in climates where conventional wisdom says it "just can’t be done." "The incomparable Eliot Coleman is back."—The New York Times "A Renaissance man for a new generation."—Dan Barber




Pioneering Today


Book Description

Do you long for the simpler times of yesteryear? Do you wish you had the time to offer your family home grown meals? Does your heart silently cry for a quiet place in this fast paced life? In Pioneering Today-Faith and Home the Old Fashioned Way, author Melissa K. Norris explains practical and easy methods to cook from scratch, garden, preserve your own food, and see God's fingerprint in your everyday busy life. You'll learn how to: Decrease your grocery and energy bill Improve your family's health by cooking from scratch and over 40 delicious recipes Grow and preserve your own food Reduce your time in the kitchen without sacrificing taste and nutrition Expand your view of God in your daily activities Whether you live in the middle of the asphalt jungle or on the side of a mountain, you can experience the pioneer lifestyle and start your own homesteading journey. When you surround yourself with things made from the hand of God, you can't help but see Him.




Sustainable Market Farming


Book Description

Growing for 100 - the complete year-round guide for the small-scale market grower. Across North America, an agricultural renaissance is unfolding. A growing number of market gardeners are emerging to feed our appetite for organic, regional produce. But most of the available resources on food production are aimed at the backyard or hobby gardener who wants to supplement their family's diet with a few homegrown fruits and vegetables. Targeted at serious growers in every climate zone, Sustainable Market Farming is a comprehensive manual for small-scale farmers raising organic crops sustainably on a few acres. Informed by the author's extensive experience growing a wide variety of fresh, organic vegetables and fruit to feed the approximately one hundred members of Twin Oaks Community in central Virginia, this practical guide provides: Detailed profiles of a full range of crops, addressing sowing, cultivation, rotation, succession, common pests and diseases, and harvest and storage Information about new, efficient techniques, season extension, and disease resistant varieties Farm-specific business skills to help ensure a successful, profitable enterprise Whether you are a beginning market grower or an established enterprise seeking to improve your skills, Sustainable Market Farming is an invaluable resource and a timely book for the maturing local agriculture movement.