It’s time to reclaim Earth Day’s original spirit and celebrate in a new way: get dirty!

It turns out that the cure for what ails our planet is right at our feet. This Earth Day, learn about the importance of soil, the danger of encroaching desertification, and how you can help stop climate change — starting right in your own backyard.

Happy reading from the folks at Chelsea Green Publishing!

Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth Retail: $17.95 Discount: $11.67 “Judith Schwartz’s book gives us not just hope but also a sense that we humans—serial destroyers that we are—can actually turn the climate crisis around. This amazing book, wide-reaching in its research, offers nothing less than solutions for healing the planet.” —Gretel Ehrlich, from the foreword

Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, and Secure Food Systems Retail: $19.95 Discount: $12.97     “The future of food is local. But how do we transition from our current globalized, supermarket-centered food world to one that’s human-scaled and ecosystem-friendly? This book shows us how. If you eat, you really should read it.” —Richard Heinberg, author of The End of Growth and Peak Everything

The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times Retail: $29.95 Discount: $19.47     “Growing food is among the most positive changes anyone can make in the face of uncertainty about the future. The Resilient Gardener is an information-packed resource for people starting or expanding a garden practice.” —Sandor Ellix Katz, author, The Art of Fermentation and Wild Fermentation       . Earth Day Sale: 35% Off   Retail: $29.95 Sale: $19.47    Retail: $22.50 Sale: $14.63     Retail: $17.95 Sale: $11.67       Retail: $14.95 Sale: $9.72     Retail: $12.95 Sale: $8.42   Retail: $25.00 Sale: $16.25   Retail: $90.25 Sale: $58.66     Retail: $19.95 Sale: $12.97     Retail: $22.50 Sale $14.63       Retail: $17.95 Sale: $11.67     Retail: $19.95 Sale: $12.97     Retail: $25.00 Sale: $16.25     Retail: $24.95 Sale: $16.22     Retail: $19.95 Sale: $12.97       Retail: $15.00 Sale: $9.75

Want a new economy, one that cares for people and the planet over pure profit? These books will teach you how — and they’re all on sale until April 30th.

Be a part of the “next American revolution”, one where green jobs and worker-owned companies make wealth democratic! What Then Must We Do? is a must-read book for anyone who cares about the future.

Are you a entrepreneur working to make your community better? You’re not alone! Judy Wicks is the woman who invented local economies, and her memoir Good Morning, Beautiful Business will show you how a cooperative business can bring prosperity to you and your community.  

Happy Reading from the folks at Chelsea Green Publishing!

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If you want to turn a barren lot into a permaculture paradise, you’ve got to start from the ground up.

Sheet mulching is an easy way to start. You start with a biodegradable weed barrier like cardboard, and from there build a thick, layered substrate for your garden with compost and mulch. As the materials break down, worms move in, softening the soil below, and creating a healthy, aerated planting bed where once there was compacted, dead clay.

Eric Toensmeier transformed his rocky, desolate tenth of an acre into a modern-day Garden of Eden with this and other permaculture methods. He shares the skills and tips you need to do it yourself in his best-selling book Perennial Vegetables. For the visual learners out there, Toensmeier also has a new DVD, which is available alone or as a set with the book.

For even more about the stunning transformation from bare ground to lush garden, Toensmeier’s memoir Paradise Lot tells the whole story of how he not only made a little patch of earth a little greener, he found love, too.

So, without further ado, here’s Eric Toensmeier’s simple 9-step method for sheet mulching!

The following is an excerpt from Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener’s Guide to Over 100 Delicious, Easy-to-Grow Edibles, by Eric Toensmeier.

