Book Description
A classic in the field of sustainable gardening, HOW TO GROW MORE VEGETABLES shows how to produce a beautiful organic garden with minimal watering and care, whether it's just a few tomatoes in a tiny backyard or enough food to feed a family of four on less than half an acre. Updated with the latest biointensive tips and techniques, this is an essential reference for gardeners of all skill levels seeking to grow some or all of their own food.
Customer Reviews:
A good book with surplus pages.......2007-08-16
This is a definitive guide to the Bio- Intensive method of growing vegetables. It is well written, and you can see that a lot of time and effort are behind the concepts presented here.
Two things bother me; There`s an almost 100- page bibliography included in the book!? Couldn`t it have been put up on a website or something, instead of just making the book (look) bigger and thicker? The second issue is that I find it always a bit irritating when a lot of equipment or systems get mentioned in a book, but to get their specifics or plans you must buy another book. Maybe the plans for the U- bar or for the mini- greenhouse could have fitted on those bibliography pages?
Anyways, the four stars is for the part where the actual system gets described.
It's not easy, but it's brilliant and could save the world.......2007-05-22
I am impressed at how many people misunderstand the purpose of this book. It's not just a gardening book. It lays out a comprehensive guide to growing the most food you can on the least amount of land in the most sustainable way -- meaning the way that is, on an ongoing basis into perpetuity, most healthy both for your family, your land, and the wider world. All those things are connected, and maintaining the connection is part of what the book and authors are all about.
The title means what it says, and they tell you exactly how to do it, basing their recommendations on the work of the organization that publishes the book, Ecology Action. They have been growing experimental gardens and conducting detailed research over the past 35 years. In succeeding editions of "How to Grow More Vegetables" they summarize their continuing research for those interested in personally benefiting from their methods and discoveries.
Some may object to the excruciatingly detailed charts and plans. Some of us find them a godsend. Regardless of what we think of them, they are the outgrowth of years of research and are intended to help, not just backyard gardeners in the US, but people in Kenya, India, Russia, Mexico, and other places around the world, whose lives and livelihoods, not to mention the health of their environment, may depend on maximizing their yields while minimizing their purchased inputs and water usage.
The central fact underlying this method is this: the only way to achieve the highest sustainable yields is to build and feed your soil, and the only way to build your soil without taking away fertility from someone else's soil (through purchased inputs such as compost, fertilizer, etc.) is to make and use your own compost. This book explains why, and shows you how. It works.
Though we are still shielded from it in the US, the world is facing a potentially devastating loss of agricultural fertility due to a combination of squandered topsoil (lost through both development and abuse by chemicals and poor tillage practices), water shortages, and soaring prices and reduced availability of fossil fuels (which power the farm equipment, get it to market, and form the basis of most chemical fertilizers). Years ago, Ecology Action set out to discover in a rational and scientific way, just how much land and labor it would take to grow the amount of food, properly balanced for calories and nutrition, required by one person for one year. Could a family of four truly feed itself from a 1200 square foot garden if it had to, or wanted to? How much work and water would it take? How much fertilizer would they have to buy? Could they grow their own fertilizer? What tools would they need? What about fiber for clothing? Building materials? Animal feed?
The "How to Grow More Vegetables" books answer those questions, and much, much more. As the years go by, (and with each succeeding food contamination scandal) more of us, even in the US, are realizing just how important those questions are. You may not need or want all the information in this book. But it is all there, and nowhere else that I am aware of, for those who do want it.
This book could save the world, if only the world would pay attention. But it will also show you how to grow fabulous, tasty vegetables with less water, less work, less weeding, less money.
Are you into numbers?.......2007-05-12
I like John Jeavons and his book is very useful. However, I'm not into calculating and figuring every square inch in the garden with tables/charts. I enjoy growing for the freedom of spirit it provides. This book although very useful, feels very constrictive. Not to mention EVERY page has at least 5 mentions of "Grow Biointensive". I felt like a was reading a long drawn out advertisement. Enough John, say it in the intro and then leave us alone to enjoy the book. If we weren't interested in your method we wouldn't be reading your book.
This is a great book.......2007-05-04
I had an earlier edition of this book that I used as an introduction to high intensity gardening. I love the book because gives technical information on such things as soil pH, soil preparation, plant spacing, and crop yields. It probably is not a book for people that do not enjoy the technical aspects of gardening; those wanting only a quick fix approach. I have ordered the 7th edition.
