entrepreneur sustainability self-sufficient do-it-ourselves

books:

Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture

41 reviews
Toby Hemenway

Chelsea Green, 2001

Gaia's Garden
An excellent book and resource. At the time I purchased this book, I also purchased Bill Mollison's seminal work on permaculture. I intended to read Mollison's book first and Gaia's Garden second. After reading the first few pages of Mollison's book, I set it aside to "look through" Gaia's Garden just to familiarize myself with its contents. I discovered that I could not put it down because ...

Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A do-it-Ourselves Guide

2 reviews
Scott Kellogg, Stacy Pettigrew

South End Press, 2008

amazing new book on radical sustainability!
Wow! I just got this amazing new book written by members of Austin's Rhizome Collective. It's full of highly practical, affordable, and simple designs that can be used by anyone to achieve sustainability in their home, neighborhood or community. There are a number of books on sustainable living, but this one stands apart from the rest - the systems described in it are innovative and unique, ...

Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community

18 reviews
Heather Coburn Flores

Chelsea Green, 2006

Not a how to book, or is it
Anyone who picks up this book expecting to find a "How to" manual on converting your lawn into an edible garden will be disappointed. However, if you're looking for some fresh ideas on not only changing out your lawn for a garden mixed with a little permaculture, activism, optimism, and community building ideas, this is the book for you. I read this book twice because there is so much good ...

You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start & Succeed in a Farming Enterprise

42 reviews
Joel F. Salatin

Polyface, 1998

excellent advice
Joel Salatin has at least 20 years of successful farming behind him. and i mean farming where the land has not only not been damaged, but improved. in sharp contrast to traditional farming methods. he also produces clean healthy food that tastes better than most people have ever tasted. whole generations of people dont even know what real food tasted like, before factory/concentration camp style ...

The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience

2 reviews
Rob Hopkins

Green Books, 2008

One of the Most Important Handbooks of Our Time
Rob Hopkins writes about the context for starting a transition town and then follows with step-by-step instructions on the action steps involved with bringing awareness and hope to communities. Transition towns spring from a grassroots initiative to do something positive and cooperative in response to the impending triple crisis of peak oil, climate change and global economic collapse. It all ...

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands (Vol. 1): Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain into Your Life And Landscape

19 reviews
Brad Lancaster

Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2006

Wonderful, readable, and essential
This is an incredible study of a topic that most of us don't think about much, that is, how we are wasting our rainwater, and what we could be doing instead. This is required reading for anyone who cares about the environment. Best, the book is highly readable, with excellent illustrations. I knew literally nothing about this topic before I read this book. Now I am a believer. The story of ...

Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)

34 reviews
Steve Solomon

New Society Publishers, 2006

Things I Never Knew About Gardening!
I am a gardener and I read books and magazines in addition to my hands on efforts. This book has made me think about the way I have been gardening and the complications that I have put on my efforts. This is a much more simple way to do things and I have learned so much about larger spaces, the effort levels of fruits and vegetables, simple tool use and care and water resources. Excellent ...

Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World

22 reviews
Paul Stamets

Ten Speed Press, 2005

Great Book!
I purchased this book as a gift for a fellow graduate student who is studying the relationship between vascular plant roots and fungi. He and our professor/advisor oohhed and aahhed over it. I should have gotten one for our advisor too! A quality book with great photos through-out and it is very readable! I have come to the conclusion that mycologists aren't pretentious wordy folks! They ...

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond (Vol. 2): Water-Harvesting Earthworks

3 reviews
Brad Lancaster

Rainsource Press, 2007

A Great "How To" Guide for Landscape Water Conservation
This book deserves to be widely read, not just for people in the desert. I live in a region that gets nearly 45" of rainfall per year, and I can't wait to apply some of what I've learned from this great "how to" manual. Fresh water is a vanishing resource on our planet, and when we send it all down the storm drains, it makes its way from storm drain to stream to river to ocean: gone. To keep from ...

The Self-sufficient Life and How to Live It

41 reviews
John Seymour

DK ADULT, 2003

Timely advice
What a great find at a time when our lives are having to do an about face! We may not end up with a farm per se but will use the helpful pages in this book to make ourselves less dependent on the super market at the very least. The illustrations are particularly good. I recommend it to all I meet!

