Orchard Supplies

Forage, Cultivate, Prepare, Preserve

Once a staple in homes across the world, and found along every highland, highway, and hedgerow, the forgotten elderberry is making a comeback. Its popularity as medicine is surging, its choice as an edible landscaping plant is growing, and its use for wine-making and crafts is being rediscovered.

Spanning history and geography, The Elderberry Book takes you on an adventure, deepening your appreciation of a plant that has played a crucial role across the world for thousands of years. Through this fun, inspirational, and educational resource, discover:

• Elderberry's amazing history
• Cultivating and foraging, from the balcony to the backyard
• Various traditional food and medicine preparations
• Simple wine-making techniques
• Traditional crafts and tools.

This is the definitive guide to the many uses of elderberry; no matter where you are, humankind's oldest plant friend can provide you with anything from syrup to wine to dyes, and more.

Paperback – 128 pages
7.5 Inches × 9 Inches (w × h)

Weight: 353.81 Grams
BISAC: HEALTH & FITNESS / Diet & Nutrition / General
Publisher: New Society Publishers
ISBN: 9780865719194
Pub. Date: 2019-09-24

The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way demystifies the basic skills everybody should know about the inner-workings of the orchard ecosystem, as well as orchard design, soil biology, and organic health management. Detailed insights on grafting, planting, pruning, and choosing the right varieties for your climate are also included, along with a step-by-step instructional calendar to guide growers through the entire orchard year. The extensive profiles of pome fruits (apples, pears, Asian pears, quinces), stone fruits (cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums), and berries (raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, gooseberries, currants, and elderberries) will quickly have you savoring the prospects.

Michael Phillips has been a huge inspiration for how we run things here at Silver Creek Nursery. From considering the principles of orchard ecosystems to the holistic spray recipe we have listed on our website, his knowledge and insight has been an irreplaceable resource for us.

In The Home-Scale Forest Garden, Baker shares what she learned as she became a forest gardener, providing a practical, in-depth guide to creating a beautiful, bountiful edible landscape at any scale—from a few dozen square feet to an acre or more.

Baker provides information on planning, planting, and maintaining a resilient forest garden ecosystem, including:

•   Using permaculture principles
•   Observing and mapping your space
•   Building planting beds, including hügelkultur mounds
•   Coping with saturated soil
•   Matching perennial edible plants to the right growing conditions
•   Grouping plants in diverse layers that attract and shelter beneficial insects and birds
•   Creating microclimates to increase the range of plants you can grow
•   Pruning, propagating, managing pests, and more
•   Expending less energy for greater reward

The Home-Scale Forest Garden is complete with descriptions of over 100 food-bearing and multifunctional plants for every layer of a forest garden: overstory and understory trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants, groundcovers, vines, and mushrooms, too.

A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming

Les Jardins de la Grelinette is a micro-farm located in Eastern Quebec, just north of the American border. Growing on just 1.5 acres, owners Jean-Martin and Maude-Helene feed more than 200 families through their thriving CSA and seasonal market stands and supply their signature mesclun salad mix to dozens of local establishments. The secret of their success is the low-tech, high-yield production methods they've developed by focusing on growing better rather than growing bigger, making their operation more lucrative and viable in the process.

The Market Gardener is a compendium of La Grelinette's proven horticultural techniques and innovative growing methods. This complete guide is packed with practical information on:

• Setting-up a micro-farm by designing biologically intensive cropping systems, all with negligible capital outlay;
• Farming without a tractor and minimizing fossil fuel inputs through the use of the best hand tools, appropriate machinery and minimum tillage practices;
• Growing mixed vegetables systematically with attention to weed and pest management, crop yields, harvest periods and pricing approaches.

Inspired by the French intensive tradition of maraichage and by iconic American vegetable grower Eliot Coleman, author and farmer Jean-Martin shows by example how to start a market garden and make it both very productive and profitable. Making a living wage farming without big capital outlay or acreages may be closer than you think.

Paperback – 224 pages
8.5 Inches × 8.5 Inches (w × h)

Weight: 499 Grams
BISAC: TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Agriculture / Organic
Publisher: New Society Publishers
ISBN: 9780865717657
Pub. Date: 2014-03-01

All around the world, the public’s taste for fermented cider has been growing more rapidly than at any time in the past 150 years. And with the growing interest in locally grown and artisanal foods, many new cideries are springing up all over North America, often started up by passionate amateurs who want to take their cider to the next level as small-scale craft producers.