California Vegetarians .......2007-03-05
I have gardened organically for over 30 years, and always love to read good gardening books hoping to learn more. Unfortunately this book is so very focused on being totally vegetarian that they do not even recommend animal manures to be used in compost. I feel that they have totally ignored the natural cycles of birth - death - decomposition - and rebirth. A quote that says it all is, "Everything that eats is in turn eaten". That includes plants that feed on the remains of other plants, insects, or algae and bacteria. The author overlooks the fact that there are no total vegetarians in nature. Even grazers, gorillas, and great whales ingest insects or micro-fauna along with their grass, leaves, and plankton.
Average customer rating:
- No metric???
- Double-digging, maybe. Double pages, no.
- THE difinitive book about sustainable gardening
- A Real Disappointment
- A book that unlocks knowledge long needed in today's society
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How to Grow More Vegetables: Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops
John Jeavons
Manufacturer: Ten Speed Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Gardening & Horticulture
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
Organic
| Techniques
| Gardening & Horticulture
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
Vegetables
| Gardening & Horticulture
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
Berries
| By Plant
| Gardening & Horticulture
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
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The Sustainable Vegetable Garden: A Backyard Guide to Healthy Soil and Higher Yields
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How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits: (And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops)
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Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening
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Backyard Market Gardening: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Selling What You Grow (Good Earth)
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The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener (A Gardener's Supply Book)
ASIN: 0898157676 |
Amazon.com
Now in its fifth edition and printed in seven different languages, Jeavon's book is considered a classic in the field (literally) and has brought about a kind of green revolution in food production around the world. This book is based on Alan Chadwick's biointensive gardening techniques. It will show you how to raise enough fresh, healthy, organic vegetables for a family of four on a parcel of land as small as 800 square feet! Nothing could be more fundamental to the needs of an increasingly crowded world than food. Jeavons and the group he heads, Ecology Action, are making a quiet but earth-shaking revolution in how people raise nutritious food.
If you have a small, flat rooftop, access to a bit of open space between your house and your neighbor's, or any small patch of land, here's the ultimate how-to manual for making the most of it to raise your own food, including ways to enhance soil fertility and productivity, non-chemical pest controls, where and when to plant what in your climate or location, the tools you'll need, and the problem-solving skills essential to success. This "ground-breaking" book is used by gardeners around the globe and is as hopeful, inspiring, and motivating a gardening book as has ever been written. --Mark Hetts
Book Description
*Than You Every Thought Possible On Less Land Than You Can Imagine
Now published in 7 different languages and used in 108 countries - this is the book that has helped revolutionize food production around the globe. Based on Biointensive gardening techniques developed by horticulturalist Alan Chadwick, How to Grow More Vegetables details the farming method which can result in 800 square feet or less providing a family of four with fresh vegetables - produced organically while maintaining soil nutrients for future crops, with a minimum of water and daily care needed - for an entire year. This revision contains completely updated and expanded material throughout, as well as new chapters on soil sustainability and a perspective into the future of farming.
Customer Reviews:
No metric???.......2002-07-04
This book is suposed to revolutionize how home gardeners around the world can become self sustaining and yet it can't even be published using metric measures! How do they translate this to other languages and don't even bother using a measurement system that the majority of the world uses?? What a careless oversite on the part of the publisher AND author.
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Double-digging, maybe. Double pages, no........2000-06-01
This title grew from a 1971 experimental garden in Palo Alto, California instigated by Alan Chadwick and Stephen Kafka. That garden showed that using the biodynamic/French Intensive method produced four times more vegetables than conventional techniques.
Biodynamic techniques were developed by Austrian genius Rudolf Steiner. French Intensive methods were developed in the 1890s by market gardeners outside Paris, a time when horses provided more-than-ample fertilizer and the city provided a ready market for vegetables. Chadwick studied under Steiner and French gardeners.
The method requires double-digging garden beds and adding compost or aged manure. Double-digging to two feet in depth provides loose soil that roots easily penetrate. Plants are seeded or transplanted very close together and form a living mulch, shading roots, causing greater water retention, denying sunlight to weeds. Other aspects of the method are planting and transplanting by the phases of the moon and daily sprinkling rather than periodical flooding.
