Presents simple techniques for an early spring garden of color profiling 30 hardy annual flowers.

“Does a marvelous job of taking you down the garden path of the ins and outs of companion planting.” —Julie Bawden-Davis, Community Table @ Parade.com Fight garden pests and increase your yields the natural way with this tried-and-true technique! Planting vegetables and flowers together is one of the oldest ways to create a healthy, bountiful garden. Adding flowers to your food garden improves biodiversity, enhances pollination, and increases the numbers of beneficial pest-eating insects—with the bonus of providing beautiful bouquets of cut flowers to brighten your home and give to your family and friends. Vegetables Love Flowers explains the benefits of interplanting flowers and vegetables; offers detailed advice on how to add a cutting garden of vibrant annuals to your vegetable garden; gives profiles of a range of pollinators and beneficial predators; and provides plenty of general gardening guidance featuring natural methods. Alongside gorgeous garden photography, you’ll learn about: ·Garden planning, seed-starting, growing, and harvesting ·How to make garden flower bouquets, with “recipes” for various arrangements ·How to attract beneficial creatures to pollinate your garden and prey on its pests ·Pesticide-free pest-control measures ·Composting heaps and bins With the right information and some careful planning, you can help your plants thrive—and beautify your garden in the process. “Whether you are a gardener or just enjoy reading about the gardening adventures of others, this book is for you.”?Gardening Products Review

Plant parsley and asparagus together and you’ll have more of each, but keep broccoli and tomato plants far apart if you want them to thrive. Utilize the natural properties of plants to nourish the soil, repel pests, and secure a greater harvest. With plenty of insightful advice and suggestions for planting schemes, Louise Riotte will inspire you to turn your garden into a naturally nurturing ecosystem.

“Home gardeners, cooks and nature lovers will savor this delightful account” of a journey from first spring planting to final fall harvest (Publishers Weekly). My Vegetable Love is a daily record of a growing season in Iowa—but it’s about much more than planting peppers, tending tomatoes, or harvesting eggplants. It’s about all the things that influence this gardener: the weather, the neighborhood, his wife’s possibly recurring cancer, the changing nature of the academic community. It’s about the last months of his twenty-year-old cat, about his dog, and about all the other humans and animals in his gardening world. And about his family: the aunts and uncles who cared for and fed a six-year-old orphan, and helped him understand that good food was a way of knowing that someone cared. In all the gardens he has tended, the dills he has pickled, and the dinners he has cooked, Carl H. Klaus has tried to carry on that tradition and pass it on to his own children—and in this “delectable” book, he shares it with us as well (Publishers Weekly). “Part Gilbert White, part Henry David Thoreau, this chronicle of an Iowa gardener’s year has drawn from the heartland a calm, compassionate harvest.” —Roger B. Swain, host of PBS’s Victory Garden “Wholeheartedly celebrates friendship, love, pets, the elements of family, academia, cooking, eating—and of course, gardening . . . Bon appétit—and good reading.” —Smithsonian

From deterring insect pests with hot peppers to encouraging strawberries by bordering them with chrysanthemums, Louise Riotte shows you how to use the natural qualities of common plants to increase your garden’s productivity. Roses Love Garlic profiles hundreds of plants, features sample garden designs, and includes recipes for using your harvest to make herbal cosmetics, medicinal mixtures, and plant-based dyes. You’ll enjoy learning about the fascinating ways plants work together as you tend to a thriving and bountiful garden. This publication conforms to the EPUB Accessibility specification at WCAG 2.0 Level AA.

Companion planting has a long history of use by gardeners, but the explanation of why it works has been filled with folklore and conjecture. Plant Partners delivers a research-based rationale for this ever-popular growing technique, offering dozens of ways you can use scientifically tested plant partnerships to benefit your whole garden. Through an enhanced understanding of how plants interact with and influence each other, this guide suggests specific plant combinations that improve soil health and weed control, decrease pest damage, and increase biodiversity, resulting in real and measurable impacts in the garden.

"Attractive, easy vegetable/flower combinations"--Cover.