Showing titles in Agricultural & Food Sciences

After a chance meeting in the pub, Roger Morgan-Grenville and his friend Duncan decide to take up beekeeping. Their enthusiasm matched only by their ignorance, they are pitched into an arcane world of unexpected challenges. Coping with many setbacks along the way, they manage to create a colony of beehives, finishing two years later with more honey than anyone knows what to do with. By standing back from their normal lives and working with the cycle of the seasons, they emerge with a new-found understanding of nature and a respect for the honeybee and the threats it faces.

Have you dreamed of being more self-sufficient? Does that dream include having a flock of chickens to provide you and your family a dependable supply of organic, nutritious, and delicious meat and eggs? Sounds great but does the whole concept seem overwhelming? Raising chickens does not have to be complicated. Having the right information can make raising and caring for chickens so much simpler! THE BEGINNERS GUIDE TO RAISING AND CARING FOR CHICKENS: A COMPLETE STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE provides the essential information you need to be a successful flock keeper! The information is presented in a ...

Unlock the secrets beneath your feet with "Soil Science," your ultimate guide to understanding and managing the foundation of all terrestrial ecosystems—the soil. This comprehensive eBook delves deep into the essentials of soil chemistry, fertility, and health, offering you a clear path to enhancing plant growth and sustainability. Start with the basics in Chapter 1, where you'll explore soil composition, pH levels, and essential chemical properties. Learn about the compounds and reactions that make your soil unique. Then, advance to Chapter 2 for an in-depth analysis of soil pH. ...

Providing everything you need to know about raising and training strong, healthy horses, this all-inclusive guide will take you from being a novice to expert handler in no time.

In March of 2009, Erin Byers Murray ditched her pampered city-girl lifestyle and convinced the rowdy and mostly male crew at Island Creek Oysters in Duxbury, Massachusetts, to let a completely unprepared, aquaculture-illiterate food-and-lifestyle writer work for them for a year to learn the business of oysters. The result is Shucked - part love letter, part memoir, and part documentary about the world's most beloved bivalves.

Saving Seeds, Preserving Taste will introduce listeners to the cultural traditions associated with seed saving, as well as the remarkable people who have used grafting practices and hand-by-hand trading to keep alive varieties that would otherwise have been lost. As local efforts to preserve heirloom seeds have become part of a growing national food movement.

This book is your guide and assistant in your journey to becoming a full-fledged chicken lady. It walks you through the whole process–from getting started and making decisions about your backyard coop to maintenance and keeping your flock healthy.

In this comprehensive guide for all breeders and keepers of sheep, Pat Coleby draws on decades of experience in natural animal husbandry to provide essential information for organic and sustainable farmers. A longtime commercial livestock farmer who takes a natural approach to husbandry, Coleby covers breeds of sheep, wool, meat and milk production, feeding requirements, poisonous plants, minerals and vitamins, herbal, homeopathic and natural remedies, and more. Originally published in Australia, this edition has been expanded significantly in the areas of breeding for finer wool and meat, ...

Eat Better than You Ever Have Before and Save Money in the Process with These Amazing Home Food Preservation Techniques! Discover the power of food preservation to minimize waste, save money, and enhance your diet. This guide reveals three key methods: freezing, canning, and dehydration, offering a sustainable and cost-effective way to enjoy your food.

It’s all but certain that the next 50 years will bring enormous, not to say cataclysmic, disruptions to our present way of life. World oil reserves will be exhausted within that time frame, as will the lithium that powers today’s most sophisticated batteries, suggesting that transportation is equally imperiled. Farming for the Long Haul is about building a viable small-farm economy that can withstand the economic, political, and climatic shock waves that the 21st century portends.

One of the few voices to challenge The Guardian's George Monbiot on the future of food and farming (and the restoration of nature) is academic, farmer and author of A Small Farm Future Chris Smaje. In Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future, Smaje presents his defense of small-scale farming and a robust critique of Monbiot’s vision for an urban and industrialized future.

From the humble drone to the fittingly named worker to the queen herself - who is more a slave than a monarch - the hive world, Andrew Coté reveals, is full of strivers and slackers, givers and takers, and even some insect promiscuity (startlingly similar to the prickly human variety). Written with Coté’s trademark humor, acumen, and a healthy dose of charm, Honey and Venom illuminates the obscure culture of New York City “beeks” and the biology of the bees themselves for both casual readers and bee enthusiasts.

Dive into the world of livestock guardians and how to use them to safeguard your herd. Are you experiencing issues with predators attacking your livestock? Looking for tips on choosing the best guardian dogs for protecting your livestock against threats? Did you know that besides dogs, llamas, donkeys, and other animals can serve as livestock guardians? Whether you’re a farmer, rancher, herder, homesteader, or involved in animal husbandry (or if you plan to become any of the above in the future), you’ll need to consider acquiring adequate protection for your herd.

Greenhouse gardening offers numerous benefits beyond extending the growing season. It provides a controlled environment that protects plants from pests, diseases, and extreme weather conditions, creating an ideal microclimate for optimal growth. With precise control over temperature, humidity, and light levels, gardeners can cultivate a wide range of plants that might not thrive in their local climate otherwise. Greenhouses also allow for efficient use of space, enabling vertical gardening, hydroponic systems, and other innovative cultivation techniques.

The best-selling author of The End of Oil turns his attention to food and finds that the system we've entrusted with meeting one of our most basic needs is dramatically failing us. With his trademark comprehensive global approach, Paul Roberts investigates the startling truth about the modern food system.

Love for the Land explores the power and potential of people-place relationships. Through clear and compelling prose, it elevates the virtues of imagination, affection, and fidelity—concepts promoted by farmer-writer Wendell Berry—and shows how they motivate small- and mid-scale farmers to care for the land, even in the face of adversity. Paying particular attention to farmland loss from suburban sprawl, rampant agricultural consolidation, and, for farmers of color, racial injustice, Brooks Lamb reckons with the harsh realities that these farmers face.

Now settled into the sleepy Yorkshire village of Darrowby, and married to Helen the farmer’s daughter, James Herriot thinks he’s finally got himself sorted. But life as a vet in the 1930s was never going to be easy. Quite aside from his unpredictable colleagues, brothers Siegfried and Tristan Farnon, he must contend with new fangled medical techniques, delivering calves after far too much home-made wine, and a grudge holding dog called Magnus who never forgets. And then, with Britain on the verge of war, James faces a decision that could separate him from Darrowby – and Helen – for ever....

This book will appeal to foodies and those who are deprived of cookbooks in audio format. Molecular Gastronomy documents the sensory phenomena of eating and uses basic physics to put to bed many culinary myths. This audiobook presents pieces of conventional wisdom - such as whether it is better to make a stock by placing meat in already boiling water, or water before it is boiled - and gives its history before making scientific pronouncements.

Bokashi is Japanese for "fermented organic matter". While bokashi has enjoyed great popularity in many parts of the world, it is still relatively unknown in North America. From scraps to soil, Bokashi Composting is the complete, step-by-step, do-it-yourself guide to this amazing process.

"Funny and entertaining expert advice on raising goats from Karen Harris based on her two decades of raising goats from the front porch of her 1880’s farm house." In "Hobby Farmer's Handbook to Raising Goats," Karen Harris brings over twenty years of hands-on experience raising goats to help you build a happy, healthy herd. Drawing from her time spent bottle-feeding newborn kids, fixing fences, and wrangling escape artists like her beloved goats, Juju, Brown Sugar (Suge), and Dixie, Karen shares practical tips, real-life stories, and expert advice tailored for small-scale farmers. Whether...