The Regenerative Gardener's Handbook - by Briana Selstad Bosch (Paperback)

About the Book

"Briana Bosch of Blossom and Branch Farm teaches you how to grow flowers, herbs, and vegetables in a way that improves the soil, supports pollinators and birds, and minimizes the use of store-bought products. The key principles for regenerative gardening: recognize the garden as its own ecosystem, know your soil, minimize the "purchased garden," build your soil armor, plant for biodiversity, create living soil, choose plants wisely, minimize soil disturbance, and close the garden loop"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

In this comprehensive handbook, Briana Bosch of Blossom and Branch Farm teaches you how to grow flowers, herbs, and vegetables in a way that improves the soil, supports pollinators and birds, and minimizes the use of store-bought products.

Eco-conscious gardeners have always done their best to minimize the harm they cause--by not using synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, for example. But today's gardeners want to go beyond "do no harm" and have a positive effect on the environment. The goal of regenerative gardening is to leave the world a better place: to create living soil, improve habitats for insect pollinators and birds, reduce the presence of invasive species, minimize the gardener's carbon footprint and use of plastic, and help sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

Author Briana Bosch, founder of Blossom and Branch Farm, teaches the key principles for regenerative gardening: recognize the garden as its own ecosystem, know your soil, minimize the "purchased garden," build your soil armor, plant for biodiversity, create living soil, choose plants wisely, minimize soil disturbance, and close the garden loop. In addition to teaching all the skills necessary to carry out these principles, Bosch offers a season-by-season guide to implementing them--from when to start garden cleanup in the spring (later that you'd think, to avoid disrupting overwintering beneficial insects) to how to use cover crops strategically to enrich the soil and retain moisture throughout the year.

Review Quotes

"This book condenses a broad range of ecological knowledge into an accessible, practical guide for cultivating healthy, living soil and creating resilient garden ecosystems." --John Kempf, founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture and host of the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

"Bosch, a flower farm owner in Colorado, debuts with an accessible guide to small-scale regenerative farming. This sustainable and cost-effective method requires gardeners to eschew expensive store-bought products like fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, and instead rely on natural mulches like leaves and compost, and restorative techniques such as cover cropping (growing crops, like wheat, for soil protection, not harvesting), no-till farming, and livestock integration. Regenerative gardening, she explains, not only provides nutritious food and exquisite landscapes but also supports cleaner air and water and enables plants, insects, birds, and other organisms to thrive. Throughout, she offers step-by-step guidance for creating such gardens, including how to identify different types of soil (look at it, touch it, and smell it) and determine what it needs (clayey soil, for example, drains poorly and thus benefits from adding organic matter); how to plan a new garden (create a map); and how to make a closed-loop, or self-sustaining, system by upcycling garden waste and bringing in animals like sheep or goats, which offer natural fertilizers and aid in pest control. Providing lucid explanations and anecdotes drawn from her own experiences, Bosch makes regenerative farming approachable and enticing. Readers will be inspired to make gardens that are good for their health and the planet's."--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Briana Selstad Bosch is the founder of Blossom and Branch Farm, a two-acre microfarm in Colorado that uses organic and regenerative processes to grow flowers and native plants that provide habitat for wildlife and pollinators. She teaches regenerative gardening in workshops online and in person, and shares her content with her audience @blossomandbranchfarm.