By Delilah Smittle and Sheri Ann Richerson

Even for the less-than-green thumbs among us, gardening during the spring and summer seems straightforward enough: you put a seed in the ground and try not to kill it before it turns into something edible. But there’s not much you can do if you’re really craving a home-grown tomato in the dead of January. For more ambitious gardeners, Smittle and Richerson provide methods for maintaining a garden year-round, through root cellars, indoor gardening, covered gardens, greenhouses and more, and they offer detailed information on how to put it all together and keep it maintained. It’s advanced enough for experienced gardeners, but simple enough for the plant-and-pray variety as well.

By Scott Meyer.

It doesn’t matter if you’re living in an apartment with a single window or a house with a spacious yard, this book has options for you. Meyer covers everything from hanging gardens to cheese-making to inner-city goat herding, with interesting factoids and illustrations to help out for most steps of the way. Be warned, though: this is a book for beginners, and it goes for breadth rather than delving deep into any one technique. You get the basics of what you need to do to get started and a rough idea of the steps you need to take to get more advanced. From that point you’ll know enough to look up the rest online or at your local library.

By Ellen Ruppel Shell.

You’ve heard it everywhere: from lead in Chinese-made toys, to the evils of fast food, to grandpa telling you that kids these days don’t appreciate real value anymore. Now Ellen Ruppel Shell is looking at what our penny-pinching ways do to us on every level. She begins at the the close of the 18^th century, back when post-revolutionary America started jonesing for cheap firearms for their next war, and follows the trail past factory fires, child labor and our modern itch to outsource. But while we’ve made an art of the infamous “cut and run,” our health and environment — even our own abilities to think and perceive — are left holding the bill.

By Sheri Ann Richerson, 2010, Life Tips, Inc.

Having been an organic gardener “forever,” I was curious to see what new ideas exist for earth-friendly gardening. In 101 Organic Gardening Tips, Sheri Ann Richerson gave me fresh and specific tips without a lot of verbiage. Reasons for companion planting, intercropping, and two-layer planting are succinctly explained with multiple examples. Besides specific advice on growing veggies, Richardson covers herbs, fruits and ornamentals. Her info on native plants, trees, and shrubs, and on collecting wild seed or plants is ecologically sound. I’ve found many new ideas (such as starting carrot seeds in toilet paper rolls and tackling mealy bugs on house plants), and was pleased to see additional material on conserving water, composting, and even garden recycling.

My only dispute with Richerson is her comment that “growing plants organically can be time-consuming and labor-intensive.” I politely disagree, believing that the methods are no more difficult than the processes of chemical gardening with its regular mixing and spraying schedules. And time in the garden with birds, butterflies, and beneficial insects is immensely rewarding.

Nonetheless, the short single-page advice in 101 Organic Gardening Tips makes this a perfect pick-up book for quick ideas for eco-gardening. The Kindle option makes it even greener.