Review by Booklist Review
As food self-sufficiency awareness grows, books appear to support such efforts. Hess is unique in her recognition of the practicality of weekend-only attention to these pursuits. A 12-month structure helps a variety of readers, from multiacre farm dwellers to suburbanites and high-rise residents, start with short projects. Springtime planning includes acreage, backyard and urban container plantings, rooftop and community gardens via mapping, record-keeping, and planting tips (okra, squash). Hess segues to summer and fall plantings (leaf lettuce, turnips, carrots), advising on seed and food preservation and season-extension using hoop-supported protection. Colder weather means planning crop rotation, soil testing, and planting fruit trees and berries, and March allows the planting of cold-tolerant veggies (beets, onions). Hess provides a list of goals, costs, times, levels of difficulty, and kid-friendliness for each project, and illustrations, photos, charts, and diagrams throughout.--Scott, Whitney Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
More a grab bag than comprehensive guide, this collection of 48 weekends' worth of self-sufficiency projects gives wanna-be homesteaders who have more curiosity than time a taste of modern homesteading. Hess describes this process as starting where you are-whether a high-rise or suburban neighborhood or "where supplies have to be helicoptered in"-to "use sweat equity to grow nutritious, delicious food, create sustainable heat from locally grown wood, and use free organic matter to rebuild the soil." Hess draws on her own six years of trial-and-error homesteading, extensive reading, and contributions from her blog readers to teach skills that include mapping your yard and neighborhood, planting a garden and a fruit tree, saving seeds, budgeting your time and money, finding collaborators, preparing for power shortages, and even weaning yourself from the media. Some readers may question the need for instruction in simple common activities like hanging laundry or roasting a chicken, and Hess's focus tends more toward her own rural milieu than that of urban apartment dwellers. On the whole, however, the book enthusiastically, if sometimes naively, helps readers succeed at dipping "into the vast ocean of homesteading without being overwhelmed." (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
To address beginners interested in subsistence gardening and urban farming, Hess, who has already released parts of this book as separate ebooks, outlines homestead projects month by month. Starting oddly with April, the sequence of projects is confusing. Philosophical support for the homesteading lifestyle weighs this book down and is not balanced by practical information. -VERDICT While the book is encouraging in tone and contains some rather detailed sections about composting and soil, the awkward organization is a big hurdle. Try instead The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals, edited by Gail Damerow, and The Backyard Homestead: Produce All the Food You Need on Just a Quarter Acre!, edited by Carleen Madigan. Not a necessary purchase. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