This material has been recycled four times since the 1974 typewritten edition. I regret to report it is no longer up-to-date gardening knowledge, it will intimidate beginning gardeners, and it will bore experienced gardeners. There is only one new chapter, titled Sustainability, which is mostly promotion of Ecology Action. In addition, Jeavons seems confused. In the first four editions he wrote that he was teaching us the "biodynamic/French intensive method" of Steiner and French gardeners as learned and taught by Chadwick. Now in a chapter titled A Perspective for the Future, he writes that his work is based on the "Chinese Biointensive way of farming." Yet nowhere does he advocate or tell how to use humanure, which is the basis of Chinese food production, as first shown by F.H. King in his book, Farmers of Forty Centuries. Only in the bibliography do we find book listings under the heading: Human Waste. The huge bibliography (36 pages, was 22 pages in the last edition) apparently lists every book and catalog in the Ecology Action library but there is NO INDEX! I find the lack of an index in a nonfiction book to be unforgivable. For instance, looking for crop rotation or mulching methods means scanning the entire 201 pages--and coming up empty.
There are pages and pages of drawings and technical charts that most readers will never use. We find listings of plants and information both barely usable--seeds per ounce, pounds consumed per average person per year--and important--bed spacing, yields--although there is no recognition or advice concerning the many soil types and growing zones. One is dismayed to find--in a book titled How to Grow More Vegetables--more pages of charts about grain, protein source, vegetable oil crops; cover, organic matter, fodder crops; energy, fiber paper and other crops; tree and cane crops--20 pages in all, than about vegetable crops--8 pages.
Promotion of Ecology Action uses a fourteen-page chapter in addition to six more pages of self-promotion in the Sustainability chapter. If you want to support Jeavons' work, send a check to Ecology Action, or buy his book, The Sustainable Vegetable Garden, adapted from this book by co-author Carol Cox, which is smaller and less expensive and has all his best stuff without the wasted pages of charts, drawings and promotion, and it has an index! If you want current gardening information, read authors such as Eliot Coleman and Dick Raymond who are progressive and work with all garden designs, including the mulch method first popularized by Ruth Stout and now used by hundreds of my gardening friends across the country. Most of us have tried the double-dig method and have long since moved on. I recommend you not waste your time, except maybe once for new gardens, depending on soil conditions. Thereafter, use mulch, save your back and spend your time and energy on better pursuits.
THE difinitive book about sustainable gardening.......1999-04-28
The book others imitate. The difinitive source of information about sustainable gardening (agriculture on any scale, actually), with understandable diagrams and explanations. The concepts are simple; the work much easier than the old-fashioned "row garden"; the results are more bountiful; your health benefits; the fertility of your soil grows; the environment improves.
This will become your bible for planting and growing without chemical fertilizers, insecticides, or weed control.
The sustainable methods of producing the food we eat in a small space makes more sense than the wastful techniques perfected and promoted in the last two generations.
If you can buy only one book on gardening -- this should be the one.
Other resources to consider: "The Backyard Homestead" (Jeavons, et al); "Square Foot Gardening" (Bartholomew) - similar ideas; "Five Acres And Independence" (Kains).
Survival is simpler if it has been your way of life.
A Real Disappointment.......1999-03-15
After reading the reviews of others, I excitedly bought this book. It turned out to be a relic of the 70's, with all kinds of abstract philosophizing about how putting organic matter into soil is going to save the world. Perhaps revolutionary for its time, it's not very useful for the serious modern gardener.
Although this thin book has gone through five reprints, the passing years seem to have added little in the way of real information. Sure, knowing how to turn soil with hand tools and make a compost pile is useful, but most modern books handle that in a couple of pages. The book's policy of zero tolerance for chemical fertilizer and pesticides is an admirable ideal but a tad too stringent for me. I found the "charts" little more than unfinished notes that were largely indecipherable. The book offers dubious, sometimes contradictory, advice, including instructions on planting by the phases of the Moon. Sources for supplies are referenced with old-fashioned snail-mail addresses rather than 1-800 numbers or URLs. The book has no index!
Frankly, much of the text seems to be self-promotion for the Cause, worthy as it may be, rather than offering solid gardening tips. If you really want to grow more vegetables, get Dick Raymond's Joy of Gardening. He's plenty "green" and offers practical approaches to getting food out of the ground.
