Self-Sufficiency: A Complete Guide to Baking, Carpentry, Crafts, Organic Gardening, Preserving Your Harvest, Raising Animals, and More!

by Abigail R. Gehring (Editor)

Now, more than ever, people across the country are turning toward simpler, greener, and quieter ways of living—whether they’re urbanites or country folk. Following in the footsteps of Back to Basics and Homesteading , this large, fully-illustrated book provides the entire family with the information they need to make the shift toward self-sufficient living.

Self-Sufficiency provides tips, advice, and detailed instructions on how to improve everyday life from an environmentally and organic perspective while keeping the focus on the family. Readers will learn how to plant a family garden and harvest the produce; can fruits and vegetables; bake bread and cookies; design interactive and engaging “green” projects; harness natural wind and solar energy to cook food and warm their homes; boil sap to make maple syrup; and build treehouses, furniture, and more. Also included are natural crafts readers can do with their kids, such as scrapbooking, making potato prints, dipping candles, and constructing seasonal decorations. Whether the goal is to live entirely off the grid or just to shrink their carbon footprints, families will find this book a thorough resource and a great inspiration.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Reference, Cookbooks, Cooking

464 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2010

About the author

Abigail R. Gehring is a writer who divides her time between New York City and rural Vermont. She is the editor of Back to Basics, Homesteading, and Self-Sufficiency, and author of Odd Jobs: How to Have Fun and Make Money in a Bad Economy and Dangerous Jobs: The World’s Riskiest Ways to Make an Extra Buck. The Simple Joys of Grandparenting: Stories, Nursery Rhymes, Recipes, Games, Crafts, and More. The Little Book of Country Baking: Classic Recipes for Cakes, Cookies, Breads, and Pies. She's practiced living self-sufficiently since her childhood in Vermont, helping build a log cabin, being home-schooled, home-canning jams and jellies, and enjoying natural crafts. She's held many of the jobs she writes about in her book, including beer promoter, “Cinderella”, lipstick reader, and hot dog vendor.

Reviews

[Malbadeen · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know what this book is? It's bullshit, that's what it is!

You see the title? It's a "COMPLETE guide to baking, carpentry, crafts, organic gardening, preserving your harvest, raising animals and more!"....more?! we don't need "more". We need less. A LOT LESS.

I don't know if the rest of you out there are experiencing this but in the lovely city of Portland Oregon it's perfectly normal to forage side walk weeds for your dinner, have chickens walking around your front yard and bees humming in your back. It's practically passe' to knit your hat unless you've also dyed and carded the wool yourself. And if you're

And don't get me wrong, I am in favor of any one (or a few) of these things but it's this incessant drive to one-up ourselves in our "self-sufficiency" that drives me crazy. Do we really need to do eeeeeeverything from scratch? Can't we still be a creative, socially responsible, environmentally friendly person if we get our beer from a neighborhood brewery instead of the hops in our own backyard?

The other day as I was driving to school I was arguing with the imaginary person in my head and getting all worked up about why I don't want to raise chickens. This might sound crazy to you (and the part about the imaginary person might actually be crazy) but it's a legitimate topic that has come up more than once. People telling me how great chicken raising is and why I should do it. But I'm not gonna do it! And I think people need to relax a little and feel okay about not doing EVERYTHING! Let your neighbor do it, head to farmers market, buy from your local grocery whatever - it's okay, you're not a bad person.

One of the worst outcomes of this whole "self-sufficiency" thing is all that shit that's out there as a result. The pottery that weighs two tons, the collapsing chicken coops, the under cooked bread, the weed covered patches of earth that were intended to be gardens.

I read a blog once stating how ridiculous it was to "buy pizza" because making pizza dough is so great and so easy and tastes so much better and blah, blah, blah.

bullshit.

Making home-made pizza is not so easy and it doesn't always taste better. It's nearly, if not completely impossible to get home ovens to temperatures high enough to yield certain crust consistencies. Which is a great excuse to head over to Ken's Artisan Bakery and let them roar up their ovens and serve up a slice of pizza that you could never duplicate at home.

It's time we stop buying into the propaganda that we can "do it all" and just get good at one or two things that we really enjoy. The idea that one could open a book and in mere chapter on animals learn to breed horses properly is ridiculous! Give Horse breeders some credit people - I'm sure that shit is complicated! And the pottery section - WHATEVER!!! I lived through the 70's, my mom had a kick wheel, and an electric wheel, and a kiln. We had pottery bowls, mugs, toothbrush holders, etc, etc, etc, and I can say with confidence that you're not going to, as this book suggests, dig up some clay in your yard, follow the tidy little directions and come out at the end of the day with anything other than another crappy lopsided, two ton bowl for your pocket lint and change.

DUMB!