Earth User's Guide to Permaculture 2nd Edition

4 reviews
Rosemary Marrow

Simon & Schuster Australia, 2007

Excellent starting point for permaculture newbies
I stumbled across the Earth User's Guide to Permaculture when I was searching for good books on the topic as I was looking for material to help start our permaculture garden, and the good reviews I read online convinced me to buy it. And am I glad I did! I only had a very general idea about permaculture, and most of it was "theoretical". There's a plethora of free information available online ...

PERMACULTURE: A Designers' Manual

17 reviews
Bill Mollison, Reny Mia Slay

Tagari Publications, 1997

There is nothing better regarding Sustainability
Bill Mollison represents the most successful attempt to mainstream practical home-scale sustainable design principles. I found myself needing to do an enormous amount of supplementary research to actually understand what bill was talking about, but to explain them in depth here would have taken away from the thrust of the book - which is mainly to show you example after example (many on every ...

The Book of Kin (The Ringing Cedars Series, Book 6)

2 reviews
Vladimir Megre

Ringing Cedars Press, 2007

Another gem
This book for me sits with 1 and 4 as best-in-series. Much of the information here will take time to digest, perhaps several years but when it does I am sure it will be revered by many as a key piece of transformative literature. The 'live' book of life is a good example. It highlights how Mankind has managed to shrink the wonder of life into 26 letter shapes, these tiny things I am now tapping ...

The Space of Love (The Ringing Cedars, Book 3)

1 review
Vladimir Megre

Ringing Cedars Press, 2005

Insights in childrearing and education you will see nowhere else!
The Space of Love, the third book of the Ringing Cedars Series, describes author's second visit to Anastasia. Rich with new revelations on natural child-rearing and alternative education, on the spiritual significance of breast-feeding and the meaning of ancient megaliths, it shows how each person's thoughts can influence the destiny of the entire Earth and describes practical ways of putting ...

Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability

11 reviews
David Holmgren

Holmgren Design Services, 2002

Empowering
Reading this book, although in the beginning a bit of a dense and sluggish read, was a major pivotal moment for me. Holmgren presents a visionary perspective and context of humanity's position, provides profound and thought provoking discourse on the underlying philosophies and patterns of permaculture design, and projects an image of an inspiring future and a path to get there with confidence. ...

Chicken Tractor: The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil

20 reviews
Andy Lee, Pat Foreman

Good Earth Publications, 1998

Best option for residential chickens!
This book was my first real introduction to permiculture. It really helps the beginner get a taste of sustainable living and is a really great companion guide to gardening! I would encourage everyone to have a copy as this method can also be applied to goats, turkey, cows, ducks.

One-straw Revolution

14 reviews
Masanobu Fukuoka

Other India Press, 1992

wonderful
I read this book years ago when it was first published and it has been a magor influence on me and my gardens for all these years. I've followed Fukoka's ideas as much as closely I can living in a city and have had wonderful results. He is right, let nature do the work. My garden is the most beautiful in the neighborhood, and without any pesticides, fertilizers, tilling, or backstrain. Buy this ...

Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener's Guide to Over 100 Delicious and Easy to ...

5 reviews
Eric Toensmeier

Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007

Very useful book - highly recommended.
I very seldom buy new books, and even more seldom buy books as expensive as this. But I had a $25 Amazon gift certificate, so I went ahead and bought it, and I'm very glad I did. The first section of the book is useful information on growing perennial vegetables (and other perennials, for that matter), and on landscaping using these plants, many of which have great ornamental value. Part ...

Introduction to Permaculture

4 reviews
Bill Mollison

Tagari Publications, 1997

Appeals to surprisingly broad spectrum!
A reviewer is well advised to be mindful of the arrogance that is intrinsic to criticizing another's work. Intro to Permaculture is a book of breath-taking scope. I can only write with authority about those parts that apply to my middle-class, Mid-Western (US) frame-of-reference. While reading the book, I carried it to work and to my daughter's soccer practice. I have never had so many ...

Edible Forest Gardens (2 volume set)

6 reviews
Dave Jacke, Eric Toensmeier

Chelsea Green, 2005

Excellent for anyone hoping to get a handle on sustainable agriculture
As a graduate of a Permaculture Design Course, organic farm worker and someone generally interested in virtually all aspect of sustainable ag, I found this book incredible. Now, I've only read the first one (about to start on volume number 2), but the quality of information in the first volume in outstanding. Volume 1 is concerned with the theory behind forest gardening, but with a keen eye ...

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