Books on container gardening have been wildly popular with urban and suburban readers, but until now, there has been no comprehensive "how-to" guide for growing fresh food in the absence of open land. Fresh Food from Small Spaces fills the gap as a practical, comprehensive, and downright fun guide to growing food in small spaces. It provides readers with the knowledge and skills necessary to produce their own fresh vegetables, mushrooms, sprouts, and fermented foods as well as to raise bees and chickens—all without reliance on energy-intensive systems like indoor lighting and hydroponics. Readers will learn how to transform their balconies and windowsills into productive vegetable gardens, their countertops and storage lockers into commercial-quality sprout and mushroom farms, and their outside nooks and crannies into whatever they can imagine, including sustainable nurseries for honeybees and chickens. Free space for the city gardener might be no more than a cramped patio, balcony, rooftop, windowsill, hanging rafter, dark cabinet, garage, or storage area, but no space is too small or too dark to raise food. With this book as a guide, people living in apartments, condominiums, townhouses, and single-family homes will be able to grow up to 20 percent of their own fresh food using a combination of traditional gardening methods and space-saving techniques such as reflected lighting and container "terracing." Those with access to yards can produce even more. Author R. J. Ruppenthal worked on an organic vegetable farm in his youth, but his expertise in urban and indoor gardening has been hard-won through years of trial-and-error experience. In the small city homes where he has lived, often with no more than a balcony, windowsill, and countertop for gardening, Ruppenthal and his family have been able to eat at least some homegrown food 365 days per year. In an era of declining resources and environmental disruption, Ruppenthal shows that even urban dwellers can contribute to a rebirth of local, fresh foods.

“Size matters! Andrea Bellamy shares creative ways to grow a wide array of vegetables, fruits, and herbs in diminutive settings, year-round.” —Debra Prinzing, author, speaker, and podcaster Small-Space Vegetable Gardens explains the basics of growing a bounty of edibles in a minimal amount of space. Andrea Bellamy shares all the knowledge she’s gained from years of gardening small. You’ll learn how to find and assess a space, how to plan and build a garden, and how to sow, grow, and harvest the 60 best edible plants. This hardworking and enthusiastic guide will help you take advantage of the space you have—whether it’s a balcony, a patio, a plot in a community garden, or even a small yard—to create the food garden of your dreams.

Welcome to Your New Green Oasis Unlock the potential of the tiniest spaces with "The Portable Garden," a pioneering guide dedicated to the art and science of micro gardening. This book is your ultimate resource for transforming balconies, patios, windowsills, and even walls into thriving garden spaces. It's designed specifically for renters, urban dwellers, and anyone with limited space but an unlimited passion for gardening. Comprehensive Gardening Techniques With "The Portable Garden," learn how to: Optimize Limited Spaces: Discover innovative techniques for maximizing small areas through vertical gardening, hanging planters, and trellises, turning even the smallest footprint into a verdant space. Choose the Right Plants: Gain insights into the best plants for your micro garden. Whether it’s vegetables that require minimal root space, herbs that thrive on windowsills, or flowers that add a splash of color without taking up room, this book has you covered. Build Your Own Garden Features: Step-by-step instructions for creating your own gardening accessories, such as self-watering systems and LED grow light setups, to ensure your plants thrive in any conditions. Maintain Your Garden with Ease: Learn practical strategies for garden care, including organic pest management, efficient watering techniques, and seasonal maintenance advice to keep your garden flourishing year-round. Why This Book Is Unique What sets "The Portable Garden" apart is its focus on DIY solutions and its commitment to sustainable, eco-friendly gardening practices. It empowers you to reuse and upcycle materials, reducing waste and promoting environmental responsibility while enjoying the process of growing your own food. For Every Aspiring Gardener Whether you’re a seasoned green thumb looking for new challenges or a beginner with limited outdoor space, "The Portable Garden" offers something for everyone. It demystifies the gardening process and provides you with the tools and confidence to start your own garden project, regardless of your previous experience or current living situation. Transform Your Space Today Join a growing community of urban gardeners who are finding joy and fulfillment in gardening within their means. "The Portable Garden" is more than a gardening book—it’s a blueprint for a greener, more self-sufficient lifestyle that brings nature into your home, one plant at a time. Start your journey towards creating a beautiful, productive micro garden with "The Portable Garden" and turn your small space into your personal oasis.

Do you have an ugly duckling kitchen? If so, take this book and learn how to transform it into the pretty and practical swan it was meant to be. Whether your kitchen is galley-shaped, U-shaped, L-shaped, or just plain small, this hands-on workbook offers ideas for kitchens that suit every lifestyle, from city singles to growing families. The kitchen is the heart of every home: the place where we gather with our families and friends; where we prepare and share food; where we work, entertain, and eat. But many kitchens were not designed with all these functions in mind. As a result, they are too small, too dark, and too cramped -- when what we want is spacious, light, and comfortable. With Small Spaces Beautiful Kitchens, you can change all that. In its pages, you?ll learn how to turn your kitchen -- no matter how small, how drab, how dysfunctional -- into the kitchen of your dreams.

