The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (Process Self-reliance Series) |  | Authors: Kelly Coyne, Erik Knutzen
Publisher: Process
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Rating:  30 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 330
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 1934170011
Dewey Decimal Number: 640
EAN: 9781934170014
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9781934170014 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
The Urban Homestead is the essential handbook for a fast-growing new movement: urbanites are becoming gardeners and farmers. Rejecting both end-times hand wringing and dewy-eyed faith that technology will save us from ourselves, urban homesteaders choose instead to act. By growing their own food and harnessing natural energy, they are planting seeds for the future of our cities. If you would like to harvest your own vegetables, raise city chickens, or convert to solar energy, this practical, hands-on book is full of step-by-step projects that will get you started homesteading immediately, whether you live in an apartment or a house. It is also a guidebook to the larger movement and will point you to the best books and Internet resources on self-sufficiency topics. Projects include: - How to grow food on a patio or balcony
- How to clean your house without toxins
- How to preserve food
- How to cook with solar energy
- How to divert your grey water to your garden
- How to choose the best homestead for you
Written by city dwellers for city dwellers, this illustrated, smartly designed, two-color instruction book proposes a paradigm shift that will improve our lives, our community, and our planet. Authors Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen happily farm in Los Angeles and run the urban homestead blog www.homegrownrevolution.org.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 30
 When the power goes out in the grocery store... June 7, 2008
Evan Dump (Los Angeles, CA United States)
30 out of 33 found this review helpful
For those of us city-dwellers contemplating the fundamental lifestyle adjustments demanded by the looming global socio-economic reorganization, this book provides 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. The writing and design make it easy to browse, read straight through, or use for reference, and it brims with an infectious curiosity and enthusiasm for the exploration and reclamation of our culture and species' relationship to the land. The longest journey begins with a single compost heap.
Positive, encouraging guidebook w/ much useful information presented clearly. June 6, 2008
E. Schoenholz (Picfair Village, CA)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
I've been reading the authors' blog, HomegrownEvolution.com for more than a year, so I had a pretty good idea what to expect from this book, and I was not in the least disappointed. I think perhaps even more than all of the practical advice and specific directions in The Urban Homestead, Coyne and Knutzen's perspective and approach are what I value most. There's an overriding attitude--almost philosophy, really--that the authors convey so well. It's positive yet somehow never sappy. They recommend doing what you can and doing what you like.
They also warn: "Work makes work" in the gardening section, and to me that perspective is more valuable than knowing how frequently to water my sweet peppers once they've flowered. (Which brings up another thing I've enjoyed so much about reading this book and the H.E. blog: The blog pointed me to Pat Welsh's Southern California Gardening for more specific and advanced gardening advice.)
The Urban Homestead is laid out in a way that makes it easy to pick up and read a little bit here and there. And I've been picking up my copy every chance I get, rereading sections, too, both for knowledge and enjoyment. It's really oriented toward people with a new or recent interest in living more like their great-grandparents did, more engaged in the world around them, even if that world is a major metropolis. It's less about preparing for disaster than thwarting it.
If you want to ditch your TV, buy less crap at the supermarket, learn how to use a bicycle to transport your self and your stuff, conserve, reuse, bake, make and otherwise reject so many things that until recently our society believed were progress, this book will get you going on the right path.
A Great Source To Jump-Start Your Visions of Self-Reliance June 5, 2008
W. D. Campbell (Los Angeles)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Like the first reviewer, I too have been long looking forward to this title's release. Unlike the first reviewer I am not at all disappointed with "The Urban Homestead." It's a well-written and engaging resource and I don't find fault in it as a book of ideas and initiatives rather than as all-encompassing encyclopedic volume. In fact I like that I don't have to be entirely dependent on something trying to show me how to be independently sufficient.
The authors are obviously well-informed and hands-on involved and thanks to them I'm already planning my first project involving gray-water capture, storage and re-use.
Outstanding Book - Worth Reading! May 22, 2009
Kelly (Kennesaw, GA United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is a really cool book.
I see several negative reviews that said this book was too "beginner" or was too "basic".
I really disagree with that. I have been gardening my whole life - almost 40 years now - and raising animals for a decent number of those years. And yet, I found this book very helpful.
This book is about a different way of looking at things - about a whole different kind of lifestyle and perspective. While many of the things were familiar to me [composting, raised bed gardening, etc] it was more the *mindset* that I found intriguing and helpful.
And, in addition, I did pick up many new ideas and helpful tips and advice as well. The book covers a broad range of subjects and has been very useful to me.
The book is easy and fun to read. I enjoyed the authors' "voices" and how they wrote. I thought they had a lot of very good advice and some real wisdom to share about living the self sufficient life where ever we are.
The only [very small] thing that I wish they had done differently is that there is a fair amount of swearing in the book. While I occasionally slip the random curse word now and again, generally I prefer my educational reading without "cussing" :) . It seems like an odd choice for the authors and the editor to include foul language in an otherwise exemplary book.
But, that one small complaint aside, I found this book outstanding and helpful in every way!
The Urban Homestead June 8, 2008
Stephen Box (Los Angeles)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
My wife and I were delighted to get our hands on The Urban Homestead. We have been following the Urban Homestead journey via the authors' blog and we have enjoyed the projects, the experiments, the successes and the failures. Most of all, we have enjoyed a shift in our consciousness as we began to evaluate our relationship to our home, our community and our environment.
And so, with book in hand, we can now leave the computer, go for a walk, sit and read and contemplate the future and the route we'd like to take in getting there.
This book is a great value, even if you never set out to garden or raise chickens. The conservation and home ec projects alone have given us great pleasure.
The authors challenge the reader to live less as a consumer and more as a producer. The Urban Homestead is an effective and inspirational guide to making that journey a successful reality.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 30
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