Take on advanced wiring projects with confidence with up-to-date advice and photo-illustrated step-by-step instructions from a trusted brand.

Equipped to comply with the 2023-2026 electrical codes and chock-full of information that's hard to find online, BLACK+DECKER Advanced Home Wiring, Updated 6th Edition, gives you an in-depth look at more sophisticated products and more advanced projects in home wiring. Some of these projects include:

• A step-by-step demonstration of the right way to wire a three-way switch in any situation
• A closer look at available neutral requirements and how they impact traditional wiring configurations
• Information on weatherproof boxes and conduit
• A primer on three-phase power
• A guide to 240-volt circuitry that eliminates all the confusion

These are higher-level projects, but ones that offer high rewards when they are done right. You'll also find:

• Wiring safety: No matter what you do, safety always come first. Learn about different safety procedures before starting your advanced home wiring project.
• Planning your project: Where do you start? What equipment do you need? What room or rooms are you planning on wiring? Go through a planning checklist to ensure your wiring will be the best it can be.
• Wiring kitchens and room additions: What is different about wiring a kitchen or a room addition compared to, say, a living room? Find out before you start on it.
• Circuit maps: What are some common household circuits? How do you replace a service panel? What about installing a transfer switch? How does one troubleshoot? You can find the answers to these, as well as other important questions, in this edition.

Whether you're trying to find the right specialty switch or learn more about breakers, BLACK+DECKER Advanced Home Wiring has it all. With this edition, you'll master the art of advanced home wiring.

Move over she sheds, the next innovation in real estate is a full-on house! That's right: the customizable and cost-efficient barndominum, offering plenty of space and plenty of style. In Barndominiums, author Chris Peterson, a three-decade veteran home improvement author, tours through barndos nationwide in search of the latest and greatest in barndominium living. Chapters include:

• Why a Barndominium: Learn all about the benefits of the barndominium, including its flexibility, easy design, cost-effectiveness, and more!
• Barndominium Gallery: Gain an inside look at barndominium interiors, exteriors, and even some sample floorplans.
• Designing Your Own Barndominium: Plan out your personalized dream home, including which materials you'll use, a design guide for specific rooms, and finalizing your plans. (Also, pros and cons to prefab vs. custom.)
• The Building Process: Your guide to every step of the construction process, including hiring a builder vs self-contracting, site prep, windows and doors, insulation, flooring, and much more!
• Choosing Your Barndominium Style: Learn about all the different kinds of barndominiums, furnishing guidelines, color schemes, accessorizing, and outdoor rooms, for your customized dream home!

With new and improved content for today's motorized equipment, this DIY bible includes engine and mechanical repair plus maintenance instruction for all your outdoor power equipment, including lawn mowers, snow blowers, chain saws, power washers, generators, leaf blowers, rototillers, wood splitters, lawn edgers, and weed whips.

With clear how-to photos and detailed diagrams, you'll see exactly what needs to be done. A comprehensive troubleshooting guide helps you define problems and enact solutions. Among the many skills you'll learn are seasonal tune-ups, changing oil, servicing spark plugs, cleaning filters, replacing muffler, servicing the fuel tank, overhauling the carburetor, servicing brakes, inspecting flywheels, replacing the fuel pump, and replacing a rewind cord.

With Small Engines and Outdoor Power Equipment 2nd Edition in your library, you won't need to haul the lawn mower off to the repair center and wait a few weeks just because a filter is plugged or the old gas needs to be replaced. This is a book every home-owning, weekend warrior should have a copy of.

If you live in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, or South Dakota, the environmentally sound growing info for both edible and ornamental plants found here is your green thumb map to success:

• Profiles of more than 250 plants proven to thrive in the Midwest's climate, including shrubs, perennials, annuals, vegetables, fruits, herbs, vines, and more, help you select the best plants to create a beautiful landscape or a high-yielding edible garden.
• Helpful information highlights sun and shade requirements and offers clear and concise plant variety information.
• Month-by-month care and cultivation guides are offered for each plant group, guiding your journey--even if you're a first-time Midwestern gardener.
• Author Melinda Myers addresses the many challenges of growing in the Midwest, including a changing climate and unique soil and pest troubles.
• The how-to methods for planting, pruning, watering, fertilizing, and much more are rich with information essential to those in the region.

