The Foxfire Book: Hog Dressing; Log Cabin Building; Mountain Crafts and Foods; Planting by the Signs; Snake Lore, Hunting Tales, Faith Healing


Eliot Wigginton - 1972
    This is the original book compilation of Foxfire material which introduces Aunt Arie and her contemporaries and includes log cabin building, hog dressing, snake lore, mountain crafts and food, and "other affairs of plain living."

All New Square Foot Gardening


Mel Bartholomew - 1981
    Sure, it's even simpler than it was before. Of course, you don't have to worry about fertilizer or poor soil ever again because you'll be growing above the ground. However, the best feature is that anyone, anywhere can enjoy a square foot garden - children, adults with limited mobility, and even complete novices can achieve spectacular results. But, let's get back to the ten improvements. You're going to love them: 1. New Location - Move your garden closer to your house by eliminating single-row gardening. Square foot gardens need just 20% of the space of a traditional garden.2. New Direction - Locate your garden on top of existing soil. Forget about pH soil tests, double-digging (who enjoys that?), or those never-ending soil improvements.3. New Soil - The new "Mel's Mix" is the perfect growing mix. We give you the recipe, and best of all, you can even buy the different types of compost needed.4. New Depth - You only need to prepare a SFG box to a depth of 6 inches! It's true - the majority of plants develop just fine when grown at this depth.5. No Fertilizer - The all new SFG does not need any fertilizer - ever! If you start with the perfect soil mix, then you don't need to add fertilizer.6. New Boxes - The new method uses bottomless boxes placed above ground. We show you how to build your own (with step-by-step photos).7. New Aisles - The ideal gardening aisle width is about three to four feet. That makes it even easier to kneel, work, and harvest.8. New Grids - Prominent and permanent grids added to your SFG box help you visualize your planting squares and properly space them for maximum harvest.9. New Seed-Saving Idea - The old-fashioned way advocates planting many seeds and then thinning the extras (that means pulling them up). The new method means planting a pinch - literally two or three seeds - per planting hole.10. Tabletop Gardens - The new boxes are so much smaller and lighter (only 6 inches of soil, remember?), you can add a plywood bottom to make them portable. Of course, that's not all. We've also included simple, easy-to-follow instructions using lots of photos and illustrations. You're going to love it!

How to Brew: Everything You Need to Know to Brew Beer Right the First Time


John J. Palmer - 2006
    This book includes ingredients, methods, recipes and equipment information. It provides reference to intermediate techniques like all-grain brewing variations and recipe formulation.

The Encyclopedia of Country Living


Carla Emery - 1977
    It is the most complete source of step-by-step information about growing, processing, cooking, and preserving homegrown foods from garden, orchard, field, or barnyard. This book is so basic, so thorough, so reliable, that it deserves a place in every home whether country, city, or in between. Carla Emery started writing The Encyclopedia of Country Living in 1969 during the back-to-the-land movement of that time. She continued to add content and refine the information over the years ad the book went from a self-published mimeographed document to a book published by Bantam and then Sasquatch. The 10th Edition reflects the most up-to-date and the most personal version of the book that became Carla Emery’s life work. It is the original manual of basic country skills that have proved essential and necessary for people living in the country and the city, and everywhere in between. The practical advice in this exhaustive reference tool includes how to cultivate a garden, buy land, bake bread, raise farm animals, make sausage, can peaches, milk a goat, grow herbs, churn butter, build a chicken coop, catch a pig, cook on a wood stove, and much, much more.

Modern Pioneering: More Than 150 Recipes, Projects, and Skills for a Self-Sufficient Life


Georgia Pellegrini - 2014
    Whether you’re a full-time homesteader, a weekend farmer’s market devoté, or anyone looking to do more by hand, this overflowing resource will help you hone new skills in the kitchen, garden, and great outdoors. It includes: ·         More than 100 recipes for garden-to-table dishes, preserves, and cured foods ·         Small-space gardening advice on building a raised bed, choosing what to grow, and saving seeds ·         DIY projects, such as Mason jar lanterns and homemade notecards ·         Superwoman skills like assembling a 48- hour survival toolkit in an Altoids tin   Packed with beautiful photographs and illustrations, Modern Pioneering proves that becoming more self-sufficient not only means being empowered, but also having a lot more fun.

The Backyard Homestead: Produce All the Food You Need on Just a Quarter Acre!


Carleen Madigan - 2009
    With easy-to-follow instructions on canning, drying, and pickling, you’ll enjoy your backyard bounty all winter long. Also available in this series: The Backyard Homestead Seasonal Planner, The Backyard Homestead Book of Building Projects, The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals, and The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How.

