Time-tested advice on how to cure the meat by smoking or salting helps you preserve your harvest. A final section explains how to make sausages. Numerous mouth-watering recipes are included.

    The incidence of diet-related diseases, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and heart disease, has skyrocketed to unprecedented levels. Whether you have forty acres and a mule or a condo with a balcony, you can do more than you think to safeguard your health, your money, and the planet.Homegrown and Handmade shows how making things from scratch and growing at least some of your own food can help you eliminate artificial ingredients from your diet, reduce your carbon footprint, and create a more authentic life. Whether your goal is increasing your self-reliance or becoming a full-fledged homesteader, it's packed with answers and solutions to help you:Take control of your food supply from seed to plate Raise small and medium livestock for fun, food, and fiber Rediscover traditional skills to meet more of your family's needs than you ever thought possibleThis comprehensive guide to food and fiber from scratch proves that attitude and knowledge is more important than acreage. Written from the perspective of a successful self-taught modern homesteader, this well illustrated, practical, and accessible manual will appeal to anyone who dreams of a simpler life.Deborah Niemann is a homesteader, writer, and self-sufficiency expert who presents extensively on topics including soapmaking, bread baking, cheesemaking, composting, and homeschooling. She and her family raise sheep, pigs, cattle, goats, chickens, and turkeys for meat, eggs, and dairy products, while an organic garden and orchard provides fruit and vegetables.

    With in-depth discussions of allergies, colony hierarchy, bee behavior, and more, this approachably informative guide bursts with enthusiastic encouragement. Keep your own bees, and enjoy the sweet buzz.

    The Humanure Handbook, third edition, will amuse you, educate you, and possibly offend you, but it will certainly pertain to you--unless, of course, your bowels never move. This new edition of The Humanure Handbook is:The Tenth Anniversary EditionRichly illustrated with eye-candy artworkPerfect for reading while sitting on the "throne"Revised, improved, and updated256 pages of crap

    Robert Hart's book beautifully describes his decades of experience gardening in the Shropshire countryside. The principles of backyard permaculture he has developed can be applied successfully in every temperate zone of North America, helping to transform even a small cottage garden into a diverse and hospitable habitat for songbirds, butterflies, and other wildlife. Blending history, philosophy, anthropology, and seasoned gardening wisdom in a lucid sequence of essays, Forest Gardening examines the pleasure of hands off as well as hands-on gardening. This book offers fresh ways of understanding the relationships between people and growing plants. For gardeners who aspire to create ecological as well as beautiful gardens, Forest Gardening will be an inspiration and a pleasure.

    Vertical gardening guarantees a better outcome from the day the trowel hits the soil—by shrinking the amount of "floor" space needed and focusing on climbing plants that are less prone to insects, diseases, and animal pests.Notable author and gardener Derek Fell has tried and tested thousands of varieties of vegetables,flowers, and fruits and recommends the best plants for space-saving vertical gardening. His grow-up,grow-down system also shows which ground-level plants make good companions underneath and alongside climbing plants. Best of all, many of Fell's greatest climbers and mutually beneficial plants are available in seed packets in every local garden center.With a mix of DIY and commercially available string supports, trellises, pergolas, raised beds, skyscraper gardens, and topsy-turvy planters, the vertical garden system reduces work, increases yields, makes harvesting easier, and can be practiced in spaces as small as a container or a one-by-four-foot strip. Vertical Gardening features 100 color photos of the author's own vertical methods and showcases beautiful, troublefree perennials, shrubs, vegetables, annuals, and fruit perfect for this new, rewarding way to garden.

    The recent economic collapse has seen millions of North Americans move from the middle class to being poor, and from poor to hungry. At the same time, the idea of eating locally is shifting from being a fringe activity for those who can afford it to an essential element of getting by. But aside from the locavores and slow foodies, who really knows how to eat outside of the supermarket and out of season? And who knows how to eat a diet based on easily stored and home preserved foods?Independence Days tackles both the nuts and bolts of food preservation, as well as the host of broader issues tied to the creation of local diets. It includes:How to buy in bulk and store food on the cheap Techniques, from canning to dehydrating Tools—what you need and what you don’t In addition, it focuses on how to live on a pantry diet year-round, how to preserve food on a community scale, and how to reduce reliance on industrial agriculture by creating vibrant local economies.Better food, plentiful food, at a lower cost and with less energy expended: Independence Days is for all who want to build a sustainable food system and keep eating—even in hard times.Sharon Astyk is a former academic who farms in upstate New York with her family. She is the author of Depletion and Abundance, the co-author of A Nation of Farmers, and she blogs at www.sharonastyk.com.

    Authors Lewis Hill and Leonard Perry provide everything you need to know to successfully grow delicious organic fruit at home, from choosing the best varieties for your area to planting, pruning, and harvesting a bountiful crop. With tips on cultivating strawberries, raspberries, grapes, pears, peaches, and more, this essential reference guide will inspire year after year of abundantly fruitful gardening.

