Price : $8.79

Product Description

Create your own private nature preserve-with dozens of ingenious ideas to turn a typical backyard into a beautiful natural habitat for birds and other wildlife.

Experience the gratification of watching birds gobble seeds and other treats from your homemade bird feeder. Look on with delight as a mother bird tends to her babies in the protective hideaway of a birdhouse you have lovingly constructed from a dried gourd. Create a sunflower plantation, a bird teepee, a tent-style twig feeder, a pedestal birdbath. Follow the step-by-step instructions in this book, and your yard will quickly become an enticing playground, breeding ground, and feeding ground for colorful songbirds. And that’s not all-there are also projects specially designed to attract beautiful hummingbirds and butterflies to your garden.

Among the book’s special features:
- Projects require only a few simple tools and supplies and most can be easily and inexpensively assembled using only scrap materials found around the house

- Information-packed sidebars include tips for identifying the nests and eggs of songbirds and unusual facts and figures about birds and bird behavior

- Instructions show how to create baffles and barriers to keep squirrels, raccoons, and other unwanted guess away from the birdseed-along with projects for tending to these feeder-raiding marauders too!

The simple pleasure of viewing birds in your backyard is something to treasure every day of the year. Whether you are a seasoned bird watcher or are new to the hobby, you will find a wealth of inspirational ideas here to attract more birds than ever before to your backyard. And you’ll increase your enjoyment of this soul-satisfying pastime.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-07-18
Some great ideas…quite practical uses for otherwise discarded items and the birds really do respond! Highly recommend for group scouting project ideas because they generally don’t require specialized tools or unusual materials. I recycled several items that were otherwised destined to be thrown away. Thanks! Enjoy!

Review date : 2008-02-24
I own a good dozen or more books on how to attract birds to my garden. This book is definitely one of my favorites.

It contains a variety of very easy projects on best ways of providing seeds, making your own bird treats (like those expensive seed bells they sell in stores), creating feeding stations, planting habitats, setting up water stations, birdhouses and more. There is also a section devoted to hummingbirds and butterflies.

I really like that it isn’t a bird or plant identification book. One of my pet peeves with many of my other "project" books is that they dilute their content by including bird identification charts for instance – often up to 1/3 of the book with another third devoted to pictures and descriptions of the plants. I’d rather leave that to a specialized book and let my project books be filled with (imagine this) projects! There is a small amount of this type of information in this book, but it’s generally to the point and captured in simple and easy to read charts. I would suggest anyone looking for that type of material should buy appropriate field guides.

I love that the projects are pretty much entirely able to be made from recycled materials (like using the plastic tubes that tennis balls come in or metal coffee cans or plastic plant saucers for instance) and scrap wood. They are very easy and could be wonderful projects for engaging your kids with nature and getting fast results. Tips are also included for maintenance too (such as keeping feeding stations looking their best).

I also love the garden ideas – simple plans for small patches of specialized garden areas – there’s one for a self-renewing bird attracting garden with a ton of seed-producing annual flowering plants for instance; a garden for producing nesting materials, another for attracting butterflies by providing food for their caterpillars, one for hummingbirds and a number of others.

Overall, if you are trying to attract birds to your yard and especially if you are looking for ideas for projects you can do with your kids to give them an appreciation for nature, I think you can’t go wrong with this book.

Review date : 2007-12-27
This book will delight the Do-It-Yourself types who would rather put something together and attract birds to their backyards than to merely observe them in the wild. It’s a sturdy, glossy trade paperback with detailed line-drawings, tables, side-bars, and step-by-step project sheets.

It starts with a section of fast-and-easy projects for beginners to get your feet wet with the easiest of the various types of woodworking, cooking, and gardening projects you can do to attract birds.

Later chapters go into detail on each of the specialties (woodworking, cooking, gardening) so that you can either do it all or just focus on the chapters that address your talents.

The book also includes a Projects-at-a-Glance index so you can look up things to do involving Nesting, Water, Landscaping, et cetera. Highly recommended. Longer review at OrnateBirdGarden-dot-com.