A book that unlocks knowledge long needed in today's society.......1998-07-14
This book is not just about growing more vegetables in the vein of "Throw some more ferterlizer on in the garden!" This book is about a way of life, a philosophy. It gives one a whole systems view of healthy, living soil creation and plant growing. When one reads, absorbs and applies the material, it becomes almost a religious experience.
Amazon.com
In the late 20th century, unfortunately, berries are seen primarily in the supermarket at certain times of year, and while this is welcome, it used to be that everyone had a few berry bushes in the backyard: some currants, some gooseberries and a few rhubarb plants. Stella Otto explains how to bring this tradition back and raise lush crops of berries and fruit with pointers on soil nutrition, plant nutrients and mulching that will make your home-grown berries the envy of folks who only see them in the supermarket. This mouth-watering book will get you going.
Book Description
Here's hands-on advice from a professional horticulturist and experienced fruit grower to help gardeners create an edible landscape. The Backyard Berry Book provided all the information that backyard gardeners need to grow strawberries, rhubarb, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, lingonberries, currants, gooseberries, grapes, and kiwi fruit. Includes details on soil nutrition and testing; disease, pest, weed, and bird control; and trellis design. A trouble-shooting section and Seasonal Activity Calendar will help ensure success.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Book.......2007-05-14
I recommend it to anyone interested in growing fruit at home. The information about the different varieties of each type of fruit was very useful.
The Backyard Berry Book: A Hands-on Guide to Growing Berries, Brambles, and Vine Fruit in the Home Garden.......2006-08-21
Very helpful. We have learned new techniques to try for our berry growing next season. Good source for information for the beginner and not so new gardener both.
Good, but not great.......2006-06-15
This book offers rather generic information on growing a variety of fruits, most of which will be old lore to experienced gardeners. While it would be difficult to be comprehensive with regard to varieties of given fruits, more attention could have been given to them. Also, more specific information on individual fruits and varieties would have been welcome, particularly with regard to site preparation and pruning. The illustrations are poorly drawn and thus not particularly useful.
Berry Growing Basics for Beginners.......2006-01-22
Stella Otto uses plain language and ample illustrations to cover the basics of growing small fruit. Her book contains separate chapters for strawberries, blueberries, brambles, grapes, kiwis, gooseberries, currants, lingonberries and even rhubarb in the backyard garden. The coverage of varieties of each fruit and varietal differences is good, which is why each fruit requires a chapter.
First the fundamentals of growing small fruit are surveyed, including site selection, stock selection, methods of propagation, berry botany, soil nutrition, pH, irrigation, and other cultural practices. Then pest control is discussed including organic versus non-organic controls and Integrated Pest Management techniques that reduce the need for chemical controls. Lastly there are charts, resource lists, and trouble-shooting guides provided in the reference section of this book.
Well worth consulting before planning your berry patch!
I liked it.......2005-08-03
OK, I gave it a 4, cause I'm not done with it yet, and I'm just not too sure. I do like the information, just more of some that I don't need, and would like even more of some I do need, but it seems like a good place to start. A good companion book for her to write would be what to do with all the berries, maybe some recipes, or preserving tips.
Book Description
Techniques for those who want to discover the satisfaction of propagating. 103,000 copies in print.
Customer Reviews:
Somewhat incoherent and proposes to use a lot of chemicals.......2007-08-16
I was pretty disappointed with this book. There`s a lot of methods described to make more plants, but I don`t feel any of them is described in a lot of depth. Furthermore, the author uses a LOT of chemicals when growing and propagating plants, which is something I feel opposed to as a organic grower. I really can`t see why this book was elected one of the 75 best books by The American Horticultural Society?
Packed With Useful Information! =].......2006-07-13
My mum turned me on to plants when I was quite young, and I had tried to read some of the horticulture books that she had in her library (boring!). I bought this book for myself, because I wanted to learn more about propagation, so at first, I did not think this book would be much help since I prefer hard covers to paperback (personal choice), but even before I finished reading it, I was putting some of what I had read to use, and have on numerous occasions been asked questions that I could answer thanks to this books information. This book is full of useful information on how-to that you can put to use almost immediately, and it is not a dull read.