Sheet mulching combines soil improvement, weed removal, and long-term mulching in one fell swoop. This technique, also known as lasagna gardening, can build remarkable soils in just a few years. There are several key components. First, a weed barrier like cardboard is laid down to smother weeds. In theory (and quite often in practice) the cardboard decomposes after the weeds have all died and turned into compost. The second ingredient is to add compost, or build a layered compost pile that will enrich your new garden bed. The third step is to add a thick layer of mulch on top, to keep new weeds from getting established. I have had great results with sheet mulching, although sometimes the first year is a bit rough on delicate species, until the raw materials break down. You can use sheet mulching to turn lawns or weedy waste areas into gardens in just a few hours, or even to build soil from scratch inside built frames for raised beds. Sheet mulch can range from just a few inches thick to 2 feet or more, depending on how bad your soil is and how much raw material you have available (it will cook down and settle quite a bit). For more information see Patricia Lanza’s Lasagna Gardening, or Edible Forest Gardens.

Nine Simple Steps to Sheet Mulching

1. Mow or cut your lawn, weeds, or other vegetation right down to the ground.
2. Plant any crops that will require a large planting hole (including woody plants, perennials in large pots, and large transplants).
3. Add soil amendments (as determined by your soil test).
4. Water the whole area thoroughly. You are going to be putting a layer of cardboard or newspaper over it, and rain and irrigation won’t soak through very well until that weed barrier breaks down. Water also helps the decomposition process get going.
5. If you have compost materials that may contain weed seeds (like fresh manure, leaves, or hay), spread them in layers on the ground. Put a dry, carbonaceous layer of hay or shredded leaves below any manure layer. Avoid thick layers, and make sure to get a good carbon-to-nitrogen ratio just as if you were building a compost pile. Water this layer well.
6. Lay down a weed barrier. I prefer to use large sheets of cardboard from appliance stores, because these last longer and are quicker to lie down. You can use layers of wet newspaper too. Make sure to have a 4- to 6-inch overlap where sheets meet so buried weeds can’t find a route to the surface. If you have already planted crops, or have other preexisting plants, don’t mulch over them. Cut holes in the cardboard to make some breathing space for each plant (or leave some room around each plant when laying newspaper).
7. Now you can add your weed-free organic materials. I like to keep it simple, and just add a nice layer of compost. You can also do some sheet composting here, alternating layers of nitrogen-rich materials like fresh grass clippings with carbonaceous materials like weed-free straw.
8. Now you add your final top mulch layer, at least 3 inches thick. Water the whole bed thoroughly once again. Your sheet mulch bed is complete.
9. You can plant right into your bed if you like. To plant tubers or potted plants, just pull back the top layers until you get to the weed barrier. Cut an X in the cardboard or newspaper. If you are transplanting a large plant, peel back the corners of the X. Throw a double handful of compost in the planting hole and then put in the plant. Pull the layers and top mulch back around the plant, water well, and you’re all set. Planting seeds is easy too. Just pull back the top mulch to the compost layer and plant your seeds. You may want to cut through the weed barrier below first, depending on weed pressure below the barrier. If you are planting seeds, be sure to water regularly, as compost on top of cardboard can dry out quickly.

The author’s Massachusetts front yard before sheet mulching. The soils are very poor fill from new construction.

Addition of rotted leaves below thick paper bags as a weed barrier with a layer of compost and mulch on top—just a few hours of work.

By mid-summer the garden is thriving with sweet potato, taro, edible hibiscus, and hardy bananas (yes, they over-winter in Massachusetts, but they don’t fruit here).

Jonathan Bates enjoys the results of our first year of sheet mulching. This garden has just gotten better each year. Note the fantastic growth of hyacinth beans!

This week started off with some fantastic news: The Art of Fermentation is in the running for a James Beard Foundation book award! Nominated in the Reference and Scholarship category, Sandor Katz’s tome on all things fermented automatically joins the ranks of nominees vying for the foundation’s prestigious Cookbook of the Year.

We’ve got our fingers crossed for Katz to capture this prize, which would add to the already impressive list of accomplishments for his latest book, including landing a spot on the New York Times Bestseller list, and helping lead Chelsea Green to a year of record sales.

