| Contents Notes |
Unleashing the homesteader within -- 1. Start your own farm. Strategies for growing food in the urban setting -- How to make seedballs -- Permaculture -- The practicalities of growing food -- 2. Essential projects. Five essential projects: start a compost pile; vermiculture or composting with worms; mulch your yard; build a raised bed; how to build a self-watering container -- A treasure chest of gardening projects and advice: how to start seeds; how to transplant; fertilizer tea; grow some lettuce; tips & tricks for gardening in containers; the dirt on potting soil; installing drip irrigation; how to make a bean teepee; how to design a polycultural vegetable bed; how to make tater tires; controlling insect pests; rotating crops; animal pests; why you might test your soil; not digging it -- 3. Urban foraging. Feral edibles -- Invasive edibles -- Fruit foraging -- Tools for the fruit harvester -- How to eat acorns -- Dumpster diving -- Revive day-old bread -- 4. Livestock in the city. The chicken is the new pug -- How to set up a brooder -- Ducks -- Rabbits -- Pigeons : a modest proposal -- Quail -- Bees -- 5. Revolutionary home economics. Preserving the harvest -- How to can -- Pickling via lacto-fermentation -- Daikon radish pickles -- Dehydration : why save it for hangovers? -- Three Methods for drying food -- Preserving with vinegar -- Preserving fruit in alcohol : le cherry bounce -- Preserving root vegetables -- How to culture milk -- Making yogurt -- Making labaneh, or yogurt cheese -- Fil, piima and viila -- Cheesemaking -- Whole milk ricotta -- Making butter -- How to make fruit butter -- Jams and jellies -- Making stock -- The homemade speakeasy : from mead to moonshine -- Baking on the homestead -- Baking with sourdough -- Cleaning the urban homestead -- Our cleaning cupboard -- Less toxic ways to deal with unwelcome critters -- A homestead of your own -- Location location location -- 6. Be your own utility : water and power for the homestead. Harvesting water -- Conserving water -- Six ways to harvest rainwater -- How much water can I harvest from my roof? -- Non-invasive greywater methodologies -- Highly invasive greywater strategies -- Greywater plumbing 101 -- Showers to flowers -- Recycling your suds -- Arranging a twosome or threesome-using diverters -- Making a greywater wetland -- The composting toilet : how to poop in a bucket -- Power to the people -- Energy principles: heating; cooling; we're fans of fans; water heater; lighting; stoves and small appliances; electronics; washer & dryer; refrigerator; dishwashers; generating your own power; electricity from solar power-the components; solar systems : small, medium and large; wind power -- 7. Transportation. Transportation principles -- The transportation triangle : walking, biking, mass transit -- Route choice -- Cargo bikes -- Conclusion: the future. This volume shows city dwellers how to enjoy a more satisfying lifestyle and plant seeds for the sustainable future of our cities, homesteading by growing food anywhere, composting with worms, preserving and fermenting foods, diverting greywater to your garden, and cleaning your house without toxins. The authors provide a detailed, lucid, step-by-step, blueprint that takes what seems to be an overwhelming task of historical reversal and transforms it into an open-ended series of tangible, human-scaled projects. |