I have recently had a co-worker and a close friend of mine ask me about grafting, and I have referred them to this book. My friend liked the material on grafting that I spoke with him about so much that he wants to borrow my book for more information on the subject, and I have since put another copy of this book on my wish list to give it to him as a gift for his library.
Home Gardener.......2000-07-31
I really like this book. I love to grow plants from seeds and this book helps me understand how that works and how I can grow even more things from seeds. As well as grafting and other techniques I've never tried. It is a bit technical, but I am only a home gardener so it's pretty easy to work out.
Book Description
Now available in a convenient paperback format, this berry growing reference is an essential guide for anyone growing them for pleasure or for profit. Berry fruits have long been used and appreciated in the kitchen, but the aesthetic appeal and practical benefits they bring to the garden landscape are all too often ignored. Whether using strawberry plants for ground cover, enjoying the colorful autumn foliage of blueberry bushes, or training a grapevine to climb a trellis, gardeners will find that berry plants can make highly versatile contributions to a range of environments. Backyard gardeners, as well as small fruit growers and nursery people, will find an abundance of valuable, practical information in this volume, including plant lists and tables, cultivation tips, and color photographs for plant identification.
Customer Reviews:
No California or Southwest.......2002-08-10
Covers strawberries, brambles, blueberries, and grapes very well. Other vine crops, such as kiwis, are covered too briefly to be of any value.
From the first chapter: "Recommended cultivars are not provided for California and some of the adjoining desert states."
Western gardeners beware.......2002-07-19
In the intro, the author warns (paraphrasing) that her experience is mostly in the eastern and midwest US - and her comments will be of most value for gardeners in those regions. That is a fair thing to state.. What I have a problem with, is the complete neglect of the Southwest - to the point I sensed that she doubts people even garden there - and its all commercial growers.
For example: in all the tables that mention regions, she has breakouts for New England, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, South Central, Souteast, and Pacific Northwest... Uh, what about West, or Southwest? We're here trying to grow these things too.
Other things that bothered me: in her very thorough list of Strawberry cultivars, she omits one of the most common varieties grown in the West (Sequoia). In her list of southern highbush blueberries, most of the best ones are omitted (O'Neal, Georgia Gem, Misty, Reveille, Jubilee are all missing).
The ommissions themselves are not so significant, its what it implies - which is the lack of consideration for what Western gardeners would deal with including chilling hour issues, high heat, etc. And in the minor berries, there is a dicussion of hardy Kiwi - but why not mention the regular Kiwi which can be grown many places (my point being the bias toward her native region)
On the positive side, this author has a solid academic background and covers many issues in the kind of detail I enjoy. But that's what makes it frustrating for me to read her book - because she does not apply that know-how evenly to what I consider important and did not seem to spend any time researching what's going on out West.
A very useful book.......2001-04-29
Barbara Bowling's book is well organized and well worth owning. There's an opening chapter about the general principles for growing all kinds of berries (or small fruits, as they are called, not because of the size of the fruits, but because of the size of the plants they grow on). Then, surprisingly, there is an interesting chapter about using berry plants for landscaping. It says, for instance, that elderberry bushes make good hedges.
There are separate chapters for each of these fruits: strawberries, brambles (raspberries, blackberries and the like), blueberries, grapes and minor berry crops (currants, gooseberries, hardy kiwi, elderberries, highbush cranberries, amelanchiers and still more minor berry crops such as cranberry, edible honeysuckle, jostaberry, ligonberry, maypop, rugosa rose and wineberry).
There's a highly useful appendix listing nursery sources for berry plants. Also, there's a glossary, a valuable list of references and 12 pages of plant name index and subject index.
If you're interested in growing one kind of berry, such as raspberries, you can count on having about a hundred pages of information that are directed toward growing raspberries, including the part applicable to growing any berry. And this is true for each of the other kinds of berry.
The chapter on brambles gives historical background and describes the biology of brambles. It lists many different cultivars of raspberries and blackberries, telling the hardiness, time of berry maturation and relative productivity of each berry cultivar.
Bowling tells how to select and prepare a site, plant berries and establish their growth, apply nutrition and fertilization, prune brambles and make trellises. She tells how to cope with pests such as viral diseases, gray molds, anthracnose, Phytophthora root rot and a long list of insects. Surprisingly, she chose not to include birds in her list of raspberry pests, although she mentions them in connection with other berries. She doesn't mention any mammals as raspberry pests, either. Most likely, these will be local issues. Not everyone has deer, black bear or rabbits in the neighborhood.