Midwest Gardener's Handbook is part of the Gardener's Handbook series from Cool Springs Press. Other books in the series include Florida Gardener's Handbook, Mid-Atlantic Gardener's Handbook, Northwest Gardener's Handbook, and many others.

No digging, no tilling, no fertilizing, no machinery or heavy tools--less watering, waste, and weeding! In All New! Square Foot Gardening, 4th Edition, discover the foolproof gardening method that has helped generations of gardeners around the world raise their own organic vegetables in less space, with less effort, and for less money than traditional row gardens.

The Square Foot Gardening (SFG) technique takes the guesswork out of every step, even if you are completely new to gardening. The process is simple: set up your garden box, fill it with a growing blend known as Mel's Mix(TM), and add a square-foot grid on top to guarantee proper plant spacing and maximum yields. With this easy and flexible system, you'll reap the rewards of baskets of homegrown produce to enjoy with friends and family.

In the 4th edition, enjoy:

• Updated and beautifully illustrated garden plans to help you lay out your plantings and grow what your family eats most
• Extensive new charts with crop-by-crop information on how and when to plant and harvest each vegetable
• Flexible, step-by-step building plans for garden boxes you can build, fill, and plant in a single afternoon
• Insight on where to place your garden, how to plan your squares, and how to care for your plants organically
• Instructions for DIYing trellises, hoop tunnels, archways, and other accessories for your SFG
• More practical solutions to today's biggest gardening challenges, including deer, extreme weather, and insect pests
• NEW - Information on building and using top hats to grow healthy root crops in a standard SFG bed
• NEW - Alternative options if the standard Mel's Mix ingredients aren't available to you or you're looking for alternatives to peat moss
• 200 NEW PHOTOS, 30 NEW ILLUSTRATIONS - Redesigned pages with all-new illustrations for fun, easy planning and new photographs to reflect more diverse growing locations
• Plus, a Quick Start Guide to get you growing today

If you're looking for a low-maintenance, lower-cost way to grow food for yourself and your family, you will find success with this invaluable reference. If you're already a dedicated Square Foot Gardener with a tattered copy of a previous edition, you will expand on your success with the updated and enhanced guidance. With All New Square Foot Gardening, 4th Edition, you'll discover everything you need to know about the world's most popular growing technique to harvest MORE food from less space.

Now you can garden anywhere!

A start-to-finish book on building greenhouses for the home gardener, this is the most complete book on DIY greenhouses you'll find anywhere. Featuring full-color step-by-step photos and comprehensive how-to instructions, the book features full plans for structures that are designed to extend the gardening season.

From ornate, Victorian-style greenhouses to basic cold frames and simpler kits, you're sure to find a project that meets your needs and fits your space. The projects include:

• DIY Gabled Greenhouse
• PVC Hoophouse
• Sun Porch Kit
• Shed-Style Greenhouse
• Old-Window Greenhouse
• Low-Maintenance Sunroom
• Companion projects, including a Cold Frame Box, Raised Planting Bed, Potting Bench, and Trellis Planter
• And more!

Find all of the most up-to-date information you need to build and run your own greenhouse, all in one place!

Homesteading is a mindset and a lifestyle aimed at living lightly on the land, being more resourceful, appreciating the value of hard work, and understanding the diverse and amazing connections between humans and the planet we live on. Homesteaders constantly strive for a more sustainable life and a greater connection to the cycles of nature and the foods and goods we consume. Starting your very first homestead is a journey of discovery and passion that's also likely filled with questions and what-ifs. In The First-Time Homesteader, Jessica fills in all the blanks with honesty, humor, and charm.

Now you can take those first and most valuable steps toward establishing your own homestead with a seasoned homesteader at your side. Jessica warmly guides you through the process of setting up your property (no matter how small or large), establishing a garden, welcoming animals into the fold, living more resourcefully, and expanding your homestead kitchen tools and skills with grace and confidence.

