Permaculture is a low cost, environmental and creative approach to living. The Permaculture Book of DIY presents over 20 practical projects that show you how to cleverly recycle materials into useful and unique objects at low financial and environmental cost. Some projects can even be completed for free. Want to spend more time enjoying your home and garden? With this diverse range of projects you could be growing vegetables in your own geodesic growdome, relaxing on a recycled wooden pallet garden bench whilst enjoying a cider from your very own cider press, or generating your own power with a self-installed solar panel! Each project has been carefully tried and tested and is clearly laid out with step-by-step instructions and supporting photography and diagrams. It is suitable for anyone who wants to learn DIY skills, have fun and involve their kids too. Learn how to make your own: Solar food dryer Self-watering raised bed Pallet furniture Wood-fired pizza oven Rocket stove hot tub and much more!

This guide contains 101 easy things you can do to ready your home for a disaster. The simple yet smart projects ensure that any household is prepared for that inevitable day when disaster strikes. From California earthquakes and Rocky Mountain wildfires to Midwest floods and Atlantic hurricanes, millions of people face life-threatening emergencies each year. This handy and helpful book shows readers how easy it is to prepare their home and family for any disaster. By breaking down the many facets of prepping into straightforward steps, this book transforms a seemingly daunting task into easy-to-do, manageable projects. Author Bernie Carr’s unique “survivalist lite” approach requires readers to dedicate little time, money, or space, but provides a big payoff: being fully prepared and self-sufficient.

No source is left untapped in this all-encompassing guide to supplying lifesaving water after a disaster. Of all the resources needed after a catastrophe strikes (food, heat, electricity, communication, and transportation) none are as important as water! While a substantial supply should be stored, the size and weight of water make storage impractical for long-term survival. Therefore it’s critical to know how to acquire and purify additional water supplies over time. This guide addresses all of these factors and more with straightforward instruction.

Suitable for novice and expert preppers alike, this book’s laser-sharp focus on water allows for a depth of information not found in any other guide.

The Renewable Energy Home Handbook is biased toward the practical, and covers the installation of all leading types of alternative domestic energy sources: from ground- and air-source heat pumps, photovoltaic solar electricity generation and solar water heating, to bio-mass domestic heating systems and wind turbines.

This is the key reference to living off the land. Packed with practical information and tried-and-tested tips, author John Seymour's visionary handbook explains how to reap the harvest, respect the land, stay healthy and waste nothing.

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It teaches all the skills needed to live independently: harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.

This new expanded edition includes 150 new full-color illustrations and a special section in which Seymour, the father of the back-to-basics movement, explains the philosophy of self-sufficiency and its power to transform lives and create communities. More relevant than ever in our high-tech world, The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the ultimate practical guide for realists and dreamers alike.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to readers. For 40 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

The Solar Food Dryer describes how to use solar energy to preserve your summer's harvest. With your own solar-powered food dryer, you can quickly and efficiently dry all your extra garden veggies, fruits and herbs with free sunshine and enjoy their goodness all year long! Solar food dryers perform amazingly well under a wide range of conditions, working effectively in almost any climate where you can grow fruits and vegetables. As a bonus, solar food drying is a great way to learn about solar energy and experience the incredible power of the sun — as well as being a great deal of fun! The Solar Food Dryer includes everything you need to get started:

• Complete step-by-step plans for building a high-performance, low-cost solar food dryer from readily available materials
• Solar energy design concepts
• Food drying tips and recipes
• Resources, references, solar charts and more

Fully illustrated with both photographs and helpful design and construction plans, The Solar Food Dryer also includes resource and reference lists, and more. It will appeal to gardeners everywhere, to solar energy enthusiasts and to everyone interested in healthy foods, sustainable lifestyles, self-reliance and preserving more locally-grown produce for year-round enjoyment.

Author Eben Fodor is an avid organic gardener with a background in solar energy and engineering. He's always looking for opportunities to enjoy nature and the sun — such as solar food drying! He's even invented a super-efficient solar-heated sauna. He works as a community planning consultant in Eugene, Ore.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, Mother Earth News is recommending books to readers. For 40 years, Mother Earth News has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

Reduce your lawn and your grocery budget. Take gardening to the next level! Would you like to grow healthy food for your table? Do you want to learn the secrets of farming even though you live in a neighborhood? Author Amy Stross talks straight about why the suburbs might be the ideal place for a small farm.

In these pages you'll learn:

• How to make your landscape as productive as it is beautiful
• Why the suburbs are primed with food-growing potential
• How to choose the best crops for success
• Why you don’t need the perfect yard to have a micro-farm
• How to use easy permaculture techniques for abundant harvests

The Useful Book is a modern and energetically designed encyclopedia of DIY.with step-by-step instructions and illustrations, relevant charts, sidebars, lists, and handy toolboxes.Practice measuring, cutting, and nailing by building a birdhouse. Make a bookshelf or a riveted metal picture frame. The tools that everyone should have, and dozens of cool projects that teach fundamental techniques.

Make your food garden more productive and more enjoyable! These 39 simple-to-make projects — including cold frames, compost bins, planters, raised beds, potting benches, gates, trellises, storage containers, outdoor furniture and more — will increase your harvest, make your garden chores easier, and turn your garden and yard into an appealing outdoor space for relaxing and enjoying the fruits of your labors. Each project includes step-by-step instructions, detailed illustrations, complete materials and lumber lists, no-nonsense tips, and a four-color photograph of the finished product. Many of the projects are ideal for beginners, and most can be completed in just a few hours.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to readers. For 40 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

Are you looking for ways to save water -- or money? This accessible guide by Laura Allen, founder of Greywater Action, explains how to use water smartly and efficiently, increasing supply, saving money, reducing wear on your septic system, and fulfilling your home and garden needs. She describes proven conservation techniques, explains how to create a water-wise landscape, and provides illustrated, step-by-step instructions for setting up a waterless composting toilet as well as systems to reuse greywater, harvest rainwater, and more.