Of course, you should supplement this book with information from your local ag extension service or nursery. They will have a finer level of local detail about favored cultivars. Sometimes, your local ag extension agent will disagree with this author. For example, this author says that the "Blackhawk" black raspberry cultivar is tender, with medium productivity. The extension service at North Dakota State University, a state with a brutal winter, says that "Blackhawk" is "one of the hardiest black fruited varieties."
You'll need to adjust the book's information in terms of your specialized knowledge of your own local climate. For instance, this author describes the "Boyne" cultivar as a summer-bearing red raspberry suited for the climate of New England. She doesn't mention it in connection with the Midwest. The North Dakota State University Extension Service, on the other hand, says that "Boyne" is "excellent for [North Dakota] home gardens ... moderately vigorous, sturdy, winter hardy and very productive."
The important thing is that Bowling has listed many, many cultivars, together with enough information for a grower to know the right climate for each one.
a book brimming with love and information.......2001-02-15
I had the pleasure of knowing the author when she was a professor of horticulture at Penn State. She is a remarkable person, combining genuine love for berries with an encyclopedic knowledge of their biology and growing requirements. This book distills that enthusiasm and expertise in a very usable and enjoyable form. If you are interested in growing strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, grapes, or other berry crops in your garden, this is the book to have. It is engaging, authoritative, supremely practical, educational, and downright fun to read. Some garden publications are thick on pretty pictures but thin on substance, or may actually propagate horticultural myths not founded in scientific fact. This book is different. Reading it, you will learn a lot about how these plants work, and how to grow them successfully, including delightful sidebar "digressions" about the history and biology of berry species. Although packed with important information needed specifically by berry growers, the book is written in plain language, with clear drawings, color photos, and zest that makes it a delight to read. This is bound to be the best book on the subject for some time, that is, until she writes a second edition!
Average customer rating:
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The Farmer's Wife Guide To Fabulous Fruits And Berries: Growing, Storing, Freezing, and Cooking Your Own Fruits and Berries
Barbara Doyen
Manufacturer: M. Evans and Company, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Fruits
| Cooking by Ingredient
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
Fruit
| Gardening & Horticulture
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Gardening & Horticulture
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
Berries
| By Plant
| Gardening & Horticulture
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Agricultural Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
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The Farmer's Wife Guide To Growing A Great Garden And Eating From It, Too!: Storing, Freezing, and Cooking Your Own Vegetables
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The Backyard Orchardist: A Complete Guide to Growing Fruit Trees in the Home Garden
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Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables
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From the Garden to the Table: Growing, Cooking, and Eating Your Own Food
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The Backyard Berry Book: A Hands-On Guide to Growing Berries, Brambles, and Vine Fruit in the Home Garden
ASIN: 0871319756 |
Book Description
A delightfully original package, this book gives advice on growing your favorite fruits and berries, and then provides ample instruction on how to prepare or preserve the results.
Customer Reviews:
awesome!.......2007-06-22
This book has an answer to every question! Please be aware that even though tomatoes are fruits, they are not covered in this book but she does cover them in her veggie book. I have both and would highly recommend them to any gardener of all levels. I am probably somewhere in the middle and I love her writing style...so easy to understand and doesn't make you feel stupid. Easy categories and clear index make it easy to refer back and forth.
Average customer rating:
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Decorative Painting: Fruits, Vegetables, and Berries (Decorative Painting)
Kathy Ritchie
Manufacturer: North Light Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Decorative Arts
| Design & Decorative Arts
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Painting
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Painting
| Instructional & How-To
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
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General
| Crafts & Hobbies
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0891347968 |
Book Description
The 5 A Day program is the most recognized consumer nutrition education program in the country. Yet we don't all do a good job meeting those targets despite studies that show people who eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day dramatically lower their incidence of diet-related illnesses like cancer and heart disease. The good news: This cookbook is specifically designed to fit those fruits and vegetables into your day. Included are: -150 easy recipes-all with the 5 A Day seal of approval - More than 40 varieties of fruits and vegetables -40 Quick Cook sidebars offer simple ways to get veggies and fruits into meals, plus prep-work shortcuts -7-day menu plan shows what a 5 A Day meal looks like on the plate -7 'Power Menus' pack your 5 A Day into a single meal -Every recipe comes with nutritional and dietary information -Highlighted for quick reference: kid-friendly, make-ahead, and 30-minutes-or-less recipes
Customer Reviews:
Healthy & Easy Recipes.......2007-01-07
Great recipes and you don't have to access a gourmet kitchen for a gazillion ingredients. Practical for starting a healthy New Year.
