Feed your garden and your garden will feed you. This final installment in The Ultimate Guide to Soil series walks new and experienced gardeners through using dozens of amendments for fertilizing, mulching, and conditioning the organic garden. Hess starts with traditional materials like compost and cover crops, branches out into permaculture goodies such as biochar and hugelkultur, and comes full circle with both urban and rural waste products including...

"This is a love story in three parts about how I ended up with much more than I bargained for, and grew beyond the person I thought I'd be." Anna Hess spent her early childhood chasing ornery cows back into the barn, eating all of her family's strawberries before they got ripe so she didn't have to share them, and climbing sap-riddled pine trees. The reality of farm life seemed to be summed up in one word-bliss. So when her back-to-the-lander parents...

1/10 of an acre can feed you all year! The easiest way to grow more of your own calories is to focus on roots like potatoes and carrots. With yields of up to 200 calories per square foot, you can break your reliance on the grocery store with just a few seeds or starts and a shovel. Most root crops are easy to store through the winter and require no special harvesting or processing equipment. So why don't we all grow roots? To keep the tubers happy...

Grow twice the fruits and vegetables in half the space on the farm, in the backyard, or even in your window! Have you noticed the extraordinary flavors and yields emanating from even a small garden when the soil is just right? If you've ever been envious of your neighbor's dirt or just curious about homesteading, then The Ultimate Guide to Soil is the perfect fit for you. This third volume in the series walks new and experienced gardeners through...

All the advantages of a tiny house at a fraction of the cost! Imagine what you could do with your time if you didn't have to spend $16,000 a year on rent or a mortgage. Old single-wide mobile homes can often be found for free (and installed for a couple of thousand dollars) in rural areas, so trailersteading is akin to dumpster-diving. A trailer allows you to live without debt, to keep your ecological footprint to a minimum with energy bills at or...

Do you want to enjoy healthy eggs and meat from chickens raised on pasture? Pasture Basics starts at the beginning to help you design the best pasturing setup for your flock and for your homestead. Great grazing for chickens won't be found in the perfect pasture for sheep or cows-you need to tweak your design to match a chicken's unique behavior and stomach. Included in this volume are an explanation of chicken digestion and behavior, pasture specifics...

Do you want your chicken habit to pay for itself? Many backyard chicken keepers are surprised to learn that they spend more on store-bought feed than they would have paid for eggs and meat at the grocery store. If you're on a budget and want your foray into poultry to save money, not lose money, your first step should be to select thrifty chicken breeds. The best breed for the cost-conscious homesteader will be a dual-purpose chicken that forages...

Twelve months to self-sufficiency! This fully updated second edition of the popular “Weekend Homesteader” series includes exciting, short projects that you can use to dip your toes into the vast ocean of homesteading without getting overwhelmed. 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...

Homegrown humus is easy with cover crops! Cover crops are a simple, cheap way to boost your soil's organic matter, to fight weeds, to prevent erosion, to attract pollinators, and to keep the ecosystem in balance. Unfortunately, most information on growing cover crops is written for people who plow their soil every year and are willing to spray herbicides. You can get all of the same benefits in a no-till garden, though, if you're clever. Homegrown...

Hatch healthy homegrown chicks! Permaculture Chicken: Incubation Handbook walks beginners through perfecting the incubating and hatching process so they can enjoy the exhilaration of the hatch without the angst of dead chicks. 92 full color photos bring incubation to life, while charts, diagrams, and tables provide the data you need to accomplish a hatch rate of 85% or more.