The City Homesteader: Self-Sufficiency on Any Square Footage Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Every human takes up space, not just to live but for its sustenance. "The City Homesteader: Self-Sufficiency on Any Square Footage" is a guide for being as self-sufficient as possible when space is at a premium, such as in a packed city. In the modern age, rediscovering self-sufficiency may be what's needed to keep the world able to feed us all, and Scott Meyer walks readers through everything they need to know to embrace this practice through growing a little of their own, food preservation, even raising chickens and much more. For anyone who is looking to make their drain on the world a little less, "The City Homesteader" is an excellent read, well worth considering.


Click Here to see more reviews about: The City Homesteader: Self-Sufficiency on Any Square Footage

The City Homesteader is the handbook for the world of self-sufficient living. It's about living tangibly in a virtual world. It's about being resourceful, saving money, reducing consumption, and increasing self-reliance. Join the many who are raising backyard chickens in the city and tilling their side yards: tapping into natural energy, managing homes more efficiently, and getting back to the earth.
Explore the homesteading arts: gardening on small and large scales, raising dwarf fruit trees, sprouting grains, smoking meats and fish, grinding grains for flour, making cheese, making wine, cellaring, heating without fossil fuel, harvesting rainwater, composting, and much moreThe City Homesteader provides all the basics, including how to find supplies and step-by-step instructions that make it easy to follow along. Original illustrations throughout help you create your very own homestead on any piece of earth.

Get 27% OFF

Click here for more information about The City Homesteader: Self-Sufficiency on Any Square Footage

Read More...

Homesteading: A Back to Basics Guide to Growing Your Own Food, Canning, Keeping Chickens, Generating Your Own Energy, Crafting, Herbal Medicine, and More (Back to Basics Guides) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)If you are looking for real information on homesteading, this is NOT the book. At best the information is very general and almost worthless.
The author has information on buying food from CSAs, Co-ops,and farmers markets. How about more info on growing your own food. There's nothing on raising beef or pork.
In the section on dairy goats, she speaks about the breed La Mancha, yet the photo is NOT a LaMancha. The goat in the photo has ears, La Manchas don't have ears. Also although goats will eat some grass, they are poor grazers.
In the section of llamas there is a least one photo of alpacas.
In the sheep section, the author tells the reader to milk a sheep you must pull the sheep up to the fence so it can't get away, then she has you milking the animal from the front. What? I have all these animals, plus more.That's not even close to how milking is done.
I don't need a homesteading book to tell me how to hang wallpaper, or how to use Feng Shui to decorate my home.
The photos used for growing in a greenhouse are greenhouses that none of us can afford to buy. The same with the chapter on energy and the photos for solar panels and wind turbines.
Where's the info on building with recycled material?
This is a book for yuppies with lots of money who want to play "homestead."

This author does not know what she is writing about. There are many more worthwhile books out there.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Homesteading: A Back to Basics Guide to Growing Your Own Food, Canning, Keeping Chickens, Generating Your Own Energy, Crafting, Herbal Medicine, and More (Back to Basics Guides)


The companion to the bestseller Back to Basics for country, urban, and suburban folks.
Who doesn't want to shrink their carbon footprint, save money, and eat homegrown food whenever possible? Even readers who are very much on the grid will embrace this large, fully-illustrated guide on the basics of living the good, clean life. It's written with country lovers in mind-even those who currently live in the city.Whether you live in the city, the suburbs, or even the wilderness, there is plenty you can do to improve your life from a green perspective. Got sunlight? Start container gardening. With a few plants, fresh tomatoes, which then become canned tomato sauce, are a real option. Reduce electricity use by eating dinner by candlelight (using homemade candles, of course). Learn to use rainwater to augment water supplies. Make your own soap and hand lotion. Consider keeping chickens for the eggs. From what to eat to supporting sustainable restaurants to avoiding dry cleaning, this book offers information on anything a homesteader needs-and more. 1000 color illustrations

Get 34% OFF

Click here for more information about Homesteading: A Back to Basics Guide to Growing Your Own Food, Canning, Keeping Chickens, Generating Your Own Energy, Crafting, Herbal Medicine, and More (Back to Basics Guides)

Read More...

