Lifestyle

Easy, healthy, money-saving DIY ideas for a sustainable lifestyle Inspired living for the environment: Make your footprint planet-positive. With the gentle guidance of eco-expert, Alice Mary Alvrez, you can start with baby steps and progress to living the green good life! Level up your eco-knowledge with these 52 creative ideas and easy ways to reduce your waste, eat organic, and keep toxins out of your home. Grow organic, reduce waste, live toxin-free, and save money: Inside this helpful and hopeful guide, you'll find tips for greening up all the areas of your life. Learn surprising facts about your impact on the environment and change your habits with do-it-yourself ideas. Start with small, simple changes and work your way up to raising chickens, planting a bee-friendly garden, and growing organic veggies instead of a high maintenance grass lawn. Also find easy composting tips and recipes for toxin-free homemade eco cleansers and paint. A DIY handbook for all levels: Whether you want to be a green rookie or an eco-master, you can help the planet every week of the year. The Going Green Handbook is an inspiring and instructive guide to living the handmade life by consuming less and creating more. Use little, live big! Readers will learn: why we live the way we do and how we can become less wasteful and greener tips, tricks and secrets for a self-sufficient sustainable home and lifestyle starter garden tips for growing your own healthy food, fruit, veggies, and fresh herbs how to save money by going green Save money, be inspired, and go green with this helpful and easy handbook!

A polytunnel can be used as an affordable, low-carbon aid to growing your own food all year round, and this manual looks at all aspects of using a polytunnel, from planning your purchase to harvesting the rewards. It includes a step-by-step guide detailing how polytunnels are constructed and maintained. There are chapters on developing healthy soil and preventing pests, and a jargon-free guide to the range of often mystifying accessories that many tunnel retailers offer. For the DIY enthusiast, there is a full set of instructions for building a polytunnel from scratch, and the authors explain how to keep your polytunnel productive in every season.

Wheatgrass, that simple green plant you see growing above the counter in your favorite smoothie shops, is one of the most versatile, intrinsically useful vegetable matters available to you. It can be blended into almost anything, grows in any temperate or warm climate, and is chock full of so many vitamins and fiber that it can take the place of up to two or three servings of vegetables every day if used properly. More and more people are taking advantage of this highly useful plant and growing it themselves, but for many, the lack of instruction and direction can lead to frustration and confusion over how the plant is supposed to be grown and what it needs to thrive.

Sprouts have been a happy addition to many sandwiches, noodle dishes, and side plates at restaurants for decades, and when they are properly grown at home, they can add a much needed boost of both plant protein and fiber to your diet. However, knowing how to properly grow sprouts so that they both thrive and successfully produce year after year can seem like a complex process in many cases if you don t have the necessary resources to successfully grow them at your disposal. Knowing where they grow, the proper temperatures for cultivation, and the many uses they serve are all necessary steps to being successful in growing sprouts.

Herbs have been the centerpiece of natural healthcare since before the dawn of medicine in ancient Greece. With more than 50,000 strains of herb from around the world currently catalogued by various botanical societies and a small percentage of those serving solid, universally recognized medical purposes, it is no wonder that many people have taken up the hobby of growing their own herbs at home to help with basic things like healing burns or relieving headaches. This book will guide you through the step-by-step process of learning about and growing your own healing herbs, starting with the basics of what each herb can do and proceeding to show you everything you need to cultivate them yourself. The first things you will learn in this guide are the basics of all healing herbs, starting with a complete breakdown of the numerous healing herbs known to be easily cultivated in temperate climates. Matching the right herbs to your region, you will then be able to start learning about how herbs grow, what they need from the soil, water, the weather, and feeding. You will learn which pests are most likely to appear with each herb plant and which planting conditions are best for your herbs, from indoor potting to outdoor containers, or in ground fields. You will learn which plants grow best together and which style of herbs are going to be best for selling and which are best for personal growing. Experts in the field of healing herbs have provided their insights into issues such as how to harvest the healing herbs best and how to dry or preserve them for use as healing materials. Learn how you can make a number of common treatments for various ailments with your herbs and how you can benefit best from your new found gardens. This book is a complete guide for anyone who has ever wanted to try something different and grow it themselves.

