Pasture Basics starts at the beginning to help you design the best pasturing setup for your flock and for your homestead. Great grazing for chickens won't be found in the perfect pasture for sheep or cows --- you need to tweak your design to match a chicken's unique behavior and stomach. 

Included in this volume are an explanation of chicken digestion and behavior, pasture specifics like size and shape, a rundown on which traditional pasture plants chickens enjoy, tips on maximizing plant growth during rotation, and an explanation of how to establish new pastures and maintain existing grazing areas. 

Cut your feed costs with pastured chickens!

Many backyard chicken keepers are surprised to learn that they spend more on store-bought feed than they would have paid for eggs and meat at the grocery store. If you're on a budget and want your foray into poultry to save money, not lose money, your first step should be to select thrifty chicken breeds. 

The best breed for the cost-conscious homesteader will be a dual-purpose chicken that forages well, doesn't cost much to feed, stands up well to predators and weather, and lays copiously in the winter. In addition, Thrifty Chicken Breeds covers a variety of other factors that homesteaders should consider when choosing new birds, then explains why a dozen common breeds do or don't make the cut. 

This new installment in the popular Permaculture Chicken series helps make backyard chicken keeping cheaper, sustainable, less smelly, and more fun. Join the thousands of readers who have used Hess's tips to turn chickens into a frugal part of their permaculture homesteads!

Pasture Basics starts at the beginning to help you design the best pasturing setup for your flock and for your homestead. Great grazing for chickens won't be found in the perfect pasture for sheep or cows --- you need to tweak your design to match a chicken's unique behavior and stomach. 

Included in this volume are an explanation of chicken digestion and behavior, pasture specifics like size and shape, a rundown on which traditional pasture plants chickens enjoy, tips on maximizing plant growth during rotation, and an explanation of how to establish new pastures and maintain existing grazing areas. 

Cut your feed costs with pastured chickens!

Have you noticed the extraordinary flavors and yields emanating from even a small garden when the soil is just right? If you’ve ever been envious of your neighbor’s dirt or just curious about homesteading, then The Ultimate Guide to Soil is perfect for you. 

The book begins with a personality test for your soil, then uses that information to plan a course of action for revitalizing poor soil and turning good dirt into great earth. Next, you’ll learn to start and maintain a no-till garden, to balance nutrients with remineralization, and to boost organic matter with easy cover crops. 

Don’t forget the encyclopedic overview of organic soil amendments at the end. Old standbys like manures and mulches are explained in depth along with less common additions such as bokashi compost and castings from worms and black soldier fly larvae. Learn when hugelkultur, biochar, paper, and cardboard do and don’t match your garden needs, then read about when and how to safely use urine and humanure around edible plantings. 

With an emphasis on simple techniques suitable for the backyard gardener, The Ultimate Guide to Soil gives you the real dirt on good soil. Maybe next year your neighbor will be envious of you! 

This ebook includes the complete text of Personality Tests for Your Soil, Small-Scale No-Till Gardening Basics, Balancing Soil Nutrients and Acidity, and Soil Amendments for the Organic Garden.

The Market Gardener is a compendium of la Grelinette’s proven horticultural techniques and innovative growing methods. This complete guide is packed with practical information on:

Inspired by the French intensive tradition of maraichage and by iconic American vegetable grower Eliot Coleman, author and farmer Jean-Martin shows by example how to start a market garden and make it both very productive and profitable. Making a living wage farming without big capital outlay or acreages may be closer than you think.

Jean-Martin Fortier is a passionate advocate of strong local food systems and founder of Les Jardins de la Grelinette, an internationally recognized model for successful biointensive micro-farming.

Many backyard chicken keepers are surprised to learn that they spend more on store-bought feed than they would have paid for eggs and meat at the grocery store. If you're on a budget and want your foray into poultry to save money, not lose money, your first step should be to select thrifty chicken breeds. 

The best breed for the cost-conscious homesteader will be a dual-purpose chicken that forages well, doesn't cost much to feed, stands up well to predators and weather, and lays copiously in the winter. In addition, Thrifty Chicken Breeds covers a variety of other factors that homesteaders should consider when choosing new birds, then explains why a dozen common breeds do or don't make the cut. 

This new installment in the popular Permaculture Chicken series helps make backyard chicken keeping cheaper, sustainable, less smelly, and more fun. Join the thousands of readers who have used Hess's tips to turn chickens into a frugal part of their permaculture homesteads!

Have you noticed the extraordinary flavors and yields emanating from even a small garden when the soil is just right? If you've ever been envious of your neighbor's dirt or just curious about homesteading, then The Ultimate Guide to Soil is the perfect fit for you. 

This second volume in the series walks new and experienced gardeners through turning a good garden into a great garden using no-till techniques. Learn to create a vegetable plot from scratch without heavy machinery. Deal with common soil problems like waterlogging, excessive drainage, compaction, and urban subsoil. Then take your skill set to the next level with labor-saving techniques like solarization and spot kill mulches. Finally, the last chapter in this ebook expands your reach beyond the traditional garden and into containers and aquaponics. 

With an emphasis on simple techniques suitable for the backyard gardener, The Ultimate Guide to Soil gives you the real dirt on good soil. Maybe next year your neighbor will be envious of you!