PRACTICAL SELF SUFFICIENCY

An Australian guide to sustainable living

by Dick and James Strawbridge

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New hardcover book with dustjacket, 304 pages. Published 2011. Features colour illustrations and full-page colour photos throughout the book. 

Dick and James Strawbridge believe that everyone can live more sustainably without missing out on the pleasures of modern living. Drawing on their immense engineering, horticultural, craft and animal-rearing expertise, they share everything they have learned and put into practice on their small farm in this brilliand, practical guide.

Practical Self Sufficiency is a wonderfully useful and accessible book that contains something for absolutely everyone! It brings a time-homoured subject up-to-date with a new emphasis on sustainable living. This inspiring and practical guide covers everything from reducing your carbon footprint through generating energy to the traditional core topics of growing and raising your own food.

Structured around three sections - The Home, The Productive Garden and Traditional Knowledge - wide-ranging projects are presented with step-by-step photography, clear guidance and a great sense of fun. There are ideas and options for everyone from urbanites to rural property holders.

The Home section focuses on the energy needs of the average household and includes sections on conserving energy and using the power of sun, wind and water to supply your home. How to build an earth shelter, conserve water, and make and use biofuels are just a few of the topics in this section.

The Productive Garden is all about growing your own fruit and vegetables in whatever space you have available. It also covers storing the harvest, keeping chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys & bees, and growing fodder.

Traditional Knowledge presents an enticing collection of do-it-yourself projects, from baking bread and churning butter to making jams and chutneys. Learn how to dry and smoke your own food, and make greener cleaners.

This guide offers clear step by step advice in classic DK style and contains: 

• The most up to date and comprehensive information on sustainable living.
• Full page artworks, showing how to use every kind of plot for self sufficient living.
• Instructions on how to grow your own herbs, fruits and vegetables.
• Water saving tips – perfect for drought affected areas.
• Instructions on how to make a wormery, build a chicken coop, install solar panels, build a wind turbine, make cheese, jams and breads, brew beer, make soap, weave with willow and the list goes on!

Written by experienced and passionate eco-livers Dick and James Strawbridge, this title is comprehensive, inclusive and contemporary and is set to become the definitive guide of its kind. Perfectly adapted for the Australian market and ideal for everyone in urban, suburban or rural areas - becoming self sufficient has never been more topical, more practical or more fun!

About the authors

Dick Strawbridge, a retired lieutenand colonel and former army engineer, has been growing vegetables, keeping livestock and practising 'eco-engineering' since childhood. IT was his desire to lead a greener life that led him to convert his farm into an ecologically friendly, but completely modern, place to live.

James Strawbridge, Dick's son, has inherited his father's enthusiasm for inventing and DIY, and his time spent working on environmental projects in Nepal and Fiji confirmed his interest in ecological projects. .

With contributions from ten Australian experts, who have harnessed their experience, wisdom and self-sufficiency skills to guide you into the pleasures and challenges of living a more sustainable life:

• Laurie Cosgrove: environment and sustainability
• Allen Gilbert: horticulture
• Jennifer Wilkinson: growing fruit, vegetables and nuts
• Mike Owen: urban and rural DIY
• Robert Pym: animal husbandry
• Jane Frawley: natural remedies
• Nick Haddow: Making cheese
• Rowan Reid: agroforestry
• Belinda Ross: making bread
• Bruce White: keeping bees

See more books by Dick and James Strawbridge - click here

Practical Self-Sufficiency: An Australian Guide to Sustainable Living by Dick and James Strawbridge