The average tomato farmer has more than 100 varieties of tomatoes, ranging from the sweetest, juiciest strains available to the smallest, easiest to grow options out there. Tomatoes are found in thousands of dishes across the world and they are notoriously expensive, especially in years when bad weather can destroy anywhere between 10% and 60% of the crops harvested in the United States annually. For all these reasons and more, many people have taken to growing their own tomatoes, setting up containers in their kitchens and digging plots in the back yard. But, effectively growing tomatoes is more than just a hobby for most. It is a challenge and without the right knowledge of how tomatoes grow and what they need, it can be downright frustrating.

Growing tomatoes is a task anyone can accomplish and enjoy and this book strives to provide every possible resource and tip needed for you to become one of a growing legion of tomato growers. You will learn the fundamental basic aspects of all tomato plants that have helped growers around the world master their craft and create the largest tomatoes around. You will learn the basics of composting and fertilization and what each tomato plant benefits best from. You will also learn how to select your garden location and the seemingly complex but ideal task of starting from seed with your new tomato plants. You will learn what kinds of support systems are best for each kind of tomato plant, including the kinds of watering, cages, and nets that your plants might benefit most from.

Tomato experts who have created a livelihood for themselves in growing and mastering the tomato plant have been interviewed around the country and their responses added to the book, helping you to know how to set the plants, prune them effectively, read a tomato plant at various times during the season and even to combat the various trials and tribulations of tomato growing, from pests and disease to frost and storms. Everything you could possibly need to know about tomatoes, how to grow them and how to effectively start a new hobby and possibly create secondary income, is included in this guide for you.

Atlantic Publishing is a small, independent publishing company based in Ocala, Florida. Founded over twenty years ago in the company president’s garage, Atlantic Publishing has grown to become a renowned resource for non-fiction books. Today, over 450 titles are in print covering subjects such as small business, healthy living, management, finance, careers, and real estate. Atlantic Publishing prides itself on producing award winning, high-quality manuals that give readers up-to-date, pertinent information, real-world examples, and case studies with expert advice. Every book has resources, contact information, and web sites of the products or companies discussed.

This Atlantic Publishing eBook was professionally written, edited, fact checked, proofed and designed. The print version of this book is 288 pages and you receive exactly the same content. Over the years our books have won dozens of book awards for content, cover design and interior design including the prestigious Benjamin Franklin award for excellence in publishing. We are proud of the high quality of our books and hope you will enjoy this eBook version.

A windowsill is among the best possible places to put a plant it provides ample sunlight, brightens the look of your home from the outside, and adds what amounts to a filter to the air coming in and out of your home. In winter, they can add a touch of color to an otherwise drab view, and in summer they thrive. But, not every plant grows well in these conditions with as many as 40 percent of most houseplants according to Garden Guides not needing nearly that much sunlight. The selection of the right houseplants for your windowsill is a necessary step to ensuring they survive and thrive. This book will guide you through the steps needed to select the perfect plants for your windowsill and cultivate them fit within your space and to survive the conditions, whether inside or outside. You will learn everything you need to know to effectively plant windowsill plants and improve how your home and your windows look to the world outside, including: Which plants are best suited to the cramped space of a windowsill and which ones will only give you problems How much light, water and food each plant needs and whether you need to supplement natural provision of these resources How to care for your plants while keeping away pests and animals that may eat the leaves or dig up the dirt. Top experts in gardening have been interviewed and their insights will help you learn what works and what doesn t work for your windowsill plants. From first planting, whether by seed or potted plant, you will have every resource you need to keep your windowsill plants alive and thriving in their new environment with this book.

