Tag Archives: Books

My Start with Permaculture

How I am getting started with Permaculture

The most major part of self-sufficiency is being able to grow as much of your own food as possible.  I learned this at an early age growing up on a small farm.  At the end of the summer and early fall, the only trips to the grocery store were for items that we didn’t grow.  With canning, freezing, and drying we were eating this produce for most of the next six months.

But that was just very small scale gardening, and the rest of our livelihood came from conventional mono-crop agriculture.  I always wondered why we had to plant everything in rows and spend so much time weeding.  Thankfully we didn’t spray chemicals on our garden.  Perfect it was not, but I learned a lot about planting, weeding, seasons, watering, staggering plantings, collecting sends, harvesting, protecting from early/late frosts, bugs, blights, and composting.

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Vacation Reading: George Orwell’s 1984

Tomorrow I am heading out on Vacation for a little over a week.

Surviving the rainy Vancouver winter typically means getting a week or two of sunshine in each year.

I am not a fan of laying on the beach for hours, just soaking up the sun.  But I sure can snorkel and crash waves for hours on end.  Then I like to come back to the shade, put on the sunglass, and get out the Kindle to read a book.  I find that I can go through a couple Kindle books, some audioBooks, podcasts, and movies this way.

One of the books I’ve been meaning to read lately is George Orwell’s 1984.  Like many, I read this back in highschool.  Also like many, you don’t learn all of the lessons in this book as a teenager – though some of the topics do stay with you.

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Gardening, Fruit & Nut trees, Chicken, Animals, and Preserving

Book Review: The Backyard Homestead

The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!

I recently purchased the book The Backyard Homestead by Carlene Madigan (ISBN-10 1603421386 / ISBN-13 978-1603421386).  I found it to be a great introduction on the various fruits, nuts, vegetables, animals, and other items that you can have yourself; even in your urban backyard.  This is a great book to keep around for getting ideas for next year’s garden, figuring out how to preserve your harvest, and even giving me some ideas on how to incorporate animals into your food sovereignty plan.

Also, if any friends, family members, or spouses are reluctant to explore producing their own food, this is a great book to leave laying around for them the possibly pickup.  Covering most topics that a backyard homesteader may want to research, this book does make things seem quite simple and accessible to most people.

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