Not So Big Remodeling: Tailoring Your Home for the Way You Really Live

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Sometimes small changes can have a big impact. But many homeowners looking for more living space still insist on building expensive additions or completely rebuilding their home. In the latest groundbreaking step in the "Not So Big" revolution, previously in hardcover, Sarah Susanka and Marc Vassallo demonstrate how carefully chosen tweaks and simple additions can make a home seem much larger and more inviting. They avoid high-end architectural solutions, focusing instead on how "Not So Big" ideas can dramatically improve even the most modest home. The authors show readers how to think like an architect, so they can accurately assess their home's shortcomings, apply "Not So Big" principles to their remodeling plan, and phase in their project incrementally over time. With the brilliant new book her fans have been clamoring for, Sarah Susanka once again proves that a little remodeling can go a long way.

The Unexpected Houseplant: 220 Extraordinary Choices for Every Spot in Your Home

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The Unexpected Houseplant," by renowned plant authority Tovah Martin, isn't your typical, old-fashioned, dowdy houseplant book. Martin's approach is revolutionary--picture brilliant spring bulbs by the bed, lush perennials brought in from the garden, quirky succulents in the kitchen, even flowering vines and small trees growing beside an easy chair. Along with loads of visual inspiration, readers will learn how to make unusual selections, where to best position plants in the home, and valuable tips on watering, feeding, grooming, pruning, and troubleshooting, season by season.
Martin also brings an evangelist's zeal to the task of convincing homeowners that indoor plants aren't just a luxury--they're a necessity. In addition to the design flair they add to a home, houseplants clean indoor air, which can be up to ten times more polluted than outdoor air.

Just Vegetating

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Joy Larkcom, proclaimed by the Observer 'the queen of vegetable growing', transformed the experience of growing vegetables in Britain - and indeed can be said to have played a large part in changing the whole of the British attitude to vegetables. Among many innovations she introduced saladini and bags of mixed salad leaves, and popularized the practice of cut-and-come-again.
All this, according to Joy, stemmed from the Grand Vegetable Tour she undertook with her husband, Don, and their two young children in the 1970s, travelling around Europe by caravan. While Don did the cooking and taught the children, Joy bicycled off to find out everything she could about how people were growing vegetables and to collect seeds of rare varieties. The tour led to books (famously Grow Your Own Vegetables) and a lifetime of garden writing.
The articles published here, for the first time in book form, are selected from that life's work. They describe not just her adventures on the Grand Vegetable Tour - from a rollicking evening's dancing after husking maize with French farmers to visiting ancient Portuguese gardens excavated in sand dunes - but many other experiences, including life at the small experimental market garden she set up in East Anglia on her return; her travels in China and Japan in quest of oriental vegetables; and the creation of a new 'retirement' vegetable garden at a farmhouse on the west coast of Ireland.

"A Rich Spot of Earth": Thomas Jefferson's Revolutionary Garden at Monticello

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Truly America's first Renaissance man, Thomas Jefferson not only greatly influenced the realms of government and architecture; his contributions to gardening and landscape design are also impressive. Monticello, his beloved home, stands as a monument to his horticultural passion and organizational genius. Hatch has been director of gardens and grounds there since 1977, and his treatise on the estate's garden history and contemporary significance is an elaborately detailed and thoroughly researched tribute to America's premier food-oriented gardener. Beginning with an extensive examination of Jefferson's structural plans and implementation strategies for Monticello's complex system of vegetable gardens, Hatch then chronicles his own lengthy effort at the helm of a vast restoration project that owes much of its success to the meticulous records Jefferson left behind. Along with providing plant profiles of the myriad vegetables cultivated there over the centuries, he also offers important insights into the arduous physical tasks involved in eighteenth-century gardening as well as Jefferson's prudent establishment of seed-saving techniques that continue to affect the marketplace. Elegantly produced and artfully augmented by stunning, evocative photographs of the estate and the bounty it produces, Hatch's homage establishes Jefferson as the clear forefather of modern organic and sustainable garden movements.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

Tales from Titchmarsh: A Year in the Garden

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The very best of Alan Titchmarsh's gardening writing, taken from his 20 years as a columnist with "Gardeners' World" magazine Covering everything from his love of water features in gardens to the beauty of wildflower meadows to why we need to get children away from gizmos and back into gardens, this is the perfect bedside or gardenside anthology from a beloved gardener.

Urban Farms

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"Urban Farms" provides in-depth profiles of 16 innovative farms located in major metropolitan areas across the country, each operated by passionate individuals and communities committed to growing their own fruits and vegetables and raising animals. Included in these pages are some of the leaders in the movement, from Novella Carpenter's farm in an empty lot in Oakland to Growing Power's vast compound in Milwaukee. In addition to stories about the farms and their owners, sidebars provide basic how-to tips for such activities as composting, canning, beekeeping, and growing vegetables. A burgeoning movement that is fast catching on, urban farming taps into many touchstones of the zeitgeist, including environmental awareness, the foodie culture, localism, distrust of mass-production farming practices, and the DIY approach to life and living.

The Lavender Lover's Handbook: The 100 Most Beautiful and Fragrant Varieties for Growing, Crafting, and Cookin

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In "The Lavender Lover's Handbook," lavender grower Sarah Bader teaches gardeners how they can successfully grow this beloved plant. Featuring the 100 easiest, most stunning lavenders available today, this beginner's guide provides a complete checklist of the color, fragrance, size, and foliage of each plant, in addition to basic pruning, spacing, and planting requirements. The text is rounded out with tips on how to harvest, cook, and craft with this wonderful herb.
Its abundant variety, hardiness, fragrance, and culinary uses make lavender one of the most popular and versatile plants. And now, with this practical and accessible guide in hand, it's easier than ever to grow at home.