This book was written to provide all plant owners and potential owners the needed steps to keeping their beloved green friends alive, no matter how finicky they can be. In this guide, you will learn all of the basics of houseplant care, starting with a thorough explanation and glossary of terms that are used to describe different plants and how they grow. You will learn a variety of topics realting to houseplant care, including: What makes a houseplant different from other plants and how much water, sunlight, and food each plant needs to truly stay alive All of the various houseplants and a guide for each type of houseplant with specific care instructions How to care for different houseplants in a mytiad of conditions Top houseplant experts and gardeners have contributed their insight through various interviews to further the knowledge you can gain from this book and to help you overcome particularly finicky houseplants, finding the right location in the home, avoiding meddling pests and pets, and making sure some unknown contagion is not interfering with the growth of your plants. This book, for anyone who has ever wanted to add a little green to their home, is the perfect path to understanding and keeping alive your favorite houseplants.

Your lawn is a representative of you and your home; it shows your neighbors and visitors how much time and effort you are willing to put into keeping your home looking good. But,in these fragile times, many people also want to ensure their lawn care does not endanger the environment or any pets or children that might play on that lawn. Organic lawn care is becoming much more prevalent for many home owners, but knowing how to effectively plant a grow a lawn, keep weeds away and kill bugs without using chemicals and unnatural law products can be complicated and downright confusing. This book was written with these things in mind, guiding every lawn care enthusiast through the steps needed to continue caring for a lawn without letting the concerns that develop because of unnatural products overwhelm you or your lawn. The keys to organic lawn care, starting with how to create a low maintenance lawn, are laid out in great detail in this book, providing the essential details you need to enjoy your yard while not endangering the environment, your pets, or your children. Topics include: How to keep your lawn healthy with the right soil, seed, sod, and feeding without using any chemically enhanced products How you can start caring for your lawn by mowing, watering, fertilizing, edging, and trimming with organic fertilizers and tools How to change your existing lawn so that it is both environmentally sound and just as beautiful as it has always been How to deal with pests, disease and weeds in your lawn organically Lawn experts in every field have been interviewed for this book and their advice has been included to provide specific, top tips for organic lawn care. Anyone looking to maintain their lawn and stay eco-conscious need look no further than this book.

The ultimate guide to growing organic grains on a small and ecological scale, The Organic Grain Grower is invaluable for both home-scale and commercial producers interested in expanding their resiliency and crop diversity through growing their own grains. Longtime farmer and organic pioneer Jack Lazor covers how to grow and store wheat, barley, oats, corn, dry beans, soybeans, pulse crops, oilseeds, grasses, nutrient-dense forages, and lesser-known cereals. In addition to detailed cultivation and processing information, Lazor argues the importance of integrating grains on the organic farm (not to mention for the local-food system) for reasons of biodiversity and whole farm management. Including extensive information on: The history of grain growing and consumption in North America The twenty-first century and the birth of the local-food movement Considering your farm's scale and climate Understanding soil fertility and structure Planting your crop (including spring vs. fall cereals and preparing your soil) The growing and ripening process (reproductive, milk, hard-and-soft dough stages) The grain harvest Preparing grain for sale, storage, or end use (drying, cleaning seed, grain handling) Seed breeding and saving Machinery, infrastructure, and processing (both home-scale tools and larger farm equipment) Grinding grains for livestock rations (including how to put together a ration based on protein content) and sample rations for dairy cows, pigs, and chickens Processing grains for human consumption Additional resources and information for new grain farmers, and more... Beginners will learn how to grow enough wheat for a year's supply of bread flour for their homestead, and farmers will learn how to become part of a grain co-op, working alongside artisan bakers and mills. Never before has there been a guide to growing organic grains applicable both for the home-scale and professional farming scale. This will be a classic for decades to come and a crucial addition to any farmer's, homesteader's, gardener's, agronomist's, or seed-saver's library.

