Gardening, allotments and agriculture

Taken from the Introduction: The Avocado ( Persea Americana Miller) is an evergreen tree of the family Lauraceae with seedling plants reaching 67ft (20m) in height with small large, single seeded fruits having yellow to yellowish green butter-like flesh. Mature fruit vary in colour and may be green, yellow, purple or red.

The art and craft of keeping the honey bee Apis mellifera. Honey bees are highly social insects, living in extremely well-organised groups; each member has a specific job to do, and no bee can survive without the colony. Beekeepers provide hives for colonies of bees to live in. A hive will have one queen who lays eggs in the brood chambers. The drones’ sole purpose in life is to fertilise the queen, and the rest are workers, who make the cells of the combs, clean them, fill them with pollen and honey, feed and tend to the young bee larvae, guard the hive and forage for nectar and pollen. The skill of the beekeeper is to maintain the colony at maximum strength while they are producing honey, and to prevent them from becoming overcrowded and swarming. Bees only need to be tended in spring and summer; from late autumn and throughout the winter they remain in a state of semi-hibernation. The beekeeper takes the surplus honey and in a good season a single hive can produce up to 80kg - plenty for a large family, with a surplus for local sale or barter. Bees are an excellent enterprise in an urban area, if you have a small garden, or even a rooftop space to site a hive. The bees will thrive on the abundant flowers in gardens and their flight path will be well above human heads.

This plan shows you how to build a slatted wooden compost bin. Good design and well illustrated.

This composter has four things going for it. First, it’s bigger than many ready-made plastic units, which have to trade off function in the interests of easy shipping. Our shop-built design also has a removable lid with a built-in sifting screen made of 1/2" hardware cloth to ensure that only fully rotted compost gets to your garden. The louvred front keeps air circulating and is also removable, making it easy to fork out your black gold. And finally, it looks great, especially as it weathers grey without a finish.

This design is also easy to expand—add on a second or even a third composter and you can have different piles at different stages of decomposition. While you’re filling one composter with new organic matter, you can take rich, garden-ready compost from the other.

Dairy Goats: Sustainable Production is intended for those interested in starting a commercial goat dairy. It discusses the five major considerations to be addressed in planning for dairy goat production: labor, sales and marketing, processing, regulations, and budgeting and economics. It includes production information specific to dairy goats, including choosing breeds and selecting stock. A resource list for further information about dairy goat production follows the end notes.

Gardening A-Z brings you the best in vegetable gardening tips and instructions. With this handy, informative guide, you can choose the right varieties for your particular garden and discover new options you’ve never considered before. Our expert and time-tested advice will help you grow healthy, beautiful vegetables — from asparagus to zucchini. You’ll also learn to control pests naturally, plant to improve your soil, and find out when and how to harvest for the best flavor. Also check out seed sources, preservation methods and seed saving techniques. Whether this is your first foray into gardening or you have decades of experience, you’re sure to find helpful tips and instructions in these pages. Happy gardening!

With some, the home vegetable garden is a hobby; with others,
especially in these days of high prices, a great help. There are many
in both classes whose experience in gardening has been restricted
within very narrow bounds, and whose present spare time for gardening
is limited. It is as "first aid" to such persons, who want to do
practical, efficient gardening, and do it with the least possible fuss
and loss of time, that this book is written. In his own experience the
author has found that garden books, while seldom lacking in
information, often do not present it in the clearest possible way. It
has been his aim to make the present volume first of all practical, and
in addition to that, though comprehensive, yet simple and concise. If
it helps to make the way of the home gardener more clear and definite,
its purpose will have been accomplished.

150 page pdf document.

Growth and concentration of the livestock industry create opportunities for the proper disposal of the large quantities of manures generated at dairy, swine, and poultry farms. Pollutants from unmanaged livestock wastes can degrade the environment, and methane emitted from decomposing manure may contribute to global climate change. One management system not only provides pollution prevention but also can convert a manure problem into a new profit center. Economic evaluations and case studies of operating systems indicate that the anaerobic digestion (AD) of livestock manures is a commercially available bioconversion technology with considerable potential for providing profitable coproducts, including a cost-effective renewable fuel for livestock production operations. This Casebook examines some of the current opportunities for the recovery of methane from the AD animal manures. U.S. livestock operations currently employ four types of anaerobic digester technology: slurry, plug-flow, complete-mix, and covered lagoon. An introduction to the engineering economies of these technologies is provided, and possible end-use applications for the methane gas generated by the digestion process are discussed. The economic evaluations are based on engineering studies of digesters that generate electricity from the recovered methane. Case studies of operating digesters, with project and maintenance histories and the operators “lessons learned,” are included as reality checks. Factors necessary for successful projects, as well as a list of reasons explaining why some AD projects fail, are provided. The role of farm management is key; not only must digesters be well engineered and built with high-quality components, they must also be sited at farms willing to incorporate the uncertainties of a new technology. More than two decades of research has provided much information about how manure can be converted to an energy source; however, the American farmer has not been motivated to adopt new practices. More cost-effective and easily managed manure management techniques are still needed to encourage farmers to use animal manure for conversion into energy and nutrients, especially for smaller farms. AD benefits farmers monetarily and mitigates possible manure pollution problems, thereby sustaining development while maintaining environmental quality. Moreover, rural economic development will benefit from the implicit multiplier effect resulting from jobs created by implementing digester systems. Promising future waste-to-profit activities may add to the economic performance of AD. New end-use applications, which provide added value to coproducts, are discussed.

This Agrodok contains detailed information on how to grow three kinds of mushrooms: oyster, shiitake and wood ear mushrooms. These mushrooms are rather easy to grow on a small scale. Cultivation of the common white button mushroom and of the rice straw mushroom is very different and will therefore be dealt with in another Agrodok. Much of the information presented here is from my book “Mushroom cultivation and appropriate technologies for commercial mushroom growers”. By concentrating on three mushroom species only and on relatively simple technologies, I hope readers can obtain a sustainable profit from mushroom growing. Bram van Nieuwenhuijzen was the director of the Mushroom Growers’ Training Centre (nowadays known as C Point) at Horst, The Netherlands, for a number of years. He is currently involved in mushroom cultivation projects in several countries as an adviser through PUM Netherlands Senior Experts in The Hague.

Make your dream of a self-sufficient life a reality with this concise edition of John Seymour's classic guide. With its emphasis on the practical things which busy people in towns, cities and villages - and those who don't have the wherewithal to take the whole plunge - can do to change the way they live for the good of the world around them, this book provides a wealth of realistic and inspiring advice.