Genres : How To

A practical guide to interpreting soil test results for farmers and other stewards of the earth wanting to understand what nutrients are available to plants and learn how to more effectively grow crops, turfgrass and other plants. This book, written by an experienced soil consultant, gives real-world advice about how to decipher the jungle of numbers found on soil and water test reports and shows how to comprehend what the numbers mean for your crop. McKibben gives clear, easy-to-understand information...

Nature is complex, elegant, and infinite in its wisdom. Farmers who are truly successful learn nature's many facets and her intricate dance; they crack the code of how to honor and feed this boundless natural system while coaxing the production needed for the survival of a modern farm. Natural product formulator and farm consultant Jerry Brunetti wraps together a lifetime of learning and his uncanny observations in this fascinating volume on the interconnected dynamics in place on a farm --...

The Healing of Horses – Carrie Eastman’s latest book – is a guide for unique ways to determine the health of your horse, and holistic ways to prevent disease, treat minor injuries and ensure the highest quality of health for your horses. Eastman shares the techniques, methods and philosophies she has found most useful. In this introspective work she introduces readers to: Diagnosing maladies and nutritional and medicinal needs through surrogate reflex analysis - Understanding reflex points on horses -...

Ideas such as "crop and soil weatherproofing," the "row support system," and the "tillage commandments," exemplify the practicality of the soil/root maintenance program that serves as the foundation for Schriefer’s highly-successful "systems approach" farming. Schriefer was a pioneer in developing an awareness of the relation of tillage to soil fertility, focusing on three major soil basics — soil aeration, soil water, and soil decay. This book covers such topics as soil chemistry, plant and soil dynamics, above- and below-ground plant...

The practical side of using rockdusts as fertilizers, compost enrichers, and plant growth enhancers is discussed in this exciting book from Acres U.S.A. Beginning with an explanation of the spiritual, cosmic side of rocks and drawing from his extensive knowledge of biodynamic techniques and dowsing, Lisle explains how to utilize these materials in agriculture. Peppered with in-depth quotations from other writings on the forces within rocks, this is destined to be the definitive work on the subject. Life's tenuous connections...

Farmer's daughter Maureen agreed completely with her mother's admonition: Never marry a farmer. Her marriage to a science geek with a good job meant a house on a lake and clean hands-until the farmer hidden inside him started scrabbling to escape. What began as a willingness to put up with his buying a tractor and renting a field becomes an all- encompassing endeavor to learn how to drive, raise, train, and work draft horses, grow and sell their crops, care...

In these times of ecological peril, looming agricultural production problems, and creeping human health disaster it behooves all farmers and eaters to turn attention systems which are time-tested. And “time-tested” means millennia, not mere decades. The several decades since the advent of chemical farming have thrown challenges to ecologies and humans as not experienced in the thousands of years prior. In this multi-authored work readers will connect the dots between the cause of modern disease in toxic farming fields and...

What happens when trailblazing urban agro-ecologists Rob and Michelle Avis of Verge Permaculture host superstar “lunatic farmer” Joel Salatin for a three-day, three-workshop weekend…then expand and enhance that recorded wisdom in a three-month online intensive? You get an encyclopedic compendium of small-farming entrepreneurial know-how! And now we’ve gathered up and distilled every mind-bending morsel of Joel’s mob-stocking sagacity from those online events, and captured it all in one encyclopedic extravaganza of integrated agro-education… …to inspire, inform, and incite you to...

Fertility Farming explores an approach to farming that makes minimal use of plowing, eschews chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and encourages cover cropping and manure application. Newman Turner holds that the foundation of the effectiveness of a fertile soil - and the measure of a fertile soil - is its content of organic matter, ultimately, its humus. Upon a basis of humus, nature builds a complete structure of healthy life - without need for disease control of any kind. In fact,...

The chemical-based conventional agriculture industry claims that the synthesized concoctions they sell as pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides are safe when used as directed, but does the scientific evidence truly support their assertions? Organic agriculturist and lecturer André Leu delves into a wealth of respected scientific journals to present the peer-reviewed evidence that proves the claims of chemical companies and pesticide regulators are not all they seem. Leu translates technical jargon into layman's terms to break down the five most repeated...