Review date : 2007-02-21
This is a great book for anyone interested in backyard birding, no matter what size your backyard may be. There are articles on how to attract, feed, and house different birds.

Review date : 2007-02-16
I like this book. I’m a new bird watcher. I’ve made some of the projects mentioned in this book and they work quite well.

Price : $8.79

Product Description

Create your own private nature preserve-with dozens of ingenious ideas to turn a typical backyard into a beautiful natural habitat for birds and other wildlife.

Experience the gratification of watching birds gobble seeds and other treats from your homemade bird feeder. Look on with delight as a mother bird tends to her babies in the protective hideaway of a birdhouse you have lovingly constructed from a dried gourd. Create a sunflower plantation, a bird teepee, a tent-style twig feeder, a pedestal birdbath. Follow the step-by-step instructions in this book, and your yard will quickly become an enticing playground, breeding ground, and feeding ground for colorful songbirds. And that’s not all-there are also projects specially designed to attract beautiful hummingbirds and butterflies to your garden.

Among the book’s special features:
- Projects require only a few simple tools and supplies and most can be easily and inexpensively assembled using only scrap materials found around the house

- Information-packed sidebars include tips for identifying the nests and eggs of songbirds and unusual facts and figures about birds and bird behavior

- Instructions show how to create baffles and barriers to keep squirrels, raccoons, and other unwanted guess away from the birdseed-along with projects for tending to these feeder-raiding marauders too!

The simple pleasure of viewing birds in your backyard is something to treasure every day of the year. Whether you are a seasoned bird watcher or are new to the hobby, you will find a wealth of inspirational ideas here to attract more birds than ever before to your backyard. And you’ll increase your enjoyment of this soul-satisfying pastime.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-07-18
Some great ideas…quite practical uses for otherwise discarded items and the birds really do respond! Highly recommend for group scouting project ideas because they generally don’t require specialized tools or unusual materials. I recycled several items that were otherwised destined to be thrown away. Thanks! Enjoy!

Review date : 2008-02-24
I own a good dozen or more books on how to attract birds to my garden. This book is definitely one of my favorites.

It contains a variety of very easy projects on best ways of providing seeds, making your own bird treats (like those expensive seed bells they sell in stores), creating feeding stations, planting habitats, setting up water stations, birdhouses and more. There is also a section devoted to hummingbirds and butterflies.

I really like that it isn’t a bird or plant identification book. One of my pet peeves with many of my other "project" books is that they dilute their content by including bird identification charts for instance – often up to 1/3 of the book with another third devoted to pictures and descriptions of the plants. I’d rather leave that to a specialized book and let my project books be filled with (imagine this) projects! There is a small amount of this type of information in this book, but it’s generally to the point and captured in simple and easy to read charts. I would suggest anyone looking for that type of material should buy appropriate field guides.

I love that the projects are pretty much entirely able to be made from recycled materials (like using the plastic tubes that tennis balls come in or metal coffee cans or plastic plant saucers for instance) and scrap wood. They are very easy and could be wonderful projects for engaging your kids with nature and getting fast results. Tips are also included for maintenance too (such as keeping feeding stations looking their best).

I also love the garden ideas – simple plans for small patches of specialized garden areas – there’s one for a self-renewing bird attracting garden with a ton of seed-producing annual flowering plants for instance; a garden for producing nesting materials, another for attracting butterflies by providing food for their caterpillars, one for hummingbirds and a number of others.

Overall, if you are trying to attract birds to your yard and especially if you are looking for ideas for projects you can do with your kids to give them an appreciation for nature, I think you can’t go wrong with this book.

Review date : 2007-12-27
This book will delight the Do-It-Yourself types who would rather put something together and attract birds to their backyards than to merely observe them in the wild. It’s a sturdy, glossy trade paperback with detailed line-drawings, tables, side-bars, and step-by-step project sheets.

It starts with a section of fast-and-easy projects for beginners to get your feet wet with the easiest of the various types of woodworking, cooking, and gardening projects you can do to attract birds.

