Reviews of homesteading and real food books

Are you looking for some good books to read over the Easter holidays? To get you started, here's a whole lot of book reviews, I'm sure you can find something you want to read out of all of these!

Snore.....

Cows can Save the Planet
A series of interviews and experiences with experts in soil, holistic grazing, biodiversity, the water cycle and how all of these things can help us with climate change and living better.

Teaming with Microbes
Great explanation of what microbes are living in our soil, how they can help us and how we can help them.

Silent Spring
Classic book from the 1960s about the emerging damage from synthetic chemical pesticides and herbicides.

Changing Gears
How one couple decided to re-evaluate their lives by cycling from Tasmania to Cairns, read about their amazing journey.

Cooked
Michael Pollan investigates how we've come to cook our food, from BBQ pork and cassoroles to bread, cheese and beer, and so much in between.

Whole Larder Love
Thinking about where you food comes from, sourcing more of it from your own yard or at least your local area, and lots of beautiful photos and recipes to try.

Nutritionism
An explanation of the development of nutrition science and the processed food industry gives some insights into how we've ended up eating all the wrong things.

The Small Scale Poultry Flock
My favourite chicken book EVER! How plan your flock to be sustainable, how to feed them, use them in the garden, breed them and eat them.

Making a Meal of it
Great tips for using up leftovers

Toxic Oil
Why you should eat olive oil, coconut oil, lard, butter NOT vegetable oil.....

One Magic Square
How to create a productive garden in a small space, so you can start to feed yourself from your property.

Frugavore
Eating local frugal food, lots of basic recipes to get you thinking about eating good food.

The Permaculture Home Garden
Using permaculture to create a productive home garden, gets you started with permaculture without making it too complicated.

Nourishing Traditions
Traditional societies have many traditional methods of food preparation that can help us to get more nutrition from our food, to prepare food that is more nourishing and to improve our health.

The Biological Farmer
Work with nature to improve soil and crop yeilds, as a transition from conventional to organic agriculture.

my bookshelf

Read any good books lately?

Farm update - August 2017

Its been cold this month, and very nice to have the fire going every night. Here's a photo of my boy in his cape, great for late night woofing at things. Most of July we were either preparing for the butcher to come or putting meat away. Its always a big job, but its only once a year, and its all done now. My lovely neighbour came over to help, so it was fun to have the company and work together. Taz was a champion once again as she helped us to move cattle in the yards ready to load for the market. Gus is not at that level yet and had to stay home (he cries when he gets left behind, but he just gets in the way and scatters the cattle). We have had a few sprinkles of rain here and there, but also plenty of cold nights, so the grass is mostly dead and dry, waiting for the warmer weather to revive our summer-active pasture. Gus in his cape Taz after she helped to move cattle Food and cooking It was all about beef in July and we are v...

Cooking and eating beans

When I was growing up, my family never ate many dried beans, they just weren't something that was used much in NZ cuisine. If I did eat beans, it was always from a can (and most likely baked beans). And until recently I was still using beans from a can, but it can be difficult to get organic beans, and to find cans not lined with BPA. Then I had an opportunity to buy some organic dry goods in bulk, so I bought 5kg of kidney beans, 5kg of adzuki beans and 5kg of chickpea (garbanzo beans). I know, that is a lot of beans. And then I didn't really know what to do with them! Not just what dishes to put them in, but how to prepare them, I just didn't know what method to use. So I decided it was time to learn how to use all these beans that I bought, here's what I found out. I started with an excellent ebook called The Everything Beans Book , from Katie at Kitchen Stewardship, which has lots of bean recipes, but more importantly, an explanation of h...

Guest post: Is there a place for power tools in the garden?

One of my regular readers and commenters offered to write a guest post about a horticulture course, its quite a funny read, with some serious insights into our technology obsession. If you'd like to submit a guest post, email me at eight.acres.liz {at} gmail.com. While I am always happy to share links back to your blog or website, this contributor preferred to remain anonymous. I hope you enjoy their story.... -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- Just a few days ago our daily horticulture classes were interrupted by an invitation to review some new gardening gadgets. The idea was to open half a dozen of electric hand trimmers , test them and fill in some review about their goods and bads. As nothing is more dear to a student – even a “hort “ one - to escape routine and mess around till lunchtime, we opened the boxes and got down to business. What did we...

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