In the meantime, Katz is not alone in earning accolades this awards season. Several Chelsea Green titles are in the running for prestigious awards, and a few have already come home with the grand prize.

Winners

• The American Horticultural Society Book Award was announced last week, and Chelsea Green books took two of the five slots. Janisse Ray’s The Seed Underground (“This book immediately drove me to action,” says Kathy LaLiberte, who was inspired to seek out rare sweet potato varieties to grow. “It has the power to have a profound ripple effect among gardeners as well as in popular culture,” she adds.), and John Navazio’s The Organic Seed Grower (“There’s nothing else like this guide with so much detail about how to protect the diversity of open-pollinated plants,” says Hurst.)
• And sweeping yet another award, Janisse Ray also won the American Society of Journalists and Authors’s Arlene Eisenberg Award for Writing that Makes a Difference for The Seed Underground.

Finalists

• The International Association of Culinary Professionals announced its finalists last month, and we’re proud to be among them. IACP Cookbook Award Finalists include: Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking, Art of Fermentation (going head-to-head in the Food and Beverage Reference/Technical category), and Cheese and Culture (in the Culinary History category)
• As mentioned above, The Art of Fermentation is a James Beard Foundation Book Award finalist in Reference and Scholarship category, marking the first time in more than a decade that a Chelsea Green title has been a finalist for a Beard award. Read the full list of nominees here (PDF).

Deserving its own entire list, ForeWord Reviews announced finalists for its Book of the Year Awards! We’re nominated in the following categories:

And last but not least, the distributed title Honeycomb Kids is a finalist in the Family & Relationships category, as well as the Ecology & Environment category.

Good luck finalists, and congratulations winners!

Buildings use a whopping 42% of America’s total energy each year, and a mind-boggling 72% of all electricity generated. That’s more than any other single sector of the economy, and according to the research in RMI’s book Reinventing Fire cutting the wasted energy from buildings by maximizing efficiency could save, get this: $1.4 trillion!

You can experience the latest in the push for efficient and sustainable buildings yourself. From March 5-7, The Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) brings its annual conference, BuildingEnergy, to the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, MA. BuildingEnergy is three days of trade show exhibits, live demos, 60 sessions offering cutting-edge information on renewable energy and high-performance building, and 24 intensive workshops.

This is the spot where architects, energy experts, builders, DIYers, and owners come together to keep abreast of the latest options for sustainability, and hear from top speakers and instructors from around the country.

Chelsea Green authors on the scene include:

• Jacob Deva Racusin (co-author, with Ace McArleton, of The Natural Building Companion and a pioneer in building science for natural design and construction) will present on creating resilient capacity—not just in homes and buildings, but also in communities.
• John Abrams (author of Companies We Keep and co-founder and CEO of the employee-owned South Mountain Company) will speak about how to build the kind generative economies that can promote sustainability.
• And all those inspired by Amory Lovin’s and the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Reinventing Fire, a roadmap for getting the nation off oil by 2050, should check out the multiple presentations by Kendra Tupper, a senior RMI consultant focused on deep retrofits of existing buildings, whole building energy analysis, energy efficient HVAC design, and life cycle cost analysis.

To register or find out more, visit www.nesea.org/buildingenergy.

Tired of winter yet? Dreaming of spring? Our new crop of spring titles have arrived to give you something to read until the thaw comes — all on sale for 35% off until March 15th!

From natural beekeeping and saving seeds, to cold weather gardening and growing perennials, our newest books (and DVDs!) will teach you new skills for a holistic and sustainable future.

 If you’re a small farmer who wants to leave fossil fuels behind, Stephen Leslie’s book The New Horse-Powered Farm will teach you how to use draft horses to grow vegetables — and put your tractor out to pasture. For aspiring orchardists, we’ve brought a revised and updated edition of The Grafter’s Handbook back to print—this indispensable manual will remain the go-to guide for a new generation of orchardists.