Start your first homestead with lessons on:

• Raising chickens for meat and eggs
• Starting and operating a home dairy
• Housing, fencing, and processing advice for meat animals
• Planning and planting your homestead vegetable garden
• Keeping bees for honey, pollination, and beeswax
• Stocking your medicine cabinet with useful herbs and home remedies
• Living a resourceful existence by reusing and repurposing
• Stocking the kitchen with all the tools and techniques you need for success

Since Square Foot Gardening was first introduced by Mel Bartholomew in 1981, this revolutionary way to grow vegetables has helped millions of home gardeners enjoy their own organic, fresh produce in less space and with less work than traditional row gardens.

New and experienced gardeners will love the charts, photos, illustrations, and how-to tips in All New Square Foot Gardening, 3rd Edition--including 42 veggie-specific planting, growing, and harvesting guides--that make growing your own food fun, easy, and productive.

Perfect for experienced gardeners or beginners, you'll learn the three simple steps to Square Foot Gardening: build a box; fill it with Mel's Mix(TM); add a grid. No digging, no tilling, no fertilizing, no guesswork--less watering, waste, and weeding! There's so much more packed in this 272-page instructional book--boost your organic vegetable harvest with inspiring how-tos such as:

• Adding trellises and archways to grow up and maximize your space
• Installing automatic watering systems
• Growing vegetables in dense urban areas with little or no yard
• Feeding your veggies the organic way with Mel's Mix(TM)
• Teaching STEM to kids with Square Foot Gardening--perfect for little hands
• Protecting your plants with shade and frost covers
• Managing pests in the garden with natural methods

Keeping chickens can look almost glamorous online. It's all beautiful chickens, cute baby chicks, and coops that look nice enough to spend the night in. The reality is that keeping chickens is rewarding--but also a lot of work and, well, poop cleanup. If you follow chicken-fluencer Nikki Husted (@purelychickens) online, you already know that she shares the good, the bad, and the ugly of this popular hobby. In her first book, she remains unfiltered while she shares the essential techniques and helpful stories from her own experience with backyard chickens. That's right: you can learn from her own successes and mistakes! Chicken Keeping Pure and Simple addresses:

• Where to start: What are the rules for keeping chickens in your area? What do you need to get started? How many chickens do you need? (Be wary of chicken math!) And more considerations to both stoke and temper your excitement.
• Giving chickens what they need: There are serious things you should consider before you start raising your chickens, from monthly costs to time requirements. Do you have what it takes?
• Eggs, chicks, pullets, and hens Deciding between eggs, chicks, pullets, or hens as your starting point is about more than just cute baby chicks (though don't we all love cute baby chicks?).
• The bonding process: Learn how to raise your chickens and integrate them with your family, including kids!
• What to do with all the eggs: A handful of recipes for making the most of your bounty, including water glass eggs, pickled eggs, and a few family favorites for breakfast and dinner.
• All about the coop: How to set up and maintain a coop, including the process of cleaning.
• Medical needs: Dealing with common injuries, common pests/parasites, respiratory illness, and advice from a vet.

Featuring extended building techniques in step-by-step photo-illustrated instruction.

For kids, a treehouse is a room that never has to be cleaned, a place for muddy shoes and bug jars and adventures real and imagined; a house that you can paint whenever and however you want, without gaining approval. For adults, it's a room that never has to be cleaned, a place for muddy shoes and...well, you get the idea. But best of all a treehouse is up in a tree. And that's just cool.

Filled with inspiring photos of finished treehouses and easy-to-follow instructions for building your own, learn with your family treehouse basics--choosing a tree, planning and design, treehouse safety--followed by building techniques for:

• Platforms designed for various tree configurations
• Framing and finishing walls and railings
• Finishing interiors with paneling, shelves, and flip-down tables and bunks
• Doors, both classic and in fun shapes
• Windows, including shutters and pop-ups
• Building and framing roofs
• Modes of access, including ladders, stairs, trap doors, and a fireman's pole
• Playthings, including swings, a zip line, a rock climbing wall, slides, and more

Build the treehouse you and your kids have always dreamed of with BLACK+DECKER The Complete Guide to Treehouses 3rd edition.