I know it's not reasonable of me to get this worked-up and maybe it's due to my own bitterness at coming to the realization that I'm mostly bad at a lot of stuff and only good at a few things that makes me want to impose that on other people, but really at the end of the day, I just think this kind of stuff is as bourgeoisie bullshit as it gets.

raise your bee's

or

collect your eggs

or

breed your horses

or

braid your rag rug

or

dip your candles

but for the love of god, do you really need to try and do ALL that?

[Brittany Mishra · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is sub par. It doesn't have very much in depth explanation or information. It briefly covers topic that require more information on materials and other things. One category that was particularly lacking was its pottery section. It only dedicated about 2 1/2 pages and didn't provide any thorough information on how to do. It pretty much just said that pottery is a great way to create containers, bowls, etc. and a great project for children...okay. That doesn't tell me anything. If you want a book on self-sufficiency check out The Self Sufficient-ish Bible: An Eco-living Guide for the 21st Century. It has more information in a more accessible format. However, the best book would be The Back to Basics Handbook: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the updated second addition. It contains some useful information for the back to basics and survivalist types but most is in brief format. For example under cows only three dairy breeds are discusses with no mention of beef cattle. This work is a good starting point but needs to be supplemented from other sources. A wide variety of topics are covered.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not that complete. Very basic instruction. Highlights of many topics, nothing really deep, though. Good intro type for the very novice.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a fair book for an overall ideas on self sufficiency, but complete? Ehh, not quite.

450 pages isn't enough to be a complete guide on raising livestock, much less all of the other things listed in the title.

Most subjects in here are covered briefly, not completely.

That said, my only real gripe is with the title overselling the amount of information within. However, I knew that picking it up that it couldn't be "complete", but what it IS is extensive.

There are a surprising amount of skills listed that would definitely come in handy for anyone wanting to become self sufficient. Growing food, baking it, canning it, drying it, freezing it, these are all vital things to know. I was pleasantly surprised at the list of things inside that folks might not consider a needed skill until living away from a consumer culture. Tying knots? Oh, you're going to need that! How to build furniture? You'll need that, too.

Odd things are included while seemingly obvious things are missing. How to make corn husk dolls? That's cute and all but how about digging a well? How to make a hammock? Also nice, but how about irrigation? An outhouse? Composting toilets?

All in all, it's a great little book, I think it would be good for someone contemplating a self sufficient lifestyle, but it mostly gave me some comprehensive skills and then some more bullet point lists about other topics.

Still, for what it is, a book about self sufficiency, it's got some good ideas. I wouldn't suggest it as a complete guide to wander off into the wilderness with, though.

[Kendra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this three stars because I didn't pick it up intending to learn a great deal of new information, or to use the information to make any changes in my life or in the way we live here on our quarter acre in suburbia...indeed, this book is not the end-all-be-all how-to manual that it advertises it self to be.
Instead, I enjoyed this book as a mediocre intro to one of my new favorite genres of books: coffe table books that make me feel like doing something. Soooooo much better than pinterest and so much less addicting or time-consuming, but, I would argue, at least as productive, if not more...

Call me old fashioned...I still like letters, I still like the hand-written "laughter journal" that I share with another mama friend, stuff pasted and scribbled inside...and I love coffee table books for inspiration. (but it is fun to type about this all on my iPad! ;)

[Kim Forsythe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate when recently published books (2010) have pictures that look like the book was published in the 90s. That is not why I gave this book two stars. Does all of this information have to be in one book? Too much to pack in, not enough of the good stuff. Start a vineyard? Breed horses? Start a garden? Please! When the recipes look bland and out of place, maybe they should be left out.

[Fvandrog · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am very dissatisfied with this book. It seems to be written on kindergarten level, and very general in description of many issues. In an attempt to put everything in one book, Gehring has failed to be comprehensive at the same time. A book like Seymour's is infinitely more helpfull, both for beginning gardeners and homesteaders as well as those that are more advanced.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

lots of info for a single book.
while it has whole chapters about things I'm not interested in at the moment, like raising animals, it seems like it could be a good book to have on hand for reference. I'm not sure how proficient you could become at any of the topics with this information but it should give you a good start.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gardening section is fairly complete. The rest of the book, not so much. More of a good beginner's guide. The junior homesteading projects look like a fun way to introduce children to the basics and teach them that food doesn't come from a plastic container.

[Christine Cato · Rating 3 out of 5]

there's a lot in this book, but it's an overview of too making things all crammed together.

[Michelle Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

awesome pictures and in depth how to guides!!

[Yodamom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great beginning book on self-sufficiency, it covers all the basic needs.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

2010

This book is difficult to use because it is rectangular and heavy. It would make a good home reference book, but I think the binding would come apart.

[Leah L · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very basic. I felt like I was reading an elementary school text book. My 4th grader loved it.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paged through it. This book is also based on having all the right equipment available. This book is geared toward children, but has lots of good basic info and easy to read.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a homemaking guide than homesteading. I would prefer more content on preservation and actually growing crops and raising animals than making pottery and pies.

[Karri · Rating 3 out of 5]

not bad just doesn't live up to its name.... more a light skim over you homesteading needs