“This is a love story about a couple and their relationship with an acre-and-a-half of land. . . with exceptional plant descriptions that read like character references for old friends. . . . beautiful photographs and prose await.” —Library Journal Marietta and Ernie O’Byrne’s garden—situated on one and a half acres in Eugene, Oregon—is filled with an incredible array of plants from around the world. By consciously leveraging the garden’s many microclimates, they have created a stunning patchwork of exuberant plants that is widely considered one of America’s most outstanding private gardens. In A Tapestry Garden, the O’Byrnes share their deep knowledge of plants and essential garden advice. Readers will discover the humble roots of the garden, explore the numerous habitats and the plants that make them shine, and find inspiration in photography that captures the garden’s astonishing beauty. There is something here for every type of gardener: a shade garden, perennial borders, a chaparral garden, a kitchen garden, and more. Profiles of the O’Byrne’s favorite plants—including hellebores, trilliums, arisaemas, and alpine plants—include comprehensive growing information and tips on pruning and care. A Tapestry Garden captures the spirit of a very special place.

Engage with the intelligence of nature to discover your unique role and deepen your spiritual path on Earth  • Presents practical ways to rekindle your connection with nature and open up to plant consciousness as a way to enrich your spiritual path  • Offers guidance on how to meet plant allies with wisdom teachings specific to you and your path  • Provides over 40 exercises, including shamanic journeys, as well as links to digital downloads for a shamanic drumming track and guided meditations  As our lives become more absorbed in screen time rather than the great outdoors, it feels essential to open up our senses again to the riches of nature, reestablishing our connection with the heartbeat of the Earth. In this book, Fay Johnstone provides a road map for bridging the gap between plants and people, allowing our sacred relationship with the Green Kingdom to be restored. 

Jamie Gold named on of 2017's "The 50 Top Innovators" by Kitchen & Bath Design News The bathroom continues to be one area of the house that homeowners are willing to spend money on. This all-new edition of Bathroom Idea Book―a virtual designer's notebook of ideas, inspiration, and information―will be a homeowner's first step in turning a dream bath into a real one, whether it's new construction or a remodel. Lavishly illustrated with 325 photos and 15 illustrations, New Bathroom Idea Book provides design options for all areas of the bathroom, from vanities and countertops to fixtures, flooring, and finish details. Up-to-the-minute information on new trends like digital integration in the bathroom, new materials that mimic natural materials, accessibility and aging-in-place options, and code changes that mandate water and energy conservation make this the go-to resource for all things bathroom.

Japanese residential building has fascinated whole generations of architects. Alongside the strict implementation of design concepts, the small conceptual houses are excellent examples for the demonstration of creative experimentation in terms of spatial configuration, materials and the ability to organise even the smallest of spaces. These houses are like miniature laboratories, clearly showing not only the creativity of Japanese architects but also the treatment of the ephemeral and the various layered boundaries between private and public space. The fast pace of change in Japanese cities has generated an enormous architectural treasure trove for the Western world. This treasure trove will be documented in Small Houses, a book that will also familiarise the reader with the broader aspects of Japanese culture. Small Houses is a book about Japanese residential building aimed at architects, interior designers, students and anyone interested in this exciting and dynamic scene. The book focuses on the small houses, mainly one-family houses. The selected projects are by both internationally renowned architects and by architectural practices that are little known outside Japan. An in-depth treatment will be presented for each project, which will familiarise readers with the cultural and societal context and the particular Japanese way of treating certain architectural elements. The presentation of details that are irrelevant outside of Asia is avoided. The book focuses on existing residential buildings that are represented by images and other architectural graphics such as layouts and sections.

You see a wonderful garden on TV, at the Chelsea flower show, or at your neighbours' house, but how do you go about recreating it in your own back yard? In Ann-Marie Powell's Plans for Small Gardens, the Chelsea gold medal winner lists out all the gardening ingredients, as well explaining how to actually create and maintain your garden. This is a book that starts from scratch to allow even gardening novices to build their perfect patch. Choose your recipe - shady, courtyard, family, or edible; collect your ingredients - turf, slabs, containers and plants; and follow the simple method to put the garden together. Detailed planting and construction plans, colour photographs and a handy practical section at the back of the book ensure you have all the resources you need, while year-by-year maintenance guides guarantee that your garden will continue to flourish for years to come.

