Reviews for The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City

The average rating for The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-01-15 00:00:00 Nathan Coleman I have to say that I was initially very skeptical of this book; as I perused the table of contents I was nearly convinced that this was just another book for yuppies with yards (YWYs). As I live in a tiny 200 sq. ft. (at best) studio apartment with no land space, no balcony, and only north facing windows, I was certain this book wouldn't have anything useful for me in it. However, it does have some really great projects and ideas, from growing food to composting, that can be accomplished even by those of us who are almost entirely bereft of space. Although I skipped over the portions of the book not pertinent to me (keeping chickens, I'm a vegan; installing solar power, I'm a renter) there was still a lot of ground to cover in this book, and I'm eager to start composting. When I move to a new place I will look for south facing windows and (maybe) a balcony so that I can start growing some indoor vegetables. I also enjoyed the section on how to can, and how to make your own starter for sourdough bread. In all, this book seems to have something for everyone. Time and space deprived renters such as myself who want to minimize our daily impact (and costs) as well as YWYs who feel like making a difference.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-08-03 00:00:00 Stanley Gowan 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....