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Find out moreMartin Crawford has spent over 20 years in organic agriculture and horticulture and is director of The Agroforestry Research Trust, a non-profit-making charity that researches into temperate agroforestry and all aspects of plant cropping and uses, with a focus on tree, shrub and perennial crops. The Trust produces several publications and a quarterly journal, and sells plants and seeds. See www.agroforestry.co.uk for more information.
Opens the door to a whole new way of growing food – and don’t be put off by the word Forest in the title, this form of gardening can easily be adapted to back gardens by lowering the tree canopy and limiting the number of plants you grow. A lifetime’s experience is distilled here, beautifully presented, it shows how to grow using perennial plants, the most sustainable form of gardening. As well as a new form of gardening, Martin Crawford is introducing new and unusual plants making this a stand-out choice.Like for Like ReadingPlants for a Future, Ken FernOrganic Gardening: The Natural No-Dig Way, Charles Dowding
This comprehensive book covers all aspects of growing, harvesting, processing and using nuts, based on forest gardening principles. Filled with gorgeous images of trees and nuts of different varieties, this book is a treat for any gardener. Nuts covered include old favourites such as chestnuts, hazelnuts and walnuts, as well as less common varieties such as pine nuts, hickories, butternuts and monkey puzzle nuts. Whether you are planning to grow nuts at home or commercially, this book is essential reading.
How do you cook heartnuts, hawthorn fruits or hostas? What's the best way to preserve autumn olives or to dry chestnuts? Forest gardening - a novel way of growing edible crops in different vertical layers - is attracting increasing interest, for gardens large or small. But when it comes to harvest time, how do you make the most of the produce? From bamboo shoots and beech leaves to medlars and mashua, Food from your Forest Garden offers creative and imaginative ways to enjoy the crops from your forest garden. It provides cooking advice and recipe suggestions, with notes on every species in the bestselling Creating a Forest Garden by Martin Crawford. The book includes: l Over 100 recipes for over 50 different species, presented by season, plus raw food options. l Information on the plants' nutritional value, with advice on harvesting and processing. l Chapters on preserving methods, from traditional preserves such as jams to ferments and fruit leathers. With beautiful colour photographs of plants and recipes, this book is an invaluable resource for making the most of your forest garden - and an inspiration for anyone thinking of growing and using forest garden crops.
Perennial vegetables are a joy to grow and require a lot less time and effort than annuals. In this book Martin Crawford gives comprehensive advice on all types of perennial vegetable (edible plants that live longer than three years), from ground-cover plants and coppiced trees to plants for bog gardens and edible woodland plants. There are many advantages to growing perennial vegetables, for example: they need less tillage than conventional vegetables and so help retain carbon in the soil the soil structure is not disturbed in their cultivation they extend the harvesting season, especially in early spring and, of course, they are much less work. Part One looks at why and how to grow these crops, and how to look after them for maximum health. Part Two features over 100 perennial edibles in detail, both common and unusual - from rhubarb to skirret; Jerusalem artichoke to nodding onions. This book offers inspiration and information for all gardeners, whether experienced or beginner, and also includes plenty of cooking tips. It includes beautiful colour photographs and illustrations throughout.
Opens the door to a whole new way of growing food – and don’t be put off by the word Forest in the title, this form of gardening can easily be adapted to back gardens by lowering the tree canopy and limiting the number of plants you grow. A lifetime’s experience is distilled here, beautifully presented, it shows how to grow using perennial plants, the most sustainable form of gardening. As well as a new form of gardening, Martin Crawford is introducing new and unusual plants making this a stand-out choice.Like for Like ReadingPlants for a Future, Ken FernOrganic Gardening: The Natural No-Dig Way, Charles Dowding
Having won renown in the 1850s for his vivid warfront dispatches from the Crimea, William Howard Russell was the most celebrated foreign journalist in America during the first year of the Civil War. As a special correspondent for The Times of London, Russell was charged with explaining the American crisis to a British audience, but his reports also had great impact in America. They so alienated both sides, North and South, that Russell was forced to return to England prematurely in April 1862. My Diary North and South (1863), Russell's published account of his visit, remains a classic of Civil War literature. It was not in fact a diary but a narrative reconstruction of the author's journeys and observations based on his private notebooks and published dispatches. Despite his severe criticisms of American society and conduct, Russell offered in that work generally sympathetic characterizations of the Northern and Southern leadership during the war. In this new volume, Martin Crawford brings together the journalist's original diary and a selection of his private correspondence to resurrect the fully uninhibited Russell and to provide, accordingly, a true documentary record of this important visitor's first impressions of America during the early months of its greatest crisis. Over the course of his American visit, Russell traveled widely throughout the Union and the new Confederacy, meeting political and social leaders on both sides. Included here are spontaneous--and often unflattering--comments on such prominent figures as William H. Seward, Jefferson Davis, Mary Todd Lincoln, and George B. McClellan, as well as quick sketches of New York, Washington, New Orleans, and other cities. Also revealed for the first time are the anxiety and despair that Russell experienced during his American visit--a state induced by his own self-doubt, by concern over the health and situation of his wife in England, and, finally, by the bitter criticism he received in the United States over his reports. A sometimes vain and pompous figure, Russell also emerges here as an individual of exceptionally tough spirit--a man who abhorred slavery and remained convinced of the essential rectitude of the Northern cause even as he criticized Northern leaders, their lack of preparedness for war, and the apparent disunity of the Northern population.
Distinguished from traditional historical narrative by its balanced portrayal of wartime experiences both at home and on the battlefield and flavored by its vivid portrayal of a divided Appalachian community, Ashe County's Civil War: Community and Society in the Appalachian South breaks new ground in Southern social, political, and economic history. Martin Crawford contends that the experiences of Ashe County's men and women during the Civil War era were shaped as much by their membership in the wider American society as by uniquely local factors. Through a thoughtful blending of family correspondence, local and state historical documents, and the broader news of the divided country, Crawford re-creates the lives of Ashe County's citizens. Among them are teenager Selina Howell, whose suicide draws the reader into an intimate portrayal of kin and community dynamics, and Tom Crumpler, the young lawyer-politician who made the ultimate sacrifice for a cause he initially opposed. These people and their stories bring to life the very human side of the Civil War, carrying Crawford's narrative well beyond ordinary social history.
Distinguished from traditional historical narrative by its balanced portrayal of wartime experiences both at home and on the battlefield and flavored by its vivid portrayal of a divided Appalachian community, Ashe County's Civil War: Community and Society in the Appalachian South breaks new ground in Southern social, political, and economic history. Martin Crawford contends that the experiences of Ashe County's men and women during the Civil War era were shaped as much by their membership in the wider American society as by uniquely local factors. Through a thoughtful blending of family correspondence, local and state historical documents, and the broader news of the divided country, Crawford re-creates the lives of Ashe County's citizens. Among them are teenager Selina Howell, whose suicide draws the reader into an intimate portrayal of kin and community dynamics, and Tom Crumpler, the young lawyer-politician who made the ultimate sacrifice for a cause he initially opposed. These people and their stories bring to life the very human side of the Civil War, carrying Crawford's narrative well beyond ordinary social history.
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