Simple techniques for securing your food supply in an insecure world. There are books you merely read. There are books you read, recommend to others and pass along. Then there are those books you read, lay aside, jump to your feet, throw your hands in the air, and holler, "Yes!!" Food Security for the Faint of Heart is one of the latter. Robin Wheeler has managed to extract logic from hysteria, package it with a strong environmental perspective, an abundance of practical suggestions and enough good humour to make this a must-have for every soul interested in surviving whatever natural disaster comes along. Wheeler wastes no time in addressing the central theme of her book: Anything can happen so you better be prepared--and here's how. In her impressive list of "Good Things to Have in an Emergency", she catalogues essential items, including lesser touted items such as cooking oil and salt. If Wheeler has done anything by writing this book, she's pulled thr proverbial rug from under our feet when it ocmes to excuses for not eating well through any disaster. — Reviewed by Linda Wegner, Country LIfe in BC Where would you find your groceries if your supermarket’s shelves were suddenly empty? The threat of earthquakes, trucker strikes, power outages, or a global market collapse makes us vulnerable like never before. With spiraling fuel prices and unstable world economies, individuals and communities are demanding more control over their food supply. Food Security for the Faint of Heart is designed to gently ease readers into a more empowered place so that shocks to our food supply can be handled confidently. As well as acquiring new skills and ideas, there are other compelling reasons to get better prepared. The local economy gains support and encouragement to expand, in turn boosting food’s taste and nutritional value, along with the health of people and ecosystems. Community support helps low-income families eat higher quality food, and the preparation provides a psychological edge in an emergency. Chapters are devoted to useful, transferable skills, including: Preserving garden food Saving freezer food during a power outage Managing through an earthquake Preparing quick herbal medicinals Foraging for wild food A humorous treatment of a sometimes threatening topic, this book will appeal to both long-time food security advocates and newcomers to the topic who are wary of it all and would prefer to avoid it. Robin Wheeler teaches traditional skills, sustenance gardening, and medicinals at Edible Landscapes (www.ediblelandscapes.ca), a nursery and teaching garden in Roberts Creek, British Columbia. She is also the author of Gardening for the Faint of Heart (New Catalyst Books).

From decorative pots and old-fashioned boxes placed on a patio to mini-farms created on a balcony or rooftop, the joys of gardening and the pleasures of fresh produce come to life in this fully illustrated guide. 50 full-color photos.

The book explores how unused and under-used urban spaces – from grass verges, roundabouts, green spaces – have been made more visually interesting and more productive, by informal (and usually illegal) groups known as “guerrilla gardeners”. The book focuses on groups in the English Midlands but the work is set in a broad international context and reveals how and why they undertake this illegal activity. Guerrilla gardening is usually viewed uncritically and promoted as a worthwhile activity: this study provides a more balanced evaluation and focuses on its contribution in terms of local food production.

"City Farmer celebrates the new ways that urban dwellers are getting closer to their food. Not only are backyard vegetable plots popping up in places long reserved for lawns, but some renegades are even planting their front yards with food. People in apartments are filling their balconies with pots of tomatoes, beans, and basil, while others are gazing skyward and "greening" their rooftops with food plants. Still others are colonizing public spaces, staking out territory in parks for community gardens and orchards, or convincing school boards to turn asphalt school grounds into "growing" grounds. Woven through the book are the stories of guerrilla urban farmers in various cities of North America who are tapping city trees for syrup, gleaning fruit from parks, foraging for greens in abandoned lots, planting heritage vegetables on the boulevard, and otherwise placing food production at the centre of the urban community. Additional stories describe the history of urban food production in North America, revealing the roots of our current hunger for more connection with our food, and the visionaries who have directed that hunger into action. Throughout the book, sidebars offer practical tips for how to compost, how to convert a lawn into a vegetable bed, and what edible plants are easy to grow with children, among other topics."--

In Rebuilding the Foodshed, Philip Ackerman-Leist provides a roadmap to re-localize our food systems. How? by rebuilding our foodsheds to keep more of our dollars in the local economy, meet food needs affordably and sustainably, and make our food systems more just and resilient. This book showcases some of the most promising, replicable models that are trying to tackle tough issues like distribution and transportation, energy costs, fair labor, rampant food waste, and institutional food needs. By answering these questions, and more, Rebuilding the Foodshed leads us to the next phase of the local food revolution.--COVER.

The Culture of Efficiency: Technology in Everyday Life reveals how people are managing, exploiting, and resisting technological developments in the digital age. In this unique volume, distinguished experts from a broad range of fields candidly show how the latest technologies are being used to transform and control nitty-gritty aspects of life from conception onward and the surprising benefits and consequences. Bold and provocative, The Culture of Efficiency is for everyone concerned with efficiency and effectiveness. It offers fresh insights about social trends, practical suggestions for improving everyday life, and vital forecasts about the future of work and leisure. This is essential reading for researchers, professionals, and students in communication, sociology, education, anthropology, psychology, organizational science, operations management, marketing, gender studies, environmental studies, American studies, healthcare, and social policy. Overall, the volume offers a rich interpretation of the meaning of living in a culture of efficiency.