I would like to eventually begin growing my own food and herbs. Do any of you have good book recommendations for growing food, herbs, or possibly herbal medicine?
I know there are a million options, so a few places to start would be really helpful. I want to start with herbs in a raised planter. I’m in the midwest US, so I’ll bring the herbs into an indoor greenhouse cabinet during the winter.
The larger scale of trying to eat only my own vegetables and maybe chickens/goats would likely be in the distant future.
You should check out “The backyard homestead” by Carleen Madigan, it starts off small but is set up to scale up easily enough.
- Gaia’s Garden
- Edible Forest Gardens (big text books!)
- Teeming with microbes
- I Contain Multitudes
- Sproutlands: The endless gift of trees
Not necessarily about herbs, per se, but if you want to try creating as much food from your land, these are good places to start. Ecology is important!
Homegrown Harvest: a season-by-season guide to a sustainable kitchen garden from the American Horticultural Society is a good one to check out.
John Jeavons book, How to Grow More Vegetables (than you ever thought possible on less land with less water than you can imagine) is a wonderful reference on the biointensive method (https://johnjeavons.org/books-and-videos/). And it’s now in it’s 9th edition.
