Recommended better book cook garden home Items
Not All Who Wander Are Lost - Unisex Cuff Bracelet

A timeless take on a classic JRR Tolkien poem is forever captured in rustic sterling silver, serving as shining inspiration. Three ample crossbands of silver snugly clasp the leather cuff, providing a perfect contrast to the chocolate-brown. Available in Women's 7.5-inch and Men's 8.5-inch sizes. Handcrafted in the USA.

Price: 159.99

Harmony and Tranquility Elliptical Raku Vase

The raku vase features a striking elliptical shape, perfect for highlighting dried floral arrangements. The kanji symbols for Harmony and Tranquility are depicted in calligraphy on either side, providing a paramount accent on the vase and a marvelous endorsement in any home. Handcrafted in the USA.

Price: 79.99

Handblown Glass Salt & Pepper Shaker Set - 'Pig & Piglet'

This whimsical pairing will certainly bring a smile to your table! Each shaker is individually handblown (no molds used) in Oregon using high-quality glass and hand-mixed colors. Topped with corrosion-resistant metal caps, this delicate pig and piglet shaker set provides the perfect touch of functional art in any kitchen!

Price: 63.99

Indoor/Outdoor Metal Moon Scupture

Designed and fabricated in the USA, this whimsical moon and star brighten any spot! Cut from weather-safe aluminum, the lightweight nature of the metal allows the sculpture to easily hang on any wall - indoors or outdoors!

Price: 129.99

Contemporary Desk Clock - 'Modern Deco in Metallic'

A truly contemporary desk clock with a fun retro influence! The 'Modern Deco' clock features an original design using Art Deco elements transferred onto sturdy lightweight aluminum with a metallic silver & gold sheen. The metal is given a flowing sculptural curve to allow the clock to stand on its' own while requiring minimal table space. Individually handcrafted in Michigan.

Price: 29.99

The Best better book cook garden home Articles on Wine
Requisites Of The Home Vegetable Garden.

In deciding upon the site for the home vegetable garden it is well to dispose once and for all of the old idea that the garden "patch" must be an ugly spot in the home surroundings. If thoughtfully planned, carefully planted and thoroughly cared for, it may be made a beautiful and harmonious feature of the general scheme, lending a touch of comfortable homeliness that no shrubs, borders, or beds can ever produce.

With this fact in mind we will not feel restricted to any part of the premises merely because it is out of sight behind the barn or garage. In the average moderate-sized place there will not be much choice as to land. It will be necessary to take what is to be had and then do the very best that can be done with it. But there will probably be a good deal of choice as to, first, exposure, and second, convenience. Other things being equal, select a spot near at hand, easy of access. It may seem that a difference of only a few hundred yards will mean nothing, but if one is depending largely upon spare moments for working in and for watching the garden and in the growing of many vegetables the latter is almost as important as the former this matter of convenient access will be of much greater importance than is likely to be at first recognized. Not until you have had to make a dozen time-wasting trips for forgotten seeds or tools, or gotten your feet soaking wet by going out through the dew-drenched grass, will you realize fully what this may mean.

Exposure.
---------

But the thing of first importance to consider in picking out the spot that is to yield you happiness and delicious vegetables all summer, or even for many years, is the exposure. Pick out the "earliest" spot you can find a plot sloping a little to the south or east, that seems to catch sunshine early and hold it late, and that seems to be out of the direct path of the chilling north and northeast winds. If a building, or even an old fence, protects it from this direction, your garden will be helped along wonderfully, for an early start is a great big factor toward success. If it is not already protected, a board fence, or a hedge of some low-growing shrubs or young evergreens, will add very greatly to its usefulness. The importance of having such a protection or shelter is altogether underestimated by the amateur.

The soil.
---------

The chances are that you will not find a spot of ideal garden soil ready for use anywhere upon your place. But all except the very worst of soils can be brought up to a very high degree of productiveness especially such small areas as home vegetable gardens require. Large tracts of soil that are almost pure sand, and others so heavy and mucky that for centuries they lay uncultivated, have frequently been brought, in the course of only a few years, to where they yield annually tremendous crops on a commercial basis. So do not be discouraged about your soil. Proper treatment of it is much more important, and a garden- patch of average run-down, or "never-brought-up" soil will produce much more for the energetic and careful gardener than the richest spot will grow under average methods of cultivation.

The ideal garden soil is a "rich, sandy loam." And the fact cannot be overemphasized that such soils usually are made, not found. Let us analyze that description a bit, for right here we come to the first of the four all-important factors of gardening food. The others are cultivation, moisture and temperature. "Rich" in the gardener's vocabulary means full of plant food; more than that and this is a point of vital importance it means full of plant food ready to be used at once, all prepared and spread out on the garden table, or rather in it, where growing things can at once make use of it; or what we term, in one word, "available" plant food. Practically no soils in long- inhabited communities remain naturally rich enough to produce big crops. They are made rich, or kept rich, in two ways; first, by cultivation, which helps to change the raw plant food stored in the soil into available forms; and second, by manuring or adding plant food to the soil from outside sources.

"Sandy" in the sense here used, means a soil containing enough particles of sand so that water will pass through it without leaving it pasty and sticky a few days after a rain; "light" enough, as it is called, so that a handful, under ordinary conditions, will crumble and fall apart readily after being pressed in the hand. It is not necessary that the soil be sandy in appearance, but it should be friable.

"Loam: a rich, friable soil," says Webster. That hardly covers it, but it does describe it. It is soil in which the sand and clay are in proper proportions, so that neither greatly predominate, and usually dark in color, from cultivation and enrichment. Such a soil, even to the untrained eye, just naturally looks as if it would grow things. It is remarkable how quickly the whole physical appearance of a piece of well cultivated ground will change. An instance came under my notice last fall in one of my fields, where a strip containing an acre had been two years in onions, and a little piece jutting off from the middle of this had been prepared for them just one season. The rest had not received any extra manuring or cultivation. When the field was plowed up in the fall, all three sections were as distinctly noticeable as though separated by a fence. And I know that next spring's crop of rye, before it is plowed under, will show the lines of demarcation just as plainly.

About the Author

You can find out more about gardening in the gardening section of The Free Ad Forum. thefreeadforum/infowizards/CAT/Gardening_75_1.html

News about better book cook garden home
Livestock auctions: Buyers choose locally grown meat at the fair

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:27:00 GMT
In an age where more Americans are concerned about their meat, Californian Cole Rinehart has no illusions.

Table talk: Raw vegan chef Chad Sarno from Saf

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:50:02 GMT
Chad Sarno, a chef specialising in raw vegan food, on the trouble with home cooks, his pig's feet nightmare, and why he wants to cook for George Bush Rachel Dixon Chad Sarno: wishes people would be more open to ...

The home front - Sunday Herald

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:11:27 GMT

The home front
Sunday Herald, UK - Oct 18, 2008
What we eat, how we cook it, how we grow it, how we buy it, and even the way we talk about it are undergoing a revolution. Though this has its roots in ...

British author Amanda Grant has tips for a better school lunch (The Star-Ledger)

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:49:18 GMT
PHOTO BY TARA FISHERLet school-age children help to fill their lunchboxes and it will encourage them to eat healthier meals, says author and food writer Amanda Grant. It's barely two months into the school year, and you're already tearing out...

Ex-Trib president had delightful sense of style

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:29:55 GMT
William McMichael Jones was just known as "Mike" to his friends and will be remembered as a man who enjoyed having those friends over for dinner served with the utmost panache.