Food Drying with an Attitude: A Fun and Fabulous Guide to Creating Snacks, Meals, and Crafts


Mary T. Bell - 2008
    Children will love the yummy fruit roll-ups. Everyone will be thrilled at how easy it is to preserve fruits, vegetables, and herbs without chemicals or preservatives. Animal lovers will enjoy making treats for dogs, cats, and birds.   With more than thirty years of food drying experience, author Mary T. Bell offers straightforward and practical instructions for drying everything from apples to zucchini, without ignoring traditional favorites such as jerky, mushrooms, and bananas. Readers will also find innovative and delicious recipes for cooking and baking with dried foods. Food Drying with an Attitude gives readers the recipes, instructions, and inspiration they need to get the most out of their home food dehydrators.

SAS Survival Handbook: How to Survive in the Wild, in Any Climate, on Land or at Sea


John Wiseman - 1986
    John 'Lofty' Wiseman presents real strategies for surviving in any type of situation, from accidents and escape procedures, including chemical and nuclear to successfully adapting to various climates (polar, tropical, desert), to identifying edible plants and creating fire. The book is extremely practical and is illustrated throughout with easy-to-understand line art and diagrams.

How to Stay Alive in the Woods: A Complete Guide to Food, Shelter and Self-Preservation Anywhere


Bradford Angier - 1956
    Broken down into four essential sections, Sustenance, Warmth, Orientation and Safety, this enlightening manual reveals how to catch game without a gun, what plants to eat (full-color illustrations of these make identification simple), how to build a warm shelter, make clothing, protect yourself and signal for help. Detailed illustrations and expanded instructions offer crucial information at a glance, making How to Stay Alive in the Woods truly a lifesaver.

Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast


Hank Shaw - 2011
    A lifelong angler and forager who became a hunter late in life, Hank Shaw has chronicled his passion for hunting and gathering in his widely read blog, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, which has developed an avid following among outdoor people and foodies alike. Hank is dedicated to finding a place on the table for the myriad overlooked and underutilized wild foods that are there for the taking—if you know how to get them.   In Hunt, Gather, Cook, he shares his experiences both in the field and the kitchen, as well as hisextensive knowledge of North America’s edible flora and fauna. With the fresh, clever prose that brings so many readers to his blog, Hank provides a user-friendly, food-oriented introduction to tracking down everything from sassafras to striped bass to snowshoe hares. He then provides innovative ways to prepare wild foods that go far beyond typical campfire cuisine: homemade root beer, cured wild boar loin, boneless tempura shad, Sardinian hare stew—even pasta made with handmade acorn flour.   For anyone ready to take a more active role in determining what they feed themselves and their families, Hunt, Gather, Cook offers an entertaining and delicious introduction to harvesting the bounty of wild foods to be found in every part of the country.

Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills


Abigail R. Gehring - 2007
    Created to both inspire and instruct, it returns readers to an era before power saws and fast food restaurants so they can rediscover the pleasures and challenges of a more self-sufficient, economical, and healthy lifestyle. Packed with hundreds of projects, step-by-step sequences, charts, tables, diagrams, and illustrations, it explains how to dye your own wool with plant pigments, graft trees for propagation, raise chickens, create a hutch table with hand tools, and make treats such as blueberry peach jam and cheddar cheese. The truly ambitious will learn how to build a log cabin or an adobe brick homestead.

The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants


Samuel Thayer - 2006
    A guide to 32 of the best and most common edible wild plants in North America, with detailed information on how to identify them, where they are found, how and when they are harvested, which parts are used, how they are prepared, as well as their culinary use, ecology, conservation, and cultural history.

The Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve-Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency


Anna Hess - 2012
    If you need to fit homesteading into a few hours each weekend and would like to have fun while doing it, these projects will be right up your alley, whether you live on a forty-acre farm, a postage-stamp lawn in suburbia, or a high rise. Permaculture techniques will turn your homestead into a vibrant ecosystem and attract native pollinators while converting our society's waste into high-quality compost and mulch. Meanwhile, enjoy the fruits of your labor right away as you learn the basics of cooking and eating seasonally, then preserve homegrown produce for later by drying, canning, freezing, or simply filling your kitchen cabinets with storage vegetables.As you become more self-sufficient, you'll save seeds, prepare for power outages, and tear yourself away from a full-time job, while building a supportive and like-minded community. You won't be completely eliminating your reliance on the grocery store, but you will be plucking low-hanging (and delicious!) fruits out of your own garden by the time all forty-eight projects are complete.

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide


John Seymour - 1973
    Author John Seymour, the father of the back-to-basics movement, shares his singular vision to transform lives and create communities. More relevant than ever in our hi-tech world, The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the ultimate practical guide for realists and dreamers alike.

Country Wisdom & Know-How: A Practical Guide to Living off the Land


M. John Storey - 2004
    Compiled from the information in Storey Publishing's landmark series of "Country Wisdom Bulletins," this book is the most thorough and reliable volume of its kind. Organized by general topic including animals, cooking, crafts, gardening, health and well-being, and home, it is further broken down to cover dozens of specifics from "Building Chicken Coops" to "Making Cheese, Butter, and Yogurt" to "Improving Your Soil" to "Restoring Hardwood Floors." Nearly 1,000 black-and-white illustrations and photographs run throughout and fascinating projects and trusted advice crowd every page.