Slice Of Organic Life

Provides a comprehensive guide to growing one's own food organically, as well as how to cook home-grown produce, raise one's own selected livestock, and develop a more sustainable lifestyle.

How to incorporate organic principles into everyday life.

Enjoy the pleasures of even the smallest taste of organic living and start feeling good about what you can do instead of guilty about what you can't. You don't need a backyard or property to make small changes towards a more sustainable life. This book is packed full of simple projects for your garden, home and community, with something for everyone living in small or large spaces.

Find your own slice of the 'The Good Life' Bake bread. Start a wormery. Shop locally. Plant a tree. Find out how to get closer to the soil, without going the whole hog. Discover 80 simple, eco projects you can dip in and out of, from growing salad on your window-sill, to collecting rainwater. Pick up what you need using the directory of useful organic stockists and websites, then choose a project to suit your pocket and lifestyle. You don't need a garden, special equipment, or even much time. Includes an introductory comment by Sheherazade Goldsmith, wife of organic spokesman and Ecologist editor, Zac Goldsmith.

Find out how to live a more organic life with this new edition, now in ebook format. Bake bread, start a wormery, shop locally, plant a tree � find out how to get closer to the earth and live a more organic life, without going the whole hog. Discover 80 simple, eco projects you can dip in and out of, from growing salad on your window-sill, to collecting rainwater. Pick up what you need using the directory of useful organic stockists and websites, then choose a project to suit your pocket and lifestyle. You don�t need a garden, special equipment, or even much time. Edited by Sheherazade Goldsmith.

Joan Dye Gussow is an extraordinarily ordinary woman. She lives in a home not unlike the average home in a neighborhood that is, more or less, typically suburban. What sets her apart from the rest of us is that she thinks more deeply--and in more eloquent detail--about food. In sharing her ponderings, she sets a delightful example for those of us who seek the healthiest, most pleasurable lifestyle within an environment determined to propel us in the opposite direction. Joan is a suburbanite with a green thumb, with a feisty, defiant spirit and a relentlessly positive outlook. At the heart of This Organic Life is the premise that locally grown food eaten in season makes sense economically, ecologically, and gastronomically. Transporting produce to New York from California--not to mention Central and South America, Australia, or Europe--consumes more energy in transit than it yields in calories. (It costs 435 fossil fuel calories to fly a 5-calorie strawberry from California to New York.) Add in the deleterious effects of agribusiness, such as the endless cycle of pesticide, herbicide, and chemical fertilizers; the loss of topsoil from erosion of over-tilled croplands; depleted aquifers and soil salinization from over-irrigation; and the arguments in favor of "this organic life" become overwhelmingly convincing. Joan's story is funny and fiery as she points out the absurdities we have unthinkingly come to accept. You won't find an electric can opener in this woman's house. In fact, you probably won't find many cans, as Joan has discovered ways to nourish herself, literally and spiritually, from her own backyard. If you are looking for a tale of courage and independence in a setting that is entirely familiar, read her story.

Mimi and her husband, Ralph, have left social climbing, pushy parenting, and their marital problems behind them in London in favor of perfect, bucolic tranquility. Or so they thought. What should be rural heaven turns out to be just as tricky to navigate as Notting Hill, even with Mimi's new best friend Rose -- Dorset's answer to Martha Stewart -- by her side. While Honeyborne is thankfully free of prestigious preschools with waiting lists that begin in utero, it has its own fierce brand of competition. Without a helipad for trophy guests, an organic farm shop, and a bottom that looks good in jodhpurs, Mimi is at a distinct disadvantage. And that's just the start of her problems. Mimi also has a secret. Can she keep it? With a gimlet eye for telling details and human foibles, Rachel Johnson has crafted a novel that is fresh, hilarious, and irresistibly funny -- a brilliant slice of social satire with surprising depth and heart.

For many of us, our home is the center of our life. It is the place where our families meet and mingle, where we share our meals and share our dreams. So much more than just a space to live, our homes offer us a place of comfort, nourishment, and love for us and for our children. In Handmade Home, Amanda Blake Soule, author of The Creative Family and the blog SouleMama.com, offers simple sewing and craft projects for the home that reflect the needs, activities, and personalities of today’s families. As Amanda writes in the introduction, "As a crafter, I’m always looking for the next thing I want to make. As a mama, I’m always looking for the next thing we need—to do, to have, to use—as a family. The coming together of these parts is where the heart of Handmade Home lies." Filled with thirty-three projects made by reusing and repurposing materials, all of the items here offer a practical use in the home. From picnic blankets made out of repurposed bed sheets to curtains made out of vintage handkerchiefs, these projects express the sense of making something new out of something old as a way to live a more financially pared-down and simple life; lessen our impact on the earth; connect to the past and preserve a more traditional way of life; and place value on the work of the hands. Also included are projects that children can help with, allowing them to make their own special contribution to the family home. More than just a collection of projects for handmade items, this book offers the tools to create a life—and home—full of beauty, integrity, and joy. Projects include: • Papa’s Healing Cozy: This hot water bottle cover becomes a simple way to offer comfort to a sick child • Baby Sling: A simple pattern for an object that offers so much to a small child—refuge from the world and a place to lay their head next to a parent’s heart • Beach Blanket To-Go: Repurpose old sheets to create the perfect picnic blanket for special outdoor meals • Cozy Wall Pockets: A creative solution for storing a child’s small treasures Pattern templates for Handmade Home