To make the very best cider—whether for yourself, your family, and friends or for market—you first need a deep understanding of the processes involved, and the art and science behind them. Fortunately, The New Cider Maker’s Handbook is here to help. Author Claude Jolicoeur is an internationally known, award-winning cider maker with an inquiring, scientific mind. His book combines the best of traditional knowledge and techniques with up-to-date, scientifically based practices to provide today’s cider makers with all the tools they need to produce high-quality ciders.

The New Cider Maker’s Handbook is divided into five parts containing:

• An accessible overview of the cider making process for beginners;
• Recommendations for selecting and growing cider-appropriate apples;
• Information on juice-extraction equipment and directions on how to build your own grater mill and cider press;
• A discussion of the most important components of apple juice and how these may influence the quality of the cider;
• An examination of the fermentation process and a description of methods used to produce either dry or naturally sweet cider, still or sparkling cider, and even ice cider.

This book will appeal to both serious amateurs and professional cider makers who want to increase their knowledge, as well as to orchardists who want to grow cider apples for local or regional producers. Novices will appreciate the overview of the cider-making process, and, as they develop skills and confidence, the more in-depth technical information will serve as an invaluable reference that will be consulted again and again. This book is sure to become the definitive modern work on cider making.

A mechanical engineer by profession, Claude Jolicoeur first developed his passion for apples and cider after acquiring a piece of land on which there were four rows of old abandoned apple trees. He started making cider in 1988 using a “no-compromise” approach, stubbornly searching for the highest possible quality. Since then, his ciders have earned many awards and medals at competitions, including a Best of Show at the prestigious Great Lakes International Cider and Perry Competition (GLINTCAP).

Claude actively participates in discussions on forums like the Cider Digest, and is regularly invited as a guest speaker to events such as the annual Cider Days festival in western Massachusetts. He lives in Quebec City.

Wade Muggleton has distilled 20 years of orchard know-how into this practical handbook to help you plan, plant, and manage your orchard, whatever your garden size or budget.

With his expert guidance you can have an orchard on any plot—garden, yard, allotment or smallholding—and both maximise your harvest and minimise your outlay. The book covers:

• Rootstocks and fruit varieties
• Planting plans
• Maintenance strategies
• Pruning
• Propagation
• Eco-friendly pest and disease management
• Harvesting
• Storing
• Preserving the harvest

In The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments, experimental gardener and author Nigel Palmer provides practical, detailed instructions that are accessible to every grower who wants to achieve a truly sustainable garden ecosystem—all while enjoying better results at a fraction of the cost of commercial fertilizer products. These recipes go beyond fertilizer replacement, resulting in greater soil biological activity and mineral availability. They also increase pest and disease resistance, yields, and nutrient density.

TM-7 contains a blend of seven micronutrients as well as concentrated humic and fulvic acid. It can be used to stimulate microbial activity, increase nutrient uptake, and reduce nutrient leaching. It improves soil structure, builds plant immunity, and promotes growth and increased yields.

Derived from: Boron, cobalt sulfate, copper sulfate, ferrous sulfate, manganese sulfate, sodium molybdenate, zinc sulfate and chelated with humic and fulvic acids derived from fresh water cretaceous humate deposits.

Application: Can be used for seed activation and soil or foliar applications

Soil, container, or foliar application: 0.75-1.25g/gal

Field application: 2-4 pounds per acre every 3-6 weeks  

Soil: Good for all soil types including containers and hydroponics  

Technical Data

SDS

These stretchy bands are designed to help you train your tree! Simply attach them to the trunk of a tree or a nearby stake and then to a young branch to gently pull it down into a more horizontal position, promoting fruit production and strong scaffold layers. 

For more information on the benefits of training branches and how to use the tree training bands, read Orchard People's article here!

These bands feature a convenient hook so you can connect multiple bands together to adjust the length and tension as needed when tying down a branch. 

Are you wondering which productive trees to plant in your garden? Or are you planning a forest garden? Perhaps you are planting an orchard but want a greater diversity of useful trees than is typical? Or you’d like to know what unusual fruit trees you can use? The answers to all these questions can be found in master forest gardener Martin Crawford’s new book.

Martin Crawford's expertise has been a great resource for us here at Silver Creek Nursery and much of the information he has collected on fruit trees over the years has helped us to understand our own trees better.