Make more houseplants (for free!) with this comprehensive bible of propagation techniques, featuring clear, step-by-step instructions covering over a dozen methods for over 80 different houseplants.

Accompanied by full-color photographs and beautiful illustrations, The Ultimate Guide to Houseplant Propagation offers all the horticultural know-how you need to make new plants from existing plants. Learn how to successfully take stem, leaf, and petiole cuttings of your favorite houseplants, plus get plenty of insight into air and soil layering, division of offsets, water propagation, and even houseplant seed germination. Whether you are a beginner or advanced houseplant enthusiast, the easy-to-follow format allows you to start propagating right away. This is also the first book to take a deep dive into the pollination and breeding of Anthuriums to create your own unique hybrids, at home!

Author Lindsay Sisti of @alltheplantbabies also introduces the best tools for different propagation techniques and shares the lowdown on various growing mediums to use with each propagation method.

With help from The Ultimate Guide to Houseplant Propagation you'll be able to:

• Take leaf cuttings of your favorite succulent
• Divide the corms of your Alocasia plant
• Separate aerial and underground tubers from a String of Hearts plant
• Make more Anthuriums through stem cuttings, divisions, and seed propagation
• Root Hoyas and Snake Plants by taking stem cuttings
• Air layer your Philodendron or Monstera
• Propagate your ZZ Plant or Snake Plants by dividing the rhizome or rooting leaf cuttings
• Take petiole cuttings of Pileas, Peperomias, Begonias, and many others

Whether your houseplant collection is focused on tropicals or succulents (or is a combination of both!), level-up your houseplant game by diving into DIY plant propagation. It's fun and easy--but only with the right guide at your side. This is the comprehensive propagation handbook you have been waiting for.

As Kevin has proven--thanks to his enthusiasm and willingness to experiment--there's no need to go back to the land, live off-grid, and leave behind modern conveniences to improve your self-sufficiency and autonomy. Anyone can do it.

Follow in Kevin's footsteps with this accessible, beginner-friendly guide to embracing today's technology to grow and preserve food, raise mini livestock like bees and chickens, set up automated systems like irrigation and greywater recycling, and so much more.

The high-tech homesteading concepts and projects introduced in Epic Homesteading show you that, wherever you are in the world--city, country, or suburbia--homesteading is for YOU!

Learn how to:

• Use solar power
• Automate rainwater catchment and distribution
• Set up your food-growing spaces, outdoors and in
• Plant and care for a small orchard, including pest management
• Cultivate microgreens and sprouts
• Keep bees, chickens, and quail
• Use laundry and shower greywater in the garden
• Preserve food
• Seek out and utilize free resources
• Maximize energy efficiency through a mini-split system, smart lighting, and timers

Learn how to make an epic homestead of your own and, as Kevin likes to say, Keep on Growing! For more small-space gardening advice from Kevin, check out his other books, Field Guide to Urban Gardening and Grow Bag Gardening.

Go Forth and Forage is a detailed field guide to identifying, harvesting, and preparing wild-foraged mushrooms through all four seasons. From spring treasures such as morels and woodears, to summer finds like black trumpets, chicken of the woods, and boletes, straight through to fall and winter harvests of lion's mane, oyster, and enoki, each species profile includes color photos, identification advice to confirm edibility, and tips on how to harvest responsibly. You'll also find culinary preparation advice and recipes to feast on your finds successfully and deliciously.

