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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
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Stanley Gowan
reviewed The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City on August 03, 2008
The Urban Homestead
The book radically changed they way I see green spaces in New York, and I have become shocked that so many people have small green spaces and grow no food. For that alone, I consider the book valuable in spite of its flaws.
I gave this book four stars, and I've been talking it up to a lot of people, but honestly I'm still a bit concerned. This book has many grammatical errors. And I know that Process is a really small press, and some of the errors might be typesetting (you get what you pay for) but it makes me hesitant to recommend the book.
However, I like their 'you will fail and that's okay' ethos. I like that they scale the book between easy reasonable projects and crazy lunatic projects. I like that they believe things should be 1) cheap and 2) easy.
I bought the book after reading their website and would really have liked more background on the two of them, where did they grow up, what sorts of childhoods do they have, do they work at home, make a lot of money, make no money, what convinced them to do all this (they give lots of reasons one might want to grow one's own food, but I never really felt I knew why they started, though I get why they do it now), and while early in the blog they talk about not having children, they really don't get into how kids could radically effect your urban homestead.
Also, I found it weird that they didn't research green cleaning methods for granite counter tops. They just sort of said, we don't know and threw up their hands. My mom researched the same thing when she got new counter tops and she cleans hers with vodka. (Also worth pointing out - they are always going on and on about how much smarter our grandparents/great-grandparents were when it comes to being harmonious with the world around us, well both my grandmother and her mother used gasoline to clean soapscum. Works a treat, but I've gotten first degree chemical burns, so I wouldn't EVER do it again.)
Finally while I'm very glad their dog ignores their chickens, our miniature dachshund did in about ten of our neighbor's pullets. Yet they recommend dachshunds as dogs that will keep critters out of your garden, without mentioning any conflict of keeping animals. Their are numerous other places (in the heating and cooling your house section) where their advice is also conflicting.
It just seems as though, no matter how good the tips, projects and ideas are, that the book lacks personal information, while being from a personal (and weirdly not researched enough) point of view.
But I'm definitely building self watering containers! And maybe doing the worm composting if I can convince my boyfriend. And I really want to grow a box of mixed greens for salad. And start biking... and....
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Add The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City, The expanded, updated version of the best-selling classic, with a dozen new projects. A delightfully readable and very useful guide to front- and back-yard vegetable gardening, food foraging, food preserving, chicken keeping, and other useful skill, The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
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Add The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City, The expanded, updated version of the best-selling classic, with a dozen new projects. A delightfully readable and very useful guide to front- and back-yard vegetable gardening, food foraging, food preserving, chicken keeping, and other useful skill, The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City to your collection on WonderClub |
