Table of Contents

High-Yield Vegetable Gardens (get pdf)
1. The Quest
Rediscovering Production The Lost Art The Evolving Question Going Organic
2. Soil                                    ... get PDF DOWNLOAD
Soil building  A Thick Quilt of Mulch   How Much Mulch Nourishing with Compost  Compost Happens What Goes Into Your Compost Pile?  As close to a closed-loop system as possible  More compost Compost Tips for Southern California Worm Composting Rocks and bare bones   Soil pH Do-It-Yourself Soil Tests Preparing a new garden The Bad and the Ugly: Bermuda Grass   Bermuda grass containment in a frost-free area "Fertilizer" versus Fertility The Legume Family  A Fungus Among Us  Soil Critter Care Sheet
3. Design
The Big Picture: Site Design Where Should I Plant My Veggies? ; Permaculture Zone Layout ; Water and Grading ; Designing with Maintenance in Mind a few gorgeous food-garden books Garden Configurations Beyond "A Row of Lettuces" ; Raised Beds or Sunken Beds ; Plant Spacings The Details:  The Edible Plant Palette Plant Edibles ; Know Your Plants ; Functional Flowers ; Chill Hours and Rootstocks ; Sequential Harvests
4. Timing
A year-round growing season When Do You Plant Peas? ; Annual or Perennial? ; Southern California's Three Seasons ; Cool Season Veggies Vegetable crop rotations The Complexities of Rotations in a Year-Round Growing Season ; Know Your Plant Families ; Guilds Grace Our Garden ; Our Crop Rotation Cycle ; Recordkeeping What to Plant When in Southern California Plant Families for Rotations
5. Variety  What Should I Grow? Heirloom Varieties ; Vegetables for Shade ; Grains or Not? Use More Parts of the Vegetables You Already Grow Ethnic Flavors  Food Preservation The Dirt on Perennial Vegetables Feral Vegetables 6. Extending Your Harvest Reduce Food Waste Edibles in Containers How Big a Pot? ; Potting Soil ; What grows in Containers ; Watering Container Veggies More Ideas for Growing Food in a Limited Space Gardening for Chickens A Powerdown Medicine Cabinet Seeds: Harvesting for the Future Safe Seeds ; Seed Saving ; Seedling Care
7. Water
Getting Wise about Water Swales and infiltration ; Irrigation ; Food plants that Grow in Lower Water Conditions Watering Techniques The One-Finger Test ; Long and Slow and Deep ; Water the Soil Not the Plant ; In the Cool of the Night; My favorite watering tools Rainwater Harvesting Greywater and Edibles
8. The Birds and the Bees
Organic Pest Control Slugs and Snails Good Bug, Bad Bug Pollinators Grape and Citrus issues Pesky Critters Birds, Dogs, Cats, Rats, Squirrels, Oppossums Mildew, Diseases, and Other Plant Problems 9. Growing Community Life Pace and Food Production; Peak Oil, Peak Everything ; Local Food and Social Justice ; Garden Sharing ; Community Gardens ; Why Eat Local Food?