The Urban Homestead (Expanded & Revised Edition): Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City
360
The Urban Homestead (Expanded & Revised Edition): Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City
360Paperback(Revised Edition)
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Overview
"A delightfully readable and very useful guide to front- and back-yard vegetable gardening, food foraging, food preserving, chicken keeping, and other useful skills for anyone interested in taking a more active role in growing and preparing the food they eat."—BoingBoing.net
"...the contemporary bible on the subject."—The New York Times
This celebrated, essential handbook shows how to grow and preserve your own food, clean your house without toxins, raise chickens, gain energy independence, and more. Step-by-step projects, tips, and anecdotes will help get you started homesteading immediately. The Urban Homestead is also a guidebook to the larger movement and will point you to the best books and Internet resources on self-sufficiency topics.
Written by city dwellers for city dwellers, this copiously illustrated, two-color instruction book proposes a paradigm shift that will improve our lives, our community, and our planet. By growing our own food and harnessing natural energy, we are planting seeds for the future of our cities.
Learn how to:
- Grow food on a patio or balcony
- Preserve or ferment food and make yogurt and cheese
- Compost with worms
- Keep city chickens
- Divert your grey water to your garden
- Clean your house without toxins
- Guerilla garden in public spaces
- Create the modern homestead of your dreams
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781934170106 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Process |
| Publication date: | 06/01/2010 |
| Series: | Process Self-reliance Series |
| Edition description: | Revised Edition |
| Pages: | 360 |
| Sales rank: | 152,610 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.56(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.74(d) |
| Age Range: | 14 Years |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Unleashing The Homesteader Within 14
Chapter 1 Start Your Own Farm 20
Strategies for Growing Food in the Urban Setting 20
How to Make Seedballs 30
Permaculture 32
The Practicalities of Growing Food 34
Chapter 2 Essential Projects 46
Five Essential Projects 46
Start a Compost Pile 46
Vermiculture or Composting with Worms 51
Mulch Your Yard 55
Build a Raised Bed 60
How to Build a Self-Watering Container 65
A Treasure Chest of Gardening Projects and Advice 71
How to Start Seeds 71
How to Transplant 74
Fertilizer Tea 77
Trash Talkin' Tire Project #1: Tire Hose Caddy 78
Trash Talkin' Tire Project #2: Stacking Composter 79
Grow Some Lettuce 80
Tips & Tricks for Gardening in Containers 83
The Dirt on Potting Soll 85
Installing Drip Irrigation 86
How to Make a Bean Teepee 89
How to Design a Polycultural Vegetable Bed 91
How to Make Tater Tires 96
Controlling Insect Pests 99
Rotating Crops 104
Animal Pests 107
Why You Might Test Your Soil 110
Not Digging It 112
Chapter 3 Urban Foraging 116
Feral Edibles 116
Invasive Edibles 122
Fruit Foraging 124
Tools for the Fruit Harvester 125
How to Eat Acorns 126
Dumpster Diving 128
Revive Day-Old Bread 130
4 Livestock In The City 134
The Chicken is the New Pug 135
How to Set Up a Brooder 150
Ducks 154
Rabbits 156
Pigeons: A Modest Proposal 157
Quail 158
Bees 159
Chapter 5 Revolutionary Home Economics 166
Preserving the Harvest 166
How to Can 170
Pickling via Lacto-Fermentation 173
Daikon Radish Pickles 174
L'hamd Markad or Preserved Salted Lemons 175
Euell Gibbons' Crock 177
Dehydration: Why Save it for Hangovers? 179
Three Methods for Drying Food 180
Preserving With Vinegar 182
Preserving Fruit in Alcohol: Le Cherry Bounce 184
Preserving Root Vegetables 184
How to Culture Milk 186
Making Yogurt 187
Making Labaneh, or Yogurt Cheese 188
Fil, Piima and Viila 189
Cheesemaking 190
Whole Milk Ricotta 190
Making Butter 191
How to Make Fruit Butter 193
Jams and Jellies 196
Making Stock 196
Five Ways to Preserve a Tomato 197
The Homemade Speakeasy: From Mead to Moonshine 202
Baking on the Homestead 204
Baking with Sourdough 204
Cleaning the Urban Homestead 214
Our Cleaning Cupboard 216
Less Toxic Ways to Deal with Unwelcome Critters 228
A Homestead of Your Own 229
Location Location Location 231
Chapter 6 Be Your Own Utility: Water and Power for the Homestead 238
Harvesting Water 238
Conserving Water 240
Six Ways to Harvest Rainwater 243
Become a Radical Depaver 244
Smart Gutters and Downspouts 245
Earthworks 246
Mulch Basins 247
Terracing 249
Rain Barrels and Cisterns 250
How Much Water Can I Harvest From My Roof? 252
Non-Invasive Greywater Methodologies 257
Highly Invasive Greywater Strategies 257
Greywater Plumbing 101 257
Showers to Flowers 260
Recycling Your Suds 261
Arranging a Twosome or Threesome-Using Diverters 264
Making a Greywater Wetland 266
The Composting Toilet: How to Poop in a Bucket 267
Power to the People 270
Energy Principles 270
Heating 272
Insulation 272
Gathering Solar Heat 273
The High Mass Rocket Heater 275
Cooling 275
How to Make a Living Awning or Shade 276
We're Fans of Fans 278
Water Heater 279
Alternatives to the Gas-Heated Shower 281
Solar Water Heaters for General Household Hot Water 282
Lighting 284
Stoves and Small Appliances 285
Solar Cookers 285
Build a Rocket Stove 288
Tomato Can Stove 290
Heat on the Cheap: Buddy Burners 292
Electronics 294
Washer & Dryer 295
Refrigerator 296
Dishwashers 296
Generating Your Own Power 297
Electricity From Solar Power-The Components 297
Solar Systems: Small, Medium and Large 299
Wind Power 302
Chapter 7 Transportation 306
Transportation Principles 306
The Transportation Triangle: Walking, Biking, Mass Transit 307
Walking 307
Cycling 308
How to Ride in Traffic 309
Finding a Bike 311
Route Choice 313
Cargo Bikes 313
Make Your Own Bike Light 316
Conclusion: The Future 320
Resources 324