In her signature warm and folksy tone, Johnson also offers insight on:

• How to find wild mushrooms (hint: identifying trees is involved)
• Understanding mushroom anatomy and how it informs your harvest
• The best gear for mushroom foraging, from knives and bags to clothes and boots
• Using spore prints to help confirm proper identification
• Words of wisdom on what to do before you take a bite
• Being a responsible and ethical forager
• Common mushroom myths
• Finding and using mushrooms in medicinal forms, such as tinctures and teas

Whether you're cultivating fresh-cut bouquets for yourself, family, and friends or for others on a small commercial scale, you'll go from sowing seeds to cutting armloads of colorful, long-lasting blooms with ease. Lisa's unique approach and easy-to-follow advice on multi-season planting and harvesting uses the natural warm and cool weather cycles present in almost all growing regions to maximize cut flower production.

This logical and nature-driven method is also a signature hallmark of her super-successful online flower-farming courses, and it's one that translates equally well to both small urban backyards and large rural flower farms.

Growing your own cut flowers means you can avoid bouquets laden with pesticides (who wants that on their wedding day?) and you can skip the trips to your local flower shop or grocery store to pay big bucks for a bouquet that has racked up more airline miles than you could ever hope to.

Included in this essential cut flower growing handbook are:

• 50 extensive flower profiles divided into their preferred season of growth. Cool-weather favorites include poppies, snapdragons, and bells of Ireland. Warm-season beauties include zinnias, sunflowers, and celosia.
• Planting tips for a succession of blooms that carry over from one growing season to the next without any additional work from you.
• Illustrations showing how to pinch plants for more blooms, how to make your cuts, how to erect support netting to keep your flowers straight and upright, how to dig a planting bed, and more.
• Over 200 photographs of the best cut flowers for home gardeners to grow, the most effective methods for their care, and the most productive ways to organize them in the garden.
• Advice on caring for a cutting garden, locating the best planting site, starting plants from seed, making the harvest, prolonging the life of your cut flowers, and so much more!

The second book in the American Horticultural Society's series of growing guides, AHS Essential Guide to Perennial Gardening is a comprehensive and modern guide to cultivating and caring for perennial plants, including many perennials native to North America. Whether you grow in full sun or a shady corner, in a small space or a large landscape, the insight and guidance offered by the experts at AHS ensure you'll have a thriving, bloom-filled garden. Included inside:

• Strategies for designing the perennial garden of your dreams or incorporating perennials into an existing garden
• Advice on selecting the best perennials for your climate and design style
• Techniques for fostering a robust and adaptable garden that requires lower maintenance
• Eco-friendly approaches to managing pests and diseases
• Information on routine perennial plant-care tasks such as dividing, pruning, pinching, staking, and fertilizing
• Insight on garden maintenance methods that do not negatively impact pollinators and other wildlife
• Over 150 perennial plant profiles with photographs and specific care advice

Also included in this series is AHS Essential Guide to Organic Vegetable Gardening.

Illustrated with gorgeous photographs of inspiring gardens, projects in process, and tempting homegrown vegetables, and authored by Resh Gala, a professional kitchen garden designer, Vegetable Gardening Made Easy is filled with valuable advice every food gardener can use.

No matter the size of your garden or your experience level, backyard veggie gardeners like you can use the practical information found inside to grow a more productive (and beautiful!) edible garden.Discover an abundance of useful tidbits on everything from designing the garden and starting from seed to maximizing production, managing pests naturally, and preserving the harvest.

Organized in a stylish and easy-to-use format that prevents overwhelm, each page explains and illustrates an essential piece of core advice, offering plenty of eco-friendly information to lead you to success without making you feel like you need a science degree to make it happen. The format is perfect for today's time-starved gardeners!

Among the abundance of growing tips and solutions, you'll find advice on:

• Adding healthy biodiversity to your soil and boosting it with micronutrients
• Growing straighter carrots, spicier peppers, and plumper radishes
• Pruning tomatoes to enhance yields
• Hand-pollinating cucumbers and squash for higher production
• Choosing which crops to grow based on your space and needs
• Creative ways to sow tiny seeds
• Simple how-tos for preparing your harvest
• Storing onions, garlic, and potatoes long-term
• What to do when your plants turn yellow, have holes, or look sickly