In case you missed it, Anne Raver of the New York Times wrote about the “permaculture paradise” in Paradise Lot for Valentine’s Day: “It was the build-it-and-they-will-come principle…two self-described plant geeks [bought] a soulless duplex on a barren lot in this industrial city 10 years ago and turned it into their own version of the Garden of Eden. Their Eves, they figured, would show up sooner or later.” Spoiler alert: it worked!

We hope love grows in your garden this spring too.

Happy Reading from the folks at Chelsea Green Publishing!

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Before we know it the growing season will be upon us, so now is the perfect time to take care of any pre-season grafting. Learning the art and science of grafting fruit trees can give an old tree a new life, or perhaps give some continuing life to a variety you love.

The Grafter’s Handbook by R. J. Garner is the classic reference book for this time-honored skill. First published in 1946, and last revised in 1988, we’re pleased to publish this sixth revised and updated edition. Revised and updated by respected horticulturist Steve Bradley, this  indispensable manual will remain the go-to guide for a new generation of orchardists.

In the excerpt below, Garner outlines basic concepts and details five key techniques for grafting established trees, such as cleft, oblique, rind, veneer, crown and strap grafting.

And the book covers many more aspects of grafting, everything  the dedicated amateur, student or professional horticulturalist wants to know.

Grafting Established Trees - An Excerpt from The Grafter’s Handbook by Chelsea Green Publishing

The latest installment in our series of projects for the hardcore DIYer is a great idea for the post-apocalyptic future…but also a challenging and fun craft for any era!

Matthew Stein’s book, When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency, offers this quick guide to making your own shoes. The book is packed with useful tips for saving money, living a sustainable lifestyle, and surviving in a savage, Road Warrior-like dystopia.

We hope that will never happen, but if it does, at least your toes will be stylin’ and safe.

Have you made your own shoes? If you do, share a picture with us! Visit our Facebook page and join the conversation. We’d love to hear from you.

The following article was adapted for the web from When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency.

In pioneering days, a good-fitting pair of shoes was a truly valuable possession. Often, when shoemakers passed through a village, they would make several pairs of shoes for each person who could afford them, as it might be years before they had the opportunity to purchase another pair of good-fitting shoes. Making your own traditional boots is not easy, but sandals and moccasins are easy and rewarding leathercraft projects for the beginner.

Soles can be attached with stitching, primitive hide glues, more modern glues such as Barge Cement, or nailed in place (cobbling). McNett Corporation makes an excellent urethane shoe-repair cement, called Freesole, which can be used to repair holes in shoes and worn soles or glue new soles in place. Freesole is available through backcountry suppliers and shoe-repair shops. It is reportedly much stronger than Barge Cement and withstands much higher temperatures, but I have not tried it yet for gluing soles in place. See Chapter 14 for instructions on how to make your own glues.

Sinews, heavy waxed nylon thread, or multistrand wire are all good, strong materials for stitching together footwear. If you scavenge wire for thread, make sure that the strands are fine or else constant flexing will cause the metal to fatigue and the wire to break. Shoe soles and straps can be nailed together by a process called “cobbling.” Shoe soles that were attached by simply nailing short nails through the soles into the midsole would soon work loose and fall off. Traditional cobblers use nails with slender, tapering tips that are nailed through the straps and soles against a metal anvil, bending the nail tips backward so that they form a hook shape. By bending the nail tips, the sole or strap is captured in such a way that the nails can’t easily work their way back out.

Cast-off rubber tires make great sandals and soles. Thomas J. Elpel, author of Participating in Nature1, believes that the best all-around homemade footgear is a tire sandal worn over a moccasin. You can wear holes in a pair of moccasins in less than a day of rough travel, and tire sandals can wear a hole in your feet (blisters) in a few hours. When you wear the two together, you get the comfort of moccasins combined with the durability of tire sandals. Around camp you can wear just the moccasins. When fording rivers, wear just the sandals. Using a band saw, sharp knife, chisel, hacksaw, or coping saw, cut tire sandals and buckles from older-style tires that don’t have steel belts.

