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When Technology Fails
by Matthew SteinThere's never been a better time to "be prepared. " Matthew Stein's comprehensive primer on sustainable living skills-from food and water to shelter and energy to first-aid and crisis-management skills-prepares you to embark on the path toward sustainability. But unlike any other book, Stein not only shows you how to live "green" in seemingly stable times, but to live in the face of potential disasters, lasting days or years, coming in the form of social upheaval, economic meltdown, or environmental catastrophe. "When Technology Fails" covers the gamut. You'll learn how to start a fire and keep warm if you've been left temporarily homeless, as well as the basics of installing a renewable energy system for your home or business. You'll learn how to find and sterilize water in the face of utility failure, as well as practical information for dealing with water-quality issues even when the public tap water is still flowing. You'll learn alternative techniques for healing equally suited to an era of profit-driven malpractice as to situations of social calamity. Each chapter (a survey of the risks to the status quo; supplies and preparation for short- and long-term emergencies; emergency measures for survival; water; food; shelter; clothing; first aid, low-tech medicine, and healing; energy, heat, and power; metalworking; utensils and storage; low-tech chemistry; and engineering, machines, and materials) offers the same approach, describing skills for self-reliance in good times and bad. Fully revised and expanded-the first edition was written pre-9/11 and pre-Katrina, when few Americans took the risk of social disruption seriously-"When Technology Fails" ends on a positive, proactive note with a new chapter on "Making the Shift to Sustainability," which offers practical suggestions for changing our world on personal, community and global levels.
Mortgage Free!
by Rob RoyAs a wave of foreclosures sweeps the country, many people are giving up hope for owning a home of their own. They have good reason to turn their backs on the banks, but not on their dreams. In this revised edition of Mortgage Free!, Rob Roy offers a series of escape routes from enslavement to financial institutions, underscored by true stories of intrepid homeowners who have put their principles into action. From back-to-the-land homesteads to country homes, here is a complete guide to strategies that allow you to own your land and home, free and clear, without the bank. Included is detailed advice about:•Clarifying and simplifying your notions of what's necessary;•Finding land that you love and can afford;•Taking control of the house-building process, for the sake of sanity and pleasure; and•Learning to take a long-term perspective on your family's crucial economic decisions, avoiding debt and modern-day serfdom.
Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally
by Robert KourikFirst published in 1986, this classic is back in print by popular demand. It is the authoritative text on edible landscaping, featuring a step-by-step guide to designing a productive environment using vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs for a combination of ornamental and culinary purposes. It includes descriptions of plants for all temperate habitats, methods for improving soil, tree pruning styles, and gourmet recipes using low-maintenance plants. There are sections on attracting beneficial insects with companion plants and using planting to shelter your home from erosion, heat, wind, and cold.
Solar Gardening
by Leandre Poisson Gretchen Vogel Poisson"Solar Gardening" shows how to increase efforts of the sun during the coldest months of the year and how to protect tender plants from the intensity of the scorching sun during the hottest months through the use of solar "mini-greenhouses. " The book includes instructions for building a variety of solar appliances plus descriptions of more than 90 different crops, with charts showing when to plant and harvest each. The result is a year-round harvest even from a small garden. In "Solar Gardening" the Poissons show you how to:• Dramatically increase the annual square-foot yield of your garden. • Extend the growing and harvest season for nearly every kind of vegetable. • Select crops that will thrive in the coldest and hottest months of the year, without artificial heating or cooling systems. • Build solar appliances for your own garden. Armed with nothing but this book and a few simple tools, even novice gardeners can quickly learn to extend their growing season and increase their yields, without increasing the size of their garden plot.
The Soul of Soil
by Grace Gershuny Joe SmillieSoil is the basis not only for all gardening, but for all terrestrial life. No aspect of agriculture is more fundamental and important, yet we have been losing vast quantities of our finite soil resources to erosion, pollution, and development. Now back in print, this eminently sensible and wonderfully well-focused book provides essential information about one of the most significant challenges for those attempting to grow delicious organic vegetables: the creation and maintenance of healthy soil. All of us involved in the cultivation of plants--from the backyard gardener to the largest farmer--need to help regenerate a "living soil," for only in the diversity of the soil and its creatures can we ensure the long-term health of ourselves and our environment. "The Soul of Soil" offers everyone a basic understanding of what soil is and what we can do to improve our own patch of it. Seen in this light, this practical handbook will be an inspiration as well.
