The Essential Guide to Self-Sufficient Living: Vegetable Gardening, Canning and Fermenting, Keeping Chickens, and More

by Abigail Gehring

Overview

Grow your own vegetables and herbs, indoors in containers or outside in a garden. Raise chickens or goats. Build a beehive. Make your own nontoxic cleaning sprays. And more!

Gehring’s books on country living have sold more than 500,000 copies. In this book, she offers a guide to homesteading skills that is as charming as it is practical. Full of sweet illustrations and gorgeous photographs, step-by-step instructions for essential skills such as building a chicken coop are interspersed with country lore and old-fashioned tips and tricks.

Readers will learn how to:

• Container garden
• Raise chickens
• Churn butter
• Grow vegetables
• Can tomatoes
• Brew kombucha
• Make shampoo
• Repel garden pests
• Milk a goat
• Improve garden soil
• Make strawberry-rhubarb jelly
• Ferment vegetables
• Make yogurt
• Sprout grains
• And more!

The Essential Guide to Self-Sufficient Living combines the know-how of Back to Basics with the charm of The Farmer’s Almanac. This is the perfect gift for anyone interested in a more self-sufficient, greener, country lifestyle.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781680997118
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Abigail R. Gehring is the author or editor of more than a dozen books including Back to Basics, Homesteading, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Living, and Classic Candy. She enjoys writing, gardening, experimenting in the kitchen, and spending time with family. She lives with her husband and two children in an 1800s farmstead they are restoring in Marlboro, Vermont.

Table of Contents

I Growing Things 9

Choosing a Site for Your Garden 11

Companion Planting 15

Improving Your Soil 19

Growing Vegetables and Herbs 27

Container Gardening 33

Raised Beds 37

Insects and Mites 40

Plant Diseases 46

Harvesting Your Garden 48

II Raising Animals 57

Keeping Chickens 58

Keeping Bees 64

Keeping Goats 71

Keeping Dairy Cows 79

Keeping Pigs 83

III Food from Scratch 89

Canning 91

Homemade Butter, Cheese, and Ice Cream 117

Fermenting 137

Grinding and Sprouting Grains 143

IV Natural Cleaners and Bath Products 149

Bath Salts and Cosmetics 151

Shampoo, Conditioner, and Body Cleansers 157

Household Cleansers and Detergents 162

Index 171

Editorial Reviews

"The thing about homesteading and self-sufficient living is you never stop learning. Even after decades of farming and living a close to self-sufficient life, we still benefit from different methods. I love seeing a new book on this topic because I always end up finding a new helpful tip or maybe a dozen! The Essential Guide to Self-Sufficient Living did not disappoint. I particularly found the “growing things” section helpful with the tips on pest control. While this book could be the only book you need on living a more sustainable life, it will also compliment any other volumes you already have on hand. From growing veggies to keeping bees, and keeping chickens to home canning, you will love having this book on your shelf." —Janet Garman, author of 50 Do-It-Yourself Projects for Keeping Chickens and Timber Creek Farm blog
 

From the Publisher