The Complete Guide to Food Preservation: Step-by-step Instructions on How to Freeze, Dry, Can, and Preserve Food (Back to Basics Cooking) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)"The Complete Guide to Food Preservation: Step-by-Step Instructions on How to Freeze, Dry, Can, and Preserve Food" is a comprehensive book covering the in's and out's of safely packaging food for long-term storage. Author Angela Williams Duea displays an obvious passion for the subject and vividly describes the various aspects of the selection, preparation, and combinations of certain foods so that they may be stockpiled. Whether you are looking to preserve food in order to save money, to have organic options at your disposal, or you are saving the extra from your garden, this book has more than enough information to get you well on the way to your culinary and storage goals.
"The Complete Guide to Food Preservation" is extremely thorough and meticulous in its descriptions of the full range of possibilities when considering what type of preservation method to utilize. I was almost overwhelmed with what could actually be done with even the simplest of foods! Williams Duea keeps her readers from being totally inundated with information by separating the methodology from the recipes; step by step directions for correct preservation processes take up most of the book, structured as easy to find chapters and sections while the actual recipes are located in an appendix. All in all, I found the book to be extremely well organized and edited but I did find two `off' spots. While very minor, one was a caption noting a picture's `bright colors' yet the picture was black and white. The other was a caption about halfway through the book naming the person pictured and what she was doing (ie. `Laura uses her juicer to make fresh and nutritious carrot juice') yet no other picture in the entire book gives such a personal indicator caption; it didn't fit with any of the other pictures and captions which reflect a very general and impersonal feel.
"The Complete Guide to Food Preservation" is the perfect read for anyone interested in saving food for the long-term, regardless of reason. As I am completely inexperienced at any aspect of canning, I found the descriptions and processes easy to follow and am excited to try some of them out for myself. Beginners will love Williams Duea's clearly motivating style and more experienced will find it a useful reference book. An appetizing read!
Reviewed by Vicki Landes, author of "Europe for the Senses - A Photographic Journal"


Click Here to see more reviews about: The Complete Guide to Food Preservation: Step-by-step Instructions on How to Freeze, Dry, Can, and Preserve Food (Back to Basics Cooking)

Storing food can be a major challenge for any family or individual who wants to increase the amount of food available without spending additional money. With rising food costs, the advent of at home gardening and the potential represented in storing your own food, it is no wonder that freezing, drying, and canning are becoming much more popular. Freezing alone, which the National Freezing and Refrigerated Foods Association has stated can add as much as 600% to the lifespan of many common refrigerated foods, is an easy, available action to anyone, but only if it is done properly. This book will show anyone interested in storing food for future use how to do so to optimize the amount of money saved and minimize the risk of damaging food or spreading food borne illnesses. You will learn how to grow for harvest and how to subsequently handle that harvest with this book s crop by crop guide of everything that you might possibly want to store away. You will learn how freezing works and how to go about organizing your freezing. You will learn the various methods of freezing and why failure occurs. In addition to freezing, you will learn about canning and preserving and how each technically works and what problems you may encounter. All of the equipment you may need is laid out in easy to read charts and you will be shown the various final products you can expect. Experts in food preservation and storage have been interviewed and their commentary has been included here to help you understand what all you will be able to expect from your preserved foods. Learn how to create jellies and jams, pickle vegetables and fruits, dry foods, juice them after storing, and even how to create a simple root cellar for long term storage. No matter your situation, this guide will help you learn how to store multiple forms of vegetables and fruits and to understand how they perform, why failure occurs, and what you need to be successful.

Get 34% OFF

Click here for more information about The Complete Guide to Food Preservation: Step-by-step Instructions on How to Freeze, Dry, Can, and Preserve Food (Back to Basics Cooking)

Read More...