Inaccurate nutritional information.......2005-09-26
The book is basically laid out well but unfortunately, the nutritional information is computed incorrectly. If a reader is watching for lowfat recipes, the numbers given would be misleading.
For example, the apple walnut salad is said to serve 6 people with each serving containing 4.6 grams of fat. However, with 66 to 70 grams of fat in the entire recipe, the fat grams per serving would be 10 to 11 grams. Quite a difference!
Also, the chicken & grapefruit stir fry would have at least 6 grams of fat per serving rather than the 3 grams stated in the book. This problem would be significant for those with heart or coronary artery disease who are attempting to follow a very lowfat diet. I'm surprised the authors didn't have a nutritionist check these computations before going to press.
Informative book with great recipes.......2005-02-21
What a great book! We all know we should be getting 5 fruits and vegetables a day, but this book shows you how to do it - and do it easily.
The beginning section tells you why 5 fruits and vegetables a day are so important to your health, and gives you a few hints as to how to make easy substitutions that will up your daily count of vegetables and fruits (for example: use dried fruits instead of nuts when making muffins and breads). It gives advice on how to incorporate fruits & veggies into your meals - e.g., buy a new produce item every week - and shows you how to update typical meals to add more fruits & veggies.
The majority of the book is recipes, broken down into sub-categories: fish and shellfish, side dishes, appetizers, breakfasts, fruit salads, etc. The recipes are well laid-out, with helpful labels like "30 minutes or less" and "make ahead." They include nutritional information as well as the number of fruit & vegetable servings. I wish this section included more pictures, as the ones they do include are really helpful.
I found this to be an extremely helpful book. Not only do you get many healthy - and appetizing - recipes, but the front section of the book is a powerful reminder for why it's so important to get your 5 a day. I highly recommend it.
Terrific Book!.......2002-03-18
A great recipe book to get those extra fruits and vegetables in your diet. Well written, nice layout with some wonderful, mouthwatering pictures. Some delicious recipes that aren't quite the ordinary, but yet aren't so different you're afraid to try them....or can't find the ingredients. Highly recommended!
Both seasonal and year-round family favorites!.......2002-02-09
5 A Day: The Better Health Cookbook is the collaborative effort of Elizabeth Pivonka (president of the Produce for Better Health Foundation) and Barbara Berry (vice president in charge of the Foundation's programs in education, marketing, communication, and research. On the well documented premise that eating five servings of fruits and vegetables will provide excellent health, this compendium showcasing 150 easy and delicious recipes will form a superb basis for any health conscious, palate pleasing menu. From Sweet Potato Pancakes with Apple-Walnut Topping; Citrus Salad with Raspberry-Vanilla Sauce; and Catfish with Tropical Fruit Salsa; to Artichokes Stuffed with Oriental Noodle Salad; Chicken and Grapefruit Stir-Fry; Watermelon-Blueberry Banana Split, 5 A Day offers wonderful recipes that are thorough "kitchen cook" friendly and certain to become both seasonal and year-round family favorites!
Book Description
Priscilla Hauser, the "first lady" of decorative painting, gives readers all the advice they need to capture the colors and textures of their favorite fruits and berries, including lemons, strawberries, pears, plums, blackberries, apples, holly, pine sprigs and mistletoe. Starting with an overview of general supplies, she then moves on to the basics, addressing everything from preparing the surface to loading brushes with paint.
Next, Priscilla guides painters through nine wonderful projects--each one thoroughly illustrated with detailed, step-by-step photos that enable them to copy her every stroke. They'll learn to paint fruits and berries on everything from wooden plates and bowls to mini wheelbarrows, candles and more!