25 Tropical Houses in Indonesia offers a selection of the best contemporary architecture and interior design in the archipelago. Architects working in Indonesia—and elsewhere in Southeast Asia—face the challenge not only of creating spaces to suit the lifestyles of their users but also of addressing the environmental and climatic problems associated with living in the tropics. Featured in this book are twenty-five of the most innovative solutions to these challenges by some of Indonesia's foremost architects, among them Jeffrey Budiman and Andra Matin. Economic crises and political change within the country have inspired a new spirit of appreciation of modernist architecture and fostered a wave of architectural creativity which is distinctly Indonesian, lively, and refreshing. Featured projects range from a new type of urban shop house to dramatic and flamboyant buildings emerging from the countryside. Drawing on classical Indonesian aesthetics and conventions and blending these with dynamic, cutting-edge design ideas, modern architecture in Indonesia has become dramatically aligned with international concepts of space, incorporating stunning local elements and materials.

Covering the full life span of the project, from siting issues through specific design features to maintenance of the property and equipment, this is a comprehensive guide to designing, planning and building a solar house. The author uses his experience of living in a solar house to inform the reader of the technology and practices needed for the design, operation and maintenance of the solar home. Each of the technologies of the house, such as space heating and cooling, domestic hot water and electric power technologies, are critiqued from the point of view of the owner/resident, with the author using his thirty years experience of living in a solar home. This provides home owners who are thinking of going solar with first hand evidence of best practice, and provides the architect and designer with the knowledge of how to best satisfy their clients needs. * Provides essential information for the solar designer and contractor * Gives an insight into the authors experience of living in a solar house to advise on best practice * Informs about the latest technology and methods for maintenance of the solar home

Mushrooms are popping up everywhere! On restaurant menus, in grocery aisles, at local farmer’s markets, and not just the ubiquitous white buttons we’ve seen for years. What once were exotic are now almost commonplace -- shiitake, chanterelle, cremini, enoki, the list grows longer every year. Understanding how mushrooms grow is crucial to successfully cultivating them, and Mushroom Cultivation offers comprehensive instruction both on how mushrooms grow and how you can cultivate them yourself to enrich your soil, speed up your composting, and even to suppress weeds. Some cultivate mushrooms for medicinal use or make them into teas and tinctures. After reading Mushroom Cultivation, you'll discover that growing a mushroom is really no more difficult than growing a tomato. You just need a slightly different set of skills.

Learn all about the Japanese art of creating pot-less plants, known as kokedama, from botanical extraordinaire Coraleigh Parker, and have a go at creating your own pot-less, hanging plants. Coraleigh's breath-taking moss ball creations, featuring ferns, succulents, herbs, orchids and even small trees, are suspended in mid-air and supported by nothing more than a series of strings or fishing lines, intricately wrapped around a root ball. Decorating with indoor plants has never been more popular and hanging kokedama is the ultimate botanical trend as it offers everything through a single, versatile and inexpensive craft; you can turn any of your favourite plants into a kokedama on a (shoe)string in no time.

Following the lead of her earlier bestselling books, Anny Scoones once again charms and inspires readers with her insights and observations. Using her experiences on a farm as a backdrop, Anny muses on the environment, fate, time and aging. In this collection of personal memoirs, Anny reaches deeper into what nature, rural life and agriculture mean to us. She explores the thrills, joys and disasters of what really happens in the countryside and nearby towns. Stories vary from a rescued dog Anny met in the town bank, to a grand old white pine tree that was given a new purpose, to a horse who couldnt relax without blackberries, to the joys of the garage saleeven a recipe for quince jelly. The book is illustrated by renowned Canadian artists Molly Lamb Bobak and Bruno Bobak. True Home is the third and final part of the Glamorgan Farm collection, tales of one of the oldest pioneer farms on Vancouver Island.