Use the pattern shown in Figure 10-27 as a rough guide. Start by tracing the outline of your foot on a piece of paper. Add about 3/8 inch to the front and sides, but not the heel area. Make two marks at the centers of your anklebones (A) and a mark at the side of the ball of your foot, directly behind your big toe (B). Draw lines through these points, as shown in the pattern, to help you locate the strap loops. The strap loops are designed for 3/4-inch-wide webbing. If you use a different size of strap material, adjust and customize your pattern as necessary to fit your foot. Cut out your pattern as you would a paper doll, and lay it on the tire to mark the outline for cutting the rubber (Elpel 1999, 134).

Click here to listen to the story of the shoe cobbler on NPR.

From Golden, Colorado to Washington, D.C., the story of a small forest in New Jersey is finding admirers.Sourlands, distributed on DVD by Chelsea Green Publishing and Hundred Year Films, hits the road in 2013 as an official selection of the Colorado Environmental Film Festival, the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital, and the Princeton Environmental Film Festival.

“The film explores a timely question: With 7 billion people on Earth, how can we make sure the natural world doesn’t get squeezed into oblivion?” says director Jared Flesher.

To find answers, Flesher went to a small forest in New Jersey — the nation’s most densely populated state — and started following around the locals. The colorful subjects of the film are a diverse bunch: hunters, farmers, birders, biologists, engineers, and entrepreneurs.

“Ultimately, this isn’t a story about trees,” says Flesher. “It’s a story about regular people looking for good, meaningful work, a sense of home, and some balance in their lives.”

Flesher worked as a one-man film crew, exploring every corner of the Sourlands forest and the surrounding community over 16 months of production. He credits a 1968 book by author John McPhee, The Pine Barrens, as an inspiration for the film.

“John McPhee showed me that the best way to tell an environmental story relevant to people everywhere is, paradoxically, to tell a good story about just one small corner of the world.”

Sourlands screens at the Princeton Environmental Film Festival on Feb. 9, the Colorado Environmental Film Festival on Feb. 24, and the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital on March 13. A full listing of upcoming Sourlands screenings is available at www.sourlands.com.

Director Jared Flesher can be reached at jtflesher@gmail.com.

In an era of ebooks and digital friends, good old fashioned fellowship is still one of the best ways to share inspiring ideas, swap tips with fellow craftsmen in your field, and start learning a new skill.

Winter is the season of sustainable farming conferences where you can do just that, and several of our authors are hitting the road to share their stories and their expertise. Take a look at the full list of author conference appearances here.

Whether you’re interested in fermentation, cheesemaking, running a resilient homestead, or using horses for draft power, sustainable farming conferences are a great opportunity to get hands-on experience and find mentors to guide you. Some highlights from the coming season include:

•     Jack Lazor’s workshop on growing and processing oats in Vermont (NOFA-VT, February 15-17)
•     Gianaclis Caldwell’s workshop on managing a raw milk dairy safely (PASA, February 8-9)
•     Stephen Leslie’s workshop on The New Horse-Powered Farm (NOFA-NH, March 1-2)
•     Eliot Coleman’s seminar on keeping the farm in the family (NOFA-VT, February 15-17)

In addition to our authors, Chelsea Green staff will be at many of these winter conferences, and many of our books will be available to browse in-person. We love getting a chance to talk face to face with our readers, so please stop by to say hello.

We hope to see you out there!

P.S. Have you ‘liked’ us yet? Our Facebook page is a great way to stay connected to our authors, find out about special events, get how-to tips for gardening, as well as plenty of news about the politics and practice of sustainability. So, if you haven’t yet, click on over, and let us know how much you ‘like‘ us!

Winter Conference Kick Off Sale: 35% off 

 Books on sale until February 15th.