Search results for ""author gary pilarchik""

With this accessible and indispensable gardening reference, discover how little land and effort it takes to start growing and preserving your own healthy organic food. Modern homesteading is a lifestyle focused on living lightly on the land and increasing self-sufficiency. It doesn’t matter whether “home” is 50 acres in the country, a suburban corner lot, or an apartment in the city; all you need is a desire to reduce your footprint on the earth and live a more sustainable life. To be a modern homesteader, you don’t have to live off-grid and you don’t have to give up contemporary conveniences. For most modern homesteaders, it all starts with making the conscious decision to reduce your reliance on the commercial food supply chain. In The Modern Homestead Garden, author and YouTube gardening star Gary Pilarchik of The Rusted Garden walks you step-by-step through the process of building a homestead garden. From laying out the planting beds,nurturing the soil, and starting seeds, straight through to cooking and preserving the harvest, Gary serves as your warm and reassuring guide, no matter how large or how small your homestead is. With the guidance found here, you’ll move at your own pace, learn, share, and enjoy the journey as you slowly transform your home into an edible landscape. Practical advice to site and build your very first homestead garden Crop profiles to get you growing quickly Cost-effective ways to source seeds and plants The low-down on feeding plants in an earth-friendly way Methods for preparing planting beds and containers Soil prep advice every homesteader can use All natural trouble-shooting solutions How to include berries, cane fruits, vine crops, and fruit trees in your homestead plans Food preservation advice that's easy and delicious Modern homesteading is as much an attitude as it is an action. It’s not dependent on how much land you have or even how much food you can grow; it’s about cultivating self-sufficiency and self-reliance, no matter its level. Welcome to The Modern Homestead Garden.

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Convert your unproductive lawn and landscape areas into fruitful edible gardens with this practical guide overflowing with ideas, plans, designs, and know-how.Out with the lawn and in with the food! That’s the battle cry of millions of modern gardeners who are not only looking to reduce the amount of time and energy they have to spend tending a lawn, but they’re also looking to improve the lives of their family, friends, and neighbors by supplying them with fresh, homegrown food. In the United States alone, 46 million acres of land are covered in turfgrass (that’s more acreage than corn and soybeans combined!). Imagine all the good that would come if that land were dedicated to growing food instead! Converting unused areas of the landscape into food gardens helps mitigate the effects of climate change, reduces food miles, improves food security, and allows us to be a better steward of our little slice of the planet. But how do you get started? Which plants do you choose? Is there a series of best practices to follow to successfully convert your yard into an edible oasis so that it’s not just high-yielding, but it’s also attractive? Growing an Edible Landscape is here to help answer all of these questions and many more.Setting up an edible landscape is much more than just placing a few tomato-filled raised beds in the middle of the lawn, though for some gardeners, this might be a logical place to start. The eventual goal, however, is to have a landscape filled with layers of fruitful plants combined together to produce edible harvests for as many months of the year as possible. To reach that end, there’s much to plan and do to ensure your success. Authors Gary Pilarchik of @therustedgarden and Dr. Chiara D’Amore have devised the perfect guidebook to take you from “turfgrass overwhelm” to consistent harvests of a huge diversity of homegrown edible plants. And the best part is—you can create an edible paradise whether your yard is large or small, sunny or shaded, urban or rural, or level or sloped. A few highlights of the systems and techniques outlined in these pages include: The phases of the transformation process and how they are different for everyone Real-world, sensible garden design options for edible yards Step-by-step projects to get growing today How to choose the edible plants that are best for your conditions Practical plant-care tips for everything from seed starting to fertilizing and watering Pick-and-choose menus to help you combine productive plants in an attractive way Ways in which your edible landscape can cultivate community Also included are 25 profiles of common and uncommon plants for an edible yard. From raspberries and asparagus to fruit trees and dandelions, these food plants are great additions to any edible landscape plan. Start small or go big—it’s your choice! By saying goodbye to lawn and hello to an edible landscape, you’ll soon be starting on a deeply personal journey toward a more self-sufficient and flavorful life.

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