The Basics of Permaculture Design
by Ross Mars"The Basics of Permaculture Design", first published in Australia in 1996, is an excellent introduction to the principles of permaculture, design processes, and the tools needed for designing sustainable gardens, farms, and larger communities. Packed with useful tips, clear illustrations, and a wealth of experience, it guides you through designs for gardens, urban and rural properties, water harvesting systems, animal systems, permaculture in small spaces like balconies and patios, farms, schools, and ecovillages. This is both a do-ityourself guide for the enthusiast and a useful reference for permaculture designers.
The Permaculture Garden
by Graham BellWorking entirely in harmony with nature, The Permaculture Garden shows you how to turn a bare plot into a beautiful and productive garden. Learn how to plan your garden for easy access and minimum labor; save time and effort digging and weeding; recycle materials to save money; plan crop successions for year-round harvests; save energy and harvest water; and garden without chemicals by building up your soil and planting in beneficial communities. Full of practical ideas, this perennial classic, first published in 1995, is guaranteed to inspire, inform, and entertain.
The Permaculture Way
by Graham BellThe Permaculture Way shows us how to consciously design a lifestyle which is low in environmental impact and highly productive. It demonstrates how to meet our needs, make the most of resources by minimizing waste and maximizing potential, and still leave the Earth richer than we found it.
The Apple Grower
by Michael PhillipsThe definitive guide to growing apples wisely, naturally, and with gentle impact on the earth. For decades fruit growers have sprayed their trees with toxic chemicals in an attempt to control a range of insect and fungal pests. Yet it is possible to grow apples responsibly, by applying the intuitive knowledge of our great-grandparents with the fruits of modern scientific research and innovation. Since "The Apple Grower" first appeared in 1998, orchardist Michael Phillips has continued his research with apples, which have been called "organic's final frontier. " In this new edition of his widely acclaimed work, Phillips delves even deeper into the mysteries of growing good fruit with minimal inputs. Some of the cutting edge topics he explores include: bull; The use of kaolin clay as an effective strategy against curculio and borers, as well as its limitations bull; Creating a diverse, healthy orchard ecosystem through understory management of plants, nutrients, and beneficial microorganisms bull; How to make a small apple business viable by focusing on heritage and regional varieties, value-added products, and the "community orchard" model The author's personal voice and clear-eyed advice have already made "The Apple Grower" a classic among small-scale growers and home orchardists. In fact, anyone serious about succeeding with apples needs to have this updated edition on their bookshelf.
Perennial Vegetables
by Eric ToensmeierThere is a fantastic array of vegetables you can grow in your garden, and not all of them are annuals. In "Perennial Vegetables" the adventurous gardener will find information, tips, and sound advice on less common edibles that will make any garden a perpetual, low maintenance source of food. Imagine growing vegetables that require just about the same amount of care as the flowers in your perennial beds and borders--no annual tilling and planting. They thrive and produce abundant and nutritious crops throughout the season. It sounds too good to be true, but in "Perennial Vegetables" author and plant specialist Eric Toensmeier ("Edible Forest Gardens") introduces gardeners to a world of little-known and wholly underappreciated plants. Ranging beyond the usual suspects (asparagus, rhubarb, and artichoke) to include such "minor" crops as ground cherry and ramps (both have found their way onto exclusive restaurant menus) and the much sought-after, antioxidant-rich wolfberry (also known as goji berries), Toensmeier explains how to raise, tend, harvest, and cook with plants that yield great crops and satisfaction. Perennial vegetables are perfect as part of an edible landscape plan or permaculture garden. Profiling more than a hundred species, with dozens of color photographs and illustrations, and filled with valuable growing tips, recipes, and resources, "Perennial Vegetables" is a groundbreaking and ground-healing book that will open the eyes of gardeners everywhere to the exciting world of edible perennials.
A Handmade Life
by Wm. CoperthwaiteWilliam Coperthwaite is a teacher, builder, designer, and writer who for many years has explored the possibilities of true simplicity on a homestead on the north coast of Maine. In the spirit of Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and Helen and Scott Nearing, Coperthwaite has fashioned a livelihood of integrity and completeness-buying almost nothing, providing for his own needs, and serving as a guide and companion to hundreds of apprentices drawn to his unique way of being. "A Handmade Life" carries Coperthwaite's ongoing experiments with hand tools, hand-grown and gathered food, and handmade shelter, clothing, and furnishings out into the world to challenge and inspire. His writing is both philosophical and practical, exploring themes of beauty, work, education, and design while giving instruction on the hand-crafting of the necessities of life. Richly illustrated with luminous color photographs by Peter Forbes, the book is a moving and inspirational testament to a new practice of old ways of life.