* Priscilla Hauser is one of the most well-known and respected decorative artists and teachers in the world
* 9 beautiful projects include clear, step-by-step photos and instructions
Customer Reviews:
Not Organic, but Visually Stunning..........2007-01-07
Even though I'm an organic gardener, I've fallen in love with this book. In fact, now that I've bought my own copy, I've actually paid less than I've paid to the library in overdue fines for this book. It's just a visually stunning masterpiece in the sense that it inspires me to get out into my own garden and to imagine what it could potentially look like. Of course, the author seems to have unlimited time to garden and an almost unlimited budget. I'll never achieve his masterpiece, but it's nice to dream. I especially love to curl up with this book in January when the seed catalogs are just coming out.
It lost a star for me because it is decidedly NOT an organic gardening book. The author relies heavily on chemical fertilizers and black plastic mulch. Although he does mention compost and soil improvement, I don't recall him even mentioning earthworms, which are a definite indicator of soil health. He does, however, try to use less harsh methods of pest and weed control.
Chapters are arranged by month, detailing the author's gardening chores and schedule during that month, from starting seeds to transplanting out, to weeding, watering, fertilizing, caring for tools, and constructing gardening architecture. Since he gardens in the north, I can't go by his schedule, nor can I grow the same veggies or varieties thereof that he does. If you're looking for a how-to book, this probably isn't it, unless you happen to live just where he does and are willing to use chemicals. But if you're looking for inspiration, this book is well worth it.
Excellent.......2006-02-02
This was one of my first gardening books and is still my favorite one. Perfect for the beginning gardener. Why aren't more gardening books organized like this one?
An all time favorite .......2005-09-03
In my periodic attempts to grow vegetables, this book -- and its predecessor, "Crockett's Victory Garden," have been my constant and favorite companions. It's past time for this 1987 book to be updated and republished.
This is Cadillac gardening as Crockett and his successor Bob Thomson apparently had a large budget, a full toolshed, and endless time to produce a perfect garden. My pitiful efforts never yield much in the way of edible products, but I enjoy reading about how I would grow vegetables if I were not such a lazy and shiftless person.
The book is broken down by months with a long list of vegetables for planting, tending, and harvesting for each month as well as other garden tasks. The monthly labors are for Boston. Being further south, I tend to do things a month earlier in the spring and a month later in the fall than Thomson prescribes. "The New Victory Garden" is full of solid gardening advice for an establishmentarian gardener. If you're into organics or (like me) inclined to low-impact, no inputs type cultivation, you might not like Thomson's reliance on chemical fertilizers -- but he makes up for it with good advice on compost, natural fertilizers, and lots of touchy feely stuff. The pictures are beautiful. Someday, in some future world I'll have a garden like this. Yeah, sure. Dream on! But I like reading the book and I occasionally try to follow the advice.
Smallchief
An INVALUABLE tool, particularly for novices!.......2003-05-08
In my opinion, this book needs to be actively published again! I used this book as a guide to grow my first vegetable garden in Richmond, VT. It thoroughly explained EACH step in the process with text and illustrations/photos. My neighbor, whom I hadn't met yet, left a letter in my mailbox around August of that year. It contained a photo of my garden and a note saying that mine was the most beautiful vegetable garden she'd ever seen and thought I would appreciate the picture of it! I have checked this book out of the library each spring since and this year it was listed as "lost!" That's why I'm here on-line: buying an "acceptable" condition copy used rather than do without! BUY THIS BOOK IF YOU CAN!
Simply the best!.......2003-04-16
I just want to emphasize the earlier reviews: This is a great, enormously helpful guide to gardening just about anywhere (I live in southern CA and I enjoyed the section on cold weather gardening even if I never use it). The author isn't clearly part of a gardening school of thought (square foot, raised beds, biodynamic), he is just vastly knowledgable about gardening and will meet you wherever you are - a sign of a great teacher. He wrote the best section on homemade garden structures - A frames, cold frames and the like - I have seen. Not a useless or wasted page. Please bring it back!
Books:
- Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places
- Inspirations
- International Building Code 2003 (International Building Code)
- Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants Through Native American Stories and Earth Activities Forchildren (Keepers of the Earth)
- La frontera / Borderlands
- Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest
- Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!
- Making the Most of Shade: How to Plan, Plant, and Grow a Fabulous Garden that Lightens up the Shadows
- Manual of Woody Landscape Plants: Their Identification, Ornamental Characteristics, Culture, Propagation and Uses
- Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible
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