GARDENING FOR INDEPENDENCE

How to grow your own vegetables, raise your own meat, and harvest grains for your bread. The Mathers' Maine farm now, after several years, yields enough food for year-round consumption, and their you-can-do-it-too text will appeal to those committed to organic principles (no pesticides, no herbicides, no animal farming) but unwilling to pass up chicken and pork chops forever. The homey text, full of the-cabbage-boiled-over and Caitlin-was-born marginalia, documents their growing proficiencies and few failures and refers to helpful sources: Rodale publications, the Nearings' books, works on raising poultry, butchering and preserving meat. No hothouse bloom--just down-to-earth fundamentals.