Search results for ""Author Dede Cummings""

Dig into the world of herbal medicine with this complete guide to cultivating and harvesting plants with healing properties. For thousands of years, people have been utilizing herbs and cultivating weeds found to speed the healing of wounds, soothe skin irritations, calm uneasy stomachs, and ward off illnesses. In these pages, you’ll learn the basics of gardening in your backyard—or on your windowsill or porch—including instructions for: Garden design Composting Garden maintenance Harvesting Recipes for salves, lotions, and poultices And more!You’ll also find profiles of useful herbs that are easy to grow or wildcraft, along with inspiring stories, medicine-making instructions, and recipes for your home medicine chest. Known to boost immunity, reduce blood pressure, aid digestion, and relieve arthritis among other medicinal properties, powerful plants such as garlic, Echinacea, yarrow, elderflower, mint, elecampane, and many more are included in this illustrated guide.

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Beekeeping is nothing new—the ancient Egyptians were well versed in the benefits of living with bees—but in recent years, there has been a surge of folks struck with the desire to build and nurture a hive of their own. Beekeeping has become the passion of farmers in rural Vermont, urbanites with rooftops in LA, and thousands of people in between. This book is for beginners and experts alike, with all the basic information you need to get started, as well as stories and tips that will inspire and instruct the most seasoned beekeeper.In this guide, you will learn how to:Choose a spot for your hiveBuild a hive with simple tools and materialsBuy bees or attract them to your hiveHarvest the fruits of the bees’ laborMake beeswax candles and lip balmUtilize honey, wax, and propolis for medicinal purposesAnd much more!Cummings offers readers something truly unique—a book that comes alongside you like a wise friend, offering sage advice as well as humorous anecdotes and fascinating interviews with beekeepers across the country. Equally good for reading while curled up inside during the long winter as for carrying with you to the hives mid-summer, this will be a welcome addition to any bee enthusiast’s library.

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In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about the various methods of composting and how to adapt them to your home and garden. With full-color photographs and easy-to-follow instructions, this will be an essential addition to every gardener’s library.Great compost is one of the most important secrets of successful organic gardening. Topics covered here include: What you can and can’t throw on your compost pile How to balance nitrogen and carbon in your pile for quick decomposition and rich compost Buying or building the best tools and containers Vermicomposting How to compost indoors Troubleshooting smelly compost, dry compost, and other problems How and when to apply the compost to your garden beds With growing concerns about the use of pesticides, herbicides, and GMOs in mainstream gardening practices, more and more families are turning to their backyards to grow their own food using methods they know are safe. The need for clear, straightforward instruction on organic gardening techniques has never been greater. With The Organic Composting Handbook, readers will get the information they need to prepare their gardens for healthy, abundant crops.

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In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about the various methods of composting and how to adapt them to your home and garden. With full-color photographs and easy-to-follow instructions, this will be an essential addition to every gardener’s library.Great compost is one of the most important secrets of successful organic gardening. Topics covered here include: What you can and can’t throw on your compost pile How to balance nitrogen and carbon in your pile for quick decomposition and rich compost Buying or building the best tools and containers Vermicomposting How to compost indoors Troubleshooting smelly compost, dry compost, and other problems How and when to apply the compost to your garden beds With growing concerns about the use of pesticides, herbicides, and GMOs in mainstream gardening practices, more and more families are turning to their backyards to grow their own food using methods they know are safe. The need for clear, straightforward instruction on organic gardening techniques has never been greater. With Composting for Absolute Beginners, readers will get the information they need to prepare their gardens for healthy, abundant crops.

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Dig into the world of herbal medicine with this complete guide to cultivating and harvesting plants with healing properties. For thousands of years people have been utilizing herbs and cultivating weeds found to speed the healing of wounds, soothe skin irritations, calm uneasy stomachs, and ward off illnesses. Now you can plan and grow your own garden first aid kit.In these pages, you’ll learn the basics of gardening in your backyard—or on your windowsill or porch—including instructions for preparing soil, composting, and weeding. You’ll then find detailed descriptions of the twelve most common, easy-to-grow, most useful healing herbs, with instructions for growing, harvesting, and utilizing them. These powerful plants include:• Garlic, which boosts immunity, reduces blood pressure, and combats cancer• Echinacea, which reduces inflammation, boosts immunity, and has antiviral properties• Yarrow, which accelerates the healing of wounds, is an anti-inflammatory, and can relieve PMS symptoms• Elderflower, which is an astringent and can relieve arthritis and soothe sore throats• Mint, which soothes digestive problems, sweetens breath, and can reduce fevers• Elecampane, a respiratory tonic with antibacterial and antifungal properties• And more!

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The Hopper is a lively environmental literary magazine, along with stunning visual art, from Green Writers Press that strives towards an invigorated understanding of nature's place in human life. The annual publication in a series is part of a new phase in nature writing that seeks to include a modern consciousness in narratives of place. When used for cider making, a hopper is a wooden or metal box that collects fruits before they are funneled down through a chute to the crusher. In old Vermont towns, it was common for the community of growers to share one cider press instead of each farmer purchasing and maintaining his or her own. Come fall, people would cart their apples or pears to the farm that kept the mill, and into the hopper their fruits would go—often mixing with the products of a neighboring grower.The Hopper believes that in order to refashion our lives to accommodate the knowledge we have of our environmental crisis, we have a lot of cultural heavy lifting to do. To reacquaint ourselves meaningfully with the natural world we have to turn our interpretive, inquisitive, and inspired faculties upon it. Through what we publish and the communities we encourage, The Hopper seeks to be a leader in this cultural re-centering and can be used for environmental education and discussion.

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