Fresh Food from Small Spaces
by R. J. RuppenthalBooks on container gardening have been wildly popular with urban and suburban readers, but until now, there has been no comprehensive "how-to" guide for growing fresh food in the absence of open land. Fresh Food from Small Spaces fills the gap as a practical, comprehensive, and downright fun guide to growing food in small spaces. It provides readers with the knowledge and skills necessary to produce their own fresh vegetables, mushrooms, sprouts, and fermented foods as well as to raise bees and chickens-all without reliance on energy-intensive systems like indoor lighting and hydroponics. Readers will learn how to transform their balconies and windowsills into productive vegetable gardens, their countertops and storage lockers into commercial-quality sprout and mushroom farms, and their outside nooks and crannies into whatever they can imagine. Free space for the city gardener might be no more than a cramped patio, balcony, rooftop, windowsill, hanging rafter, dark cabinet, garage, or storage area, but no space is too small or too dark to raise food. Author R. J. Ruppenthal worked on an organic vegetable farm in his youth, but his expertise in urban and indoor gardening has been hard-won through years of trial-and-error experience. In the small city homes where he has lived, often with no more than a balcony, windowsill, and countertop for gardening, Ruppenthal and his family have been able to eat at least some homegrown food 365 days per year. In an era of declining resources and environmental disruption, Ruppenthal shows that urban dwellers can contribute to a rebirth of local, fresh foods.
Composting
by Nicky ScottA full-color guide for both beginners and experienced composters, with an A-Z reference section. Composting is fun, easy and very satisfying! You can make compost even if you live in an apartment or don't have access to a garden. There are lots of good reasons to make compost: bull; A third to two-thirds of the average garbage can contents can be composted, so you can lighten your bin-and stop it smelling. bull; Less organic material is sent to landfill, so less noxious liquids and greenhouse gases-especially methane-are produced. bull; Composting saves you money-you won't need to buy any more peat-based compost! This book will give you all the information you need for successful composting.
Energy
by Jon Clift Amanda Cuthbert100 energy saving tips for everything in your home or business. Did you know . . . bull; Heating and cooling account for about 56% of the energy use in a typical home bull; Energy-efficient light bulbs last about 12 times longer than ordinary bulbs, and consume about 1/5 of the energy bull; If we all turned off our TVs and other gadgets that are kept on stand-by, we could shut down a couple of power stations in the United States, with huge reductions in CO2 emissions bull; Our energy use is projected to increase 17% from 1995-2015 bull; Our homes produce even more CO2 emissions than our cars This book gives you 100 energy-saving tips for the home-from simple things like switching off unnecessary lights and having a shower instead of a bath, to more drastic measures such as installing a condensing boiler. If each one of us acts on just a few of these suggestions, we can save money-and help slow down climate change.
Getting Started in Permaculture
by Ross Jenny MarsPermaculture experts Ross and Jenny Mars outline the steps to transform your garden into a productive living system. Modeled upon the development of Candlelight Farm, and illustrated with photographs, this guide encourages the reader to make postive steps towards reconciling human impact with nature - following the permaculture ideal. Permaculture is based on the ethics of caring for people and our planet. It is about growing your own healthy food, being resourceful and environmentally responsible. Permaculture concepts and ideas can be applied successfully from small suburban units to large farming properties. "Getting Started in Permaculture" delivers step-by-step knowledge for a variety of useful projects including: making herb fertilizers, compost, organic sprays for pest control, and much, much more. It also includes how to recycle your soft drink bottles, waste paper, and tires in a number of useful projects such as ponds, fruit fly traps, retailing walls, and solar stills. As part of Permanent Publications Simple Living Series, this practical and accessible guide for gardeners of all skill levels serves as an ideal introduction to the world of permaculture.
The Rammed Earth House
by David Easton"The Rammed Earth House" is an eye-opening example of how the most dramatic innovations in home design and construction frequently have their origins in the distant past. By rediscovering the most ancient of all building materials-earth-forward-thinking homebuilders can now create structures that set new standards for beauty, durability, and efficient use of natural resources. Rammed earth construction is a step forward into a sustainable future, when homes will combine pleasing aesthetics and intense practicality with a powerful sense of place. Rammed earth homes are built entirely on-site, using basic elements-earth, water, and a little cement. The solid masonry walls permit design flexibility while providing year-round comfort and minimal use of energy. The builder and resident of a rammed earth house will experience the deep satisfaction of creating permanence in a world dominated by the disposable.
