A lush green lawn is one of the great pleasures of the natural world, whether it’s right outside your front door or on a majestic fairway at a legendary golf course. But anyone who has tried to grow the perfect lawn the conventional way knows it requires an endless cycle of watering and applying synthetic fertilizers and toxic chemical pesticides that cost a lot of money and kill all the life in the soil, on the surface, and on the grass. Fortunately, there’s a better way. Organic lawn care is not only healthier for the environment, it’s actually cheaper and less water-intensive, whether you’re managing a small yard or acres of turf.

In Organic Lawn Care: Growing Grass the Natural Way, Howard Garrett takes you step-by-step through creating and maintaining turf organically. He begins with the soil, showing you how to establish a healthy habitat for grass. Then he discusses a variety of turfgrasses, including Bermudagrass, bluegrass, buffalograss, fescue, ryegrass, St. Augustine, and zoysia. Garrett explains in detail how to establish and maintain a lawn, including planting, mowing, watering, fertilizing, composting, and managing weeds and pests. And he offers alternatives to lawn grasses and turf, describing the situations in which they might be your best choice.

Follow the program in Organic Lawn Care, and don’t be surprised when your water bill drops dramatically and your lawn or golf course is the best-looking one around.

The largest edible fruit native to the United States tastes like a cross between a banana and a mango. The trees are an organic grower’s dream, requiring no pesticides or herbicides to thrive, and containing compounds that are among the most potent anticancer agents yet discovered.

In Pawpaw (a 2016 James Beard Foundation Award nominee in the Writing & Literature category), author Andrew Moore explores the past, present, and future of this unique fruit, traveling from the Ozarks to Monticello; canoeing the lower Mississippi in search of wild fruit; drinking pawpaw beer in Durham, North Carolina; tracking down lost cultivars in Appalachian hollers; and helping out during harvest season in a Maryland orchard. Along the way, he gathers pawpaw lore and knowledge not only from the plant breeders and horticulturists working to bring pawpaws into the mainstream (including Neal Peterson, known in pawpaw circles as the fruit’s own “Johnny Pawpawseed”), but also regular folks who remember eating them in the woods as kids, but haven’t had one in more than 50 years.

Whether you're a first-time homeowner, dedicated gardener, or landscape professional, if you're gardening on the Gulf Coast, you need Howard Garrett's Plants for Houston and the Gulf Coast. Garrett is one of Texas's top organic gardening experts, and gardeners rely on him for accurate, sensible advice about what to plant and how to maintain healthy yards and landscapes without synthetic fertilizers and toxic pesticides. In Plants for Houston and the Gulf Coast, Garrett presents nearly 400 plants, both native and adapted, that grow well in Southeast Texas.

Like all of Howard Garrett's books, Plants for Houston and the Gulf Coast is loaded with indispensable gardening information:

• Nearly 400 trees, shrubs, groundcovers and vines, annuals and perennials, and grasses
• 400 full-color, close-up photos of the plants
• Expert information about each plant's appearance, growing requirements, landscape uses, potential problems, and other interesting facts
• Precise, easy-to-follow instructions about how to design a garden, prepare the soil, install trees and other plants, grow grass and control weeds, and maintain the landscape and control pests
• A detailed gardening calendar for Southeast Texas that lists specific plants to plant and maintenance tasks to perform each month

No other book currently available provides such extensive and reliable information for Texas Gulf Coast gardeners.

Are some plants aphrodisiacs, or is that just a myth? Garden expert and plant detective Helen Yoest takes us on a romp through history, lore and ethnobotany to find out how 50 of these plants got their "hot" reputation - and what modern science has to say about it. Discover which common garden plants and favorite edibles have that "something extra," and why. Plants With Benefits is filled with lush photography, growing tips, and recipes for preparing teas, potions and tasty treats for your pleasurable use.

Want to do your part in helping your local pollinators flourish? Pollinator Friendly Gardening makes it easy. Are you interested in growing a naturally healthy garden? How about making sure your local environment helps bees, butterflies, and birds survive and thrive? If you are a beekeeper, are you looking for the ideal plants to keep your colony happy? Pollinators such as monarch butterflies and bees are under threat, and more and more gardeners want to do all they can to create a hospitable space for them. That's where Pollinator Friendly Gardening comes in. It identifies the most visible and beloved pollinators: bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, as well as some more unlikely candidates such as ants, wasps, and beetles. It then explains the intriguing synergy between plants and pollinators. This vital information makes it a unique sourcebook to share the ways that anyone can make a yard a more friendly place for pollinators. Plant selection, hardscape choices, habitat building (both natural and manmade), and growing practices that give pollinators their best chance in the garden are all covered in detail. Plant lists organized by category, helpful tips, and expert spotlights make it a fun and easy book to read too.

Jessi Bloom, the bestselling author of Free-Range Chicken Gardens and an ecological landscape designer, and permaculture expert Dave Boehnlein explain the basic principles and ethics of permaculture, show the entire design process from land assessment to the completed master plan, and offer detailed information on the plants, water, waste, energy, shelter, food, animals, and structures that make up the garden.

Author and herbalist Brittany Wood Nickerson understands that food is our most powerful medicine. In Recipes from the Herbalist’s Kitchen, she reveals how the kitchen can be a place of true awakening for the senses and spirit, as well as deep nourishment for the body. With in-depth profiles of favorite culinary herbs such as dill, sage, basil, and mint, Nickerson offers fascinating insights into the healing properties of each herb and then shares 110 original recipes for scrumptious snacks, entrées, drinks, and desserts that are specially designed to meet the body’s needs for comfort, nourishment, energy, and support through seasonal changes.

No need to keep buying the same vegetables you eat all the time. Regrow Your Veggies is an insightful guide that provides effective propagation techniques to recycle and regrow more than 20 popular vegetables right at home! Learn how to keep a source of fresh and healthy vegetables close by, from onions and sweet potatoes to pineapples and mangoes. Reduce waste, and understand how to prevent and solve issues involving pesky pests and pathogens. Get the most out of your favorite foods, and produce your own produce!

A root cellar is the best way to store food and preserve it through the winter months.

Gladstar profiles 33 of the most common and versatile healing plants and then shows you exactly how to grow, harvest, prepare, and use them. Stock your home medicine chest with safe, all-natural, low-cost herbal preparations, and enjoy better health!