    Department of Agriculture. King traveled to Asia in the early 1900s to learn how farmers in China, Korea, and Japan were able to achieve successful harvests century after century without exhausting the soil — one of their most valuable natural resources. This book is the result of his extraordinary mission.A fascinating study of waste-free methods of cultivation, this work reveals the secrets of ancient farming methods and, at the same time, chronicles the travels and observations of a remarkable man. A well-trained observer who studied the actual conditions of life among agricultural peoples, King provides intriguing glimpses of Japan, China, Manchuria, and Korea; customs of the common people; the utilization of waste; methods of irrigation, reforestation, and land reclamation; the cultivation of rice, silk, and tea; and related topics.Enhanced with more than 240 illustrations (most of them photographs), this book represents an invaluable resource for organic gardeners, farmer, and conservationists. It remains "one of the richest sources of information about peasant agriculture [and] one of the pioneer books on organic farming." — The LastWhole Earth Catalog.

    It is made up of fruit and nut trees, fruit bushes, perennial vegetables and herbs. It can be tailored to fit any space, from a tiny urban back yard to a large rural garden.A close copy of a natural ecosystem, it is perhaps the most ecologically friendly way of gardening open to us.It is also a low-maintenance way of gardening. Once established there is none of the digging, sowing, planting out and hoeing of the conventional kitchen garden. The main task is picking up the produce!This highly practical, yet inspiring book gives you everything you need to know in order to create a beautiful and productive forest garden,including:* Basic principles* Layout* How to choose plants* Details of over one hundred plants, from apples to mushrooms* the most comprehensive account of perennial and self-seeding vegetables in print* A step-by-step guide to creating your garden* Full details of an example garden, and pictures of many moreForest gardening is an important element of permaculture. This book explains in detail permaculture design for temperate climates and contains much of interest for anybody wanting to introduce sustainable practices into their garden.

    More than just a field guide to wild edibles, it is a global plan for human survival. When Katrina Blair was eleven she had a life-changing experience where wild plants spoke to her, beckoning her to become a champion of their cause. Since then she has spent months on end taking walkabouts in the wild, eating nothing but what she forages, and has become a wild-foods advocate, community activist, gardener, and chef, teaching and presenting internationally about foraging and the healthful lifestyle it promotes. Katrina Blair's philosophy in The Wild Wisdom of Weeds is sobering, realistic, and ultimately optimistic. If we can open our eyes to see the wisdom found in these weeds right under our noses, instead of trying to eradicate an "invasive," we will achieve true food security. The Wild Wisdom of Weeds is about healing ourselves both in body and in spirit, in an age where technology, commodity agriculture, and processed foods dictate the terms of our intelligence. But if we can become familiar with these thirteen edible survival weeds found all over the world, we will never go hungry, and we will become closer to our own wild human instincts--all the while enjoying the freshest, wildest, and most nutritious food there is. For free! The thirteen plants found growing in every region across the world are: dandelion, mallow, purslane, plantain, thistle, amaranth, dock, mustard, grass, chickweed, clover, lambsquarter, and knotweed. These special plants contribute to the regeneration of the earth while supporting the survival of our human species; they grow everywhere where human civilization exists, from the hottest deserts to the Arctic Circle, following the path of human disturbance. Indeed, the more humans disturb the earth and put our food supply at risk, the more these thirteen plants proliferate. It's a survival plan for the ages. Including over one hundred unique recipes, Katrina Blair's book teaches us how to prepare these wild plants from root to seed in soups, salads, slaws, crackers, pestos, seed breads, and seed butters; cereals, green powders, sauerkrauts, smoothies, and milks; first-aid concoctions such as tinctures, teas, salves, and soothers; self-care/beauty products including shampoo, mouthwash, toothpaste (and brush), face masks; and a lot more. Whether readers are based at home or traveling, this book aims to empower individuals to maintain a state of optimal health with minimal cost and effort.

    And he’s never stopped studying, because he wants to give the best, most up-to-date information to the listeners of his nationally-syndicated Public Radio show, “You Bet Your Garden.” He offers the fruits of his labors in this illustrated guide that reveals why compost is the answer to virtually every garden question. McGrath explains why compost improves soil structure; why it provides the perfect amount of food for every plant; how it fights plant diseases more safely and effectively than any chemical fungicide; and how to make your own. This is a must-have on every gardener’s bookshelf!

    From learning how to incorporate herbs and essential oils around your home, to learning how to enhance your family's health and well-being, this book is the go-to resource for those wishing to live a more natural homesteading lifestyle. This book takes readers through the basics of herbalism, including the different types of herbs and their uses. It also breaks down how herbs are used in tinctures, salves, essential oils, and infused oils. You'll learn how to efficiently incorporate herbs into your lifestyle, creating your own herbal remedy cabinet for yourself and for your livestock as well. And through encouragement and evidence-based information, you'll be confident using herbs, cooking with herbs, and sharing your herbal products with your friends and family. With an array of beautiful photos and easy to read terminology, just about any homesteader, new or seasoned, can learn from The Homesteader's Herbal Companion, and finally feel comfortable incorporating the many wonderful qualities of herbs around their homes and homesteads.

    What at first sounds pastoral and idyllic soon becomes a series of challenges as the realities of what it takes to run a farm come to light. From making the classic neophyte agronomist error of getting emotionally involved with her chickens to ruminating on the value of radishes, Hopkins's retelling of life on a farm in the modern age is engaging, even gripping. Through it all, Hopkins cultivates a sense of belonging, and with a lot of hard work and a little luck, she becomes quite a bit more than just a farmer's girlfriend.

    In addition to these cultivated food crops, they also forage for wild edibles, process their own meat, make their own butter, and ferment, dry, and can their own vegetables. Their focus is to produce nutrient-dense foods from vibrant, mineralized soils for themselves and their immediate community.(from Amazon)