The Urban Homestead: A Manifesto
Everything Kiki and I know about gardening - or almost everything - we read in books. This is the first in a series of posts that I'm going to dedicate to reviewing the books that inspired us and that we followed in our first year here at Steepmeadow. The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen is a manifesto. While their brand of city self-sufficiency might work in a more urban setting, I would not want to be their neighbors. They're not wrong, they just advocate a lifestyle that's going to make your home into a weedy, messy place with garbage can lids and grey-water collection bins. "Tater Tires" are one of their projects. It is a matter of taste, but I want our place to look tidy and alive rather than strewn with scavenged garbage. It's not that it's not noble, because it is. It is a great do-in-yourself aesthetic They have a whole section on raising livestock. We want nothing to ...