Later chapters go into detail on each of the specialties (woodworking, cooking, gardening) so that you can either do it all or just focus on the chapters that address your talents.

The book also includes a Projects-at-a-Glance index so you can look up things to do involving Nesting, Water, Landscaping, et cetera. Highly recommended. Longer review at OrnateBirdGarden-dot-com.

Review date : 2007-02-21
This is a great book for anyone interested in backyard birding, no matter what size your backyard may be. There are articles on how to attract, feed, and house different birds.

Review date : 2007-02-16
I like this book. I’m a new bird watcher. I’ve made some of the projects mentioned in this book and they work quite well.

Price : $9.78

Product Description

Everything you need to know about growing your favorite herbs using safe, natural, all-organic methods!

Practical tips and advice on all aspects of successful herb growing.

A wealth of great ideas and helpful how-to on using herbs in cooking, crafts, cosmetics, health care, insect repellents, and more.

Illustrated herb directory featuring all the most popular herbs– from aloe to yarrow– each with complete information on growing, care, harvesting, and uses.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-09-10
The book describes how to grow, harvest and uses of each herb in the book and it covers all the main herbs and more. Excellent descriptions as well as illustrations on how to do everything so even for the unexperienced grower it would be easy to learn. Very happy with my new book.

Review date : 2008-08-31
While the book doesn’t cover as many herbs as I had hoped, it gets to all the major ones. More importantly, the information provided is thorough and presented in a non-overwhelming, easy-to-read way. Each page tells the reader how easy the plant is to grow, whether it can be grown in a container, what zone it grows best in, how to harvest, propagate, and store the herb, and all sorts of other pertinent info.

The first portion of the book covers planning one’s garden, planting techniques and gives instructions for several methods for using herbs (flavored oils, teas, etc.). There are plenty of useful charts throughout which make this a great quick reference guide.

The author safely shies away from giving too much information on medicinal uses for the herbs, so those looking for information and instructions regarding herbal remedies should definitely purchase another book in addition to this one.

Review date : 2007-12-17
A very useful book for the home gardener. A quick guide for growing, harvesting and using herbs.

Review date : 2007-06-09
This is a relatively small book at about 150 pages, but it manages to pack in a lot of information very concisely. It’s beautifully illustrated with color photographs and drawings.

The first 2/3 of the book includes general herb gardening background and use of herbs tips: how to choose plants, pick the location, general design principles, planting instructions (including some nice tips on extending the growing season), propagation, harvesting, drying, pests and diseases, etc.

It also includes suggestions for common culinary uses, such as salads, herbal vinegars, flavored oils, teas, jellies, honeys, and breads. These are not an extensive set of recipes, but more like master recipes with some suggestions for how you can mix them up with variations.

The book also includes suggestions and recipes for health and beauty products (again, not an extensive collection). This section includes potpourri, sachets, bouquets, dried arrangements and insect repellents.

The last 1/3 of the book has individual pages on about 50 different herbs. These individual pages tell you a description, how to grow, harvesting instructions, suggested uses, tips, cultivars, and also includes a quick key on the level of care required (using a 4 glove rating system), if it attracts beneficial insects, whether or not it is ornamental, whether or not it can be grown in a container, how much yield you can expect to get and how easy it is to grow.

The back of the book contains a few pages of resources for laboratories, vendors, herb associations and other books or literary resources.

There are lots of charts and sidebars and overall I found this book to be very useful and easy to access. It doesn’t have the level of information needed to make this anything other than a quick reference book though.

Review date : 2007-01-24
I adore this book! Wow! It has all the things I wanted!
- it’s organic
- it very thorougly covers many herbs in different formats, so you know everything from what bugs they attract or repel, how tall they grow, and what zone they can be grown in
- common uses for them: I discovered many herbs I thought were inedible plants that are indeed herbs
- easy to use tables

I wasn’t too hip on all the cosmetic and craft uses – I’d rather eat them, but they’re short and may come in handy. I know the rest of the book sure will!