With more than 20 complete building plans, the most popular plans from previous editions are preserved, from small garage-style sheds with overhead doors, to kit sheds, to contemporary utility sheds with a dramatic flair. This new edition delves into new styles that are drawing strong interest today, including tiny sheds, miniature tool sheds, and even small habitable sheds that are designed to function as a private home office or a quiet retreat for practicing a particular hobby or activity. As with all of the hardworking, practical sheds from earlier editions, the new varieties include full-color step-by-step photos, complete building plan drawings with cutting lists, and clear how-to instructions. Other shed projects include:

• Garbage & Recycling Shed
• Bike Shed
• Gothic Playhouse
• Salt Box Storage Shed
• Sunlight Garden Shed

Rounded out with helpful information on important considerations like siting and zoning, BLACK+DECKER The Complete Guide to Sheds Updated 4th Edition truly is a complete guide to this very popular DIY activity.

In their first new book in over two decades, the American Horticultural Society offers indispensable insight into growing a modern edible garden at home, regardless of whether home is in the desert Southwest, the Midwestern plains, or on the shores of New England. Starting with a unique look at the history of vegetable gardening in North America, from indigenous cultures to Victory Gardeners to today's biodiversity-nurturing growers, AHS Essential Guide to Organic Vegetable Gardening then digs into everything you need to know to cultivate a successful and productive vegetable garden without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.

Includes advice on:

• Choosing the best design and planting style for your site, from raised beds and row gardens to matrix plantings and food forests
• Deciding which varieties to plant, from heirlooms and ancestral selections to modern hybrids
• Fostering resiliency in the face of weather extremes, invasive pests, and other challenges
• Nurturing the garden as an ecosystem to preserve and protect soil life, pollinators, and other wildlife
• Conducting at-home soil assessments for compaction, biological activity, texture, and drainage
• Caring for the garden using natural techniques and products, including pinching, pruning, staking, fertilizing, and pest and disease control

Also included in this series is AHS Essential Guide to Perennial Gardening.

The most complete book on the market for homeowners, BLACK+DECKER The Book of Home How-To is written and compiled by the knowledgeable editors at Cool Springs Press--recognized experts in DIY home improvement and maintenance with more than thirty years of experience in home improvement and hundreds of best-selling books under the BLACK+DECKER brand--this is DIY instruction you can trust.

This updated 3rd edition, the ultimate reference for maintaining any type of home, from a small apartment to a mega mansion, is now completely up to code--featuring code updates and current best practices for all electrical, plumbing, and deck-related concerns.

This A-to-Z encyclopedia offers precise how-to instructions and clear photos on every page. With an expanded index that is incredibly intuitive and a simple, alphabetical strategy for organizing the information, you won't spend precious time wading through stuff you don't need to know.

Finding first-rate information on home care has never been easier, and all the most common tasks around your home are covered--including:

• Electrical
• Plumbing
• Flooring
• Walls
• Windows and doors
• Cabinetry
• Insulating
• Heating and cooling
• Roofing and siding

Have you ever faced water-use restrictions and worried about how you can still grow a beautiful, productive landscape? Let The Water-Smart Garden show you how!

As freshwater shortages increasingly strike regions around the globe, it's more important than ever to employ water-conserving practices in the garden. Whether your landscape is filled with shrubs and perennials or fruits and vegetables, in The Water-Smart Garden, you'll learn dozens of techniques to limit water use while growing a gorgeous and thriving garden. Not only will you learn how to make smart plant choices and improve the water-holding capacity of your soil, you'll learn xeriscaping techniques, drought-tolerant growing tips, and plant care advice to make the most of low-water situations.

Also includes information on:

• Harvesting and redistributing rainwater in cisterns and rain barrels
• Employing methods like ollas and drip irrigation to target water directly to plant roots
• Being more water-efficient in the vegetable garden by using mulches and targeted irrigation
• Planting containers that require less-frequent watering
• Replacing a lawn with more drought-resilient plants
• Building swales and berms to redirect water to where it's needed

Author and dry-gardening horticulturist Noelle Johnson of @az.plant.lady makes it easy to help save this precious resource and still have a resilient, attractive, and low-maintenance landscape.