Water
by Jon Clift Amanda CuthbertWATER: USE LESS-SAVE MORE THE CHELSEA GREEN GUIDES-A NEW SERIES OF POCKET-SIZED BOOKS TO HELP SAVE THE EARTH! Did you know that Americans now use 127 percent more water than we did in 1950? Or that about 95 percent of the water entering our homes goes down the drain? Our population is growing, our climate changing, and our lifestyles demand more and more water. This book includes one hundred tips for conserving water in the home and garden. Following just a few will reduce your consumption of water, save money, and save the environment. This book gives you 100 water saving tips for the home and garden - from simple things like having a shower instead of a bath, to more drastic measures like installing a rainwater harvesting system. If each one of us does just one of them, we can help reduce the likelihood of water shortages both now and in the future
Landscaping Earth Ponds
by Tim MatsonThe guru of earth ponds explains how to site, design, shape, and plant these beloved fixtures of rural landscapes-and make them fit your property and your life. In the decades since he wrote his acclaimed "Earth Ponds," Tim Matson has designed scores of ponds, each unique to its site and its owners. In "Landscaping Earth Ponds," he shares what he has learned to make these captivating ponds truly fit into their landscapes and into the lives and lifestyles of their owners. Ponds have long been valued for their charm and utility: how else can you simultaneously enliven your landscape, create recreational opportunities, help the environment, and increase your property value? Earth ponds are increasingly recognized for the full range of gardening, landscaping, and ecological promise they hold. As pond-building methods have been perfected, more homeowners are restoring existing ponds or digging new ones. With dozens of color photographs, Matson shows you how to site a pond in right relation to your house, offering surprisingly simple ways to visually link the two. His proven methods and designs reflect the many moods water evokes. Screen your pond for privacy, create a sandy beach and natural diving platform, encourage wetland gardens, line the shores with moisture-loving perennials, or design your gardens and paths to create a sense of mystery and adventure.
The Sauna
by Rob RoyWith a history going back at least one thousand years, the sauna is ready for a new generation of enthusiasts seeking health, pleasure, and peace of mind, and Rob Roy is ready to recruit! "If the sauna is just a bath, then Buckingham Palace is just a house. " So writes sauna expert and intrepid do-it-yourselfer Roy in this new, updated version of "The Sauna. This completely revised and expanded edition of "The Sauna contains everything you ever wanted to know about the famous "Finnish bath. " In this inviting book, Roy shares his infectious enthusiasm for the sauna and provides a complete, detailed guide to sauna building, along with resources for equipment and supplies. "The Sauna is replete with history, tradition, health benefits, instructions for proper use and maintenance, as well as step-by-step instructions for building a variety of cordwood masonry saunas and, new to this edition, conventionally wood-framed saunas. The beautiful color photographs, also new to this edition, will inspire you to create your own sauna haven.
This Organic Life
by Joan Dye GussowJoan Dye Gussow is an extraordinarily ordinary woman. She lives in a home not unlike the average home in a neighborhood that is, more or less, typically suburban. What sets her apart from the rest of us is that she thinks more deeply--and in more eloquent detail--about food. In sharing her ponderings, she sets a delightful example for those of us who seek the healthiest, most pleasurable lifestyle within an environment determined to propel us in the opposite direction. Joan is a suburbanite with a green thumb, with a feisty, defiant spirit and a relentlessly positive outlook. At the heart of "This Organic Life" is the premise that locally grown food eaten in season makes sense economically, ecologically, and gastronomically. Transporting produce to New York from California--not to mention Central and South America, Australia, or Europe--consumes more energy in transit than it yields in calories. Add in the deleterious effects of agribusiness, such as the endless cycle of pesticide, herbicide, and chemical fertilizers; the loss of topsoil from erosion of over-tilled croplands; depleted aquifers and soil salinization from over-irrigation; and the arguments in favor of "this organic life" become overwhelmingly convincing. Joan's story is funny and fiery as she points out the absurdities we have unthinkingly come to accept. Joan has discovered ways to nourish herself, literally and spiritually, from her own backyard. If you are looking for a tale of courage and independence in a setting that is entirely familiar, read her story.
The Transition Timeline: For a Local, Resilient Future
by Shaun ChamberlinThe Transition Timeline lightens the fear of our uncertain future, providing a map of what we are facing and the different pathways available to us. It describes four possible scenarios for the UK and world over the next twenty years, ranging from Denial, in which we reap the consequences of failing to acknowledge and respond to our environmental challenges, to the Transition Vision, in which we shift our cultural assumptions to fit our circumstances and move into a more fulfilling, lowerenergy world. The practical, realistic details of this Transition Vision are examined in depth, covering key areas such as food, energy, demographics, transport and healthcare, and they provide a sense of context for communities working towards a thriving future. The book also provides a detailed and accessible update on climate change and peak oil and the interactions between them, including their impacts in the UK, present and future. Use it. Choose your path, and then make that future real with your actions, individually and with your community. As Rob Hopkins outlines in his foreword, there is a rapidlyspreading movement addressing these challenges, and it needs you.
Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long
by Eliot ColemanIf you love the joys of eating home-garden vegetables but always thought those joys had to stop at the end of summer, this book is for you. Eliot Coleman shows how gardeners can successfully use that sun to raise a wide variety of traditional winter vegetables in backyard cold frames and plastic covered tunnel greenhouses without supplementary heat. Coleman expands upon his own experiences with new ideas learned on a winter-vegetable pilgrimage across the ocean to the acknowledged kingdom of vegetable cuisine, the southern part of France, which lies on the 44th parallel, the same latitude as his farm in Maine.
Serious Straw Bale
by Paul Lacinski Michel BergeronBergeron and Lacinski's new book "Serious Straw Bale" is the first to look carefully at the specific design considerations critical to success with a straw bale building in more extreme climates-where seasonal changes in temperature, precipitation, and humidity create special stresses that builders must understand and address. The authors draw upon years of experience with natural materials and experimental techniques, and present a compelling rationale for building with straw-one of nature's most resilient, available, and affordable byproducts. For skeptics and true believers, this book will prove to be the latest word. Thorough explanations of how moisture and temperature affect buildings in seasonal climates, with descriptions of the unique capacities of straw and other natural materials to provide warmth, quiet, and comfort year-round. Comprehensive comparison of the two main approaches to straw bale construction: "Nebraska-style," where bales bear the weight of the roof, and framed structures, where bales provide insulation. Detailed advice-including many well-considered cautions-for contractors, owner-builders, and designers, following each stage of a bale-building process. This is a second-generation straw bale book, for those seeking serious information to meet serious challenges while adventuring in the most fun form of construction to come along in several centuries.
Winter Harvest Handbook: Year-Round Organic Vegetable Production for the Twenty-First Century
by Eliot ColemanChoosing locally grown organic food is a sustainable living trend that's taken hold throughout North America. Celebrated farming expert Eliot Coleman helped start this movement with The New Organic Grower published 20 years ago. He continues to lead the way, pushing the limits of the harvest season while working his world-renowned organic farm in Harborside, Maine. Now, with his long-awaited new book, The Winter Harvest Handbook, anyone can have access to his hard-won experience. Gardeners and farmers can use the innovative, highly successful methods Coleman describes in this comprehensive handbook to raise crops throughout the coldest of winters. Building on the techniques that hundreds of thousands of farmers and gardeners adopted from The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest, this book focuses on growing produce of unparalleled freshness and quality in customized unheated or, in some cases, minimally heated, movable plastic greenhouses. Coleman offers clear, concise details on greenhouse construction and maintenance, planting schedules, crop management, harvesting practices, and even marketing methods in this complete, meticulous, and illustrated guide. Readers have access to all the techniques that have proven to produce higher-quality crops on Coleman's own farm. His painstaking research and experimentation with more than 30 different crops will be valuable to small farmers, homesteaders, and experienced home gardeners who seek to expand their production seasons. A passionate advocate for the revival of small-scale sustainable farming, Coleman provides a practical model for supplying produce during the winter season, even in climates where conventional wisdom says it "just can't be done. "
Small-Scale Grain Raising
by Gene LogsdonFirst published in 1977, this book-from one of America's most famous and prolific agricultural writers-became an almost instant classic among homestead gardeners and small farmers. Now fully updated and available once more, "Small-Scale Grain Raising" offers a entirely new generation of readers the best introduction to a wide range of both common and lesser-known specialty grains and related field crops, from corn, wheat, and rye to buckwheat, millet, rice, spelt, flax, and even beans and sunflowers. More and more Americans are seeking out locally grown foods, yet one of the real stumbling blocks to their efforts has been finding local sources for grains, which are grown mainly on large, distant corporate farms. At the same time, commodity prices for grains-and the products made from them-have skyrocketed due to rising energy costs and increased demand. In this book, Gene Logsdon proves that anyone who has access to a large garden or small farm can (and should) think outside the agribusiness box and learn to grow healthy whole grains or beans-the base of our culinary food pyramid-alongside their fruits and vegetables. Never has there been a better time, or a more receptive audience, for this book. Localvores, serious home gardeners, CSA farmers, and whole-foods advocates-in fact, all people who value fresh, high-quality foods-will find a field full of information and ideas in this once and future classic.