The Book Cover

Title: Building Projects for Backyard Farmers and Home Gardeners: A Guide to 21 Handmade Structures for Homegrown Harvests
Author: Chris Gleason
Publisher: Fox Chapel Publishing
ISBN: 978-1565235434
Pages: 160
★★★★

Synopsis:

(Taken from Amazon.com) This is a practical and engaging guide to transforming an ordinary backyard into a productive farm. Homesteading is experiencing a revival among both rural and urban residents who want to get back to basics and live closer to the land. With this book, homeowners will obtain both inspiration and instruction for transforming their grassy yard into a lush farm that can produce all the food they need.

The author is an experienced woodworker and homesteader who shows how to plan and design a backyard farm. He offers expert advice for making all of the essential hard-working structures that are needed to sustain small-scale agriculture.

Step-by-step instructions are provided for 10 projects including green houses, beehives, rabbit hutches, raised beds, potting sheds, trellises, fences, and more. Readers learn how to create an irrigation system, harvest rainwater, and keep their farms environmentally sound. Each detailed plan is accompanied by the author’s clear, instructive drawings.

More than just a manual, the book also offers entertaining and enlightening interviews with both experts and “average Joe” farmers. We learn what motivates them to become backyard farmers, the lessons that they have to share, and maybe even a couple of funny stories along the way.

Review

My husband and I have been discussing changing our lifestyle for a while and becoming more self-sufficient.  After all, isn’t that our human right to be able to grow food in order to support our families? While many people are not in a place where they can have their own backyard farm or home garden (i.e. apartments or HOA restricted) we are blessed with a huge backyard and better yet, no HOA.

When I saw that I had the chance to review this book, I was incredibly excited. After all, we needed ideas on how to build things. Plus, we didn’t want to have to spend a ton of money. I know the saying goes — spend some to save some but we’d really like to limit that as much as possible. I felt that it was possible that Building Projects for Backyard Farmers & Home Gardeners would give us the ideas on how to do things ourselves.

One particular feature that I found particularly useful was that it tells you how many vegetable plants you need per person and how much space they will take up. For example, if your family is big tomato family then you’ll need 1-4 plants a person and it takes up about 48 sq inches.  Sweet. (Oh how I miss actually being able to EAT tomatoes.)

There are about 21 projects in this book including:

• Rainwater Harvesting System – This is probably the most wonderful thing we could do for our own garden. In Florida we have two season (wet and dry). During the summer months, it rains almost every day. Then once “winter” hits, we often have a very dry season which puts us onto water restriction from the community. Harvesting our own rainwater would help us through those dry seasons. That is for sure!
• Irrigation Strategies — These include overhead watering, drip irrigation, and soaker hoses.
• Garden Cart – You move a LOT of stuff around while you are gardening and although people usually use wheelbarrows, they aren’t usually big enough for needs. If you have ever dragged around mulch, hay, or stone, you’ll understand what I mean. How many trips do you really feel like doing, anyway?
• Compost Box – Compost provides an amazing fertilizer for gardens (plants, trees, whatever!) Plus it really puts our food scraps (including left over vegetables, fruit peels, etc.) to use. We get a TON of leaves from our Oak trees. I hate those darn trees, but the dead leaves would be a welcome addition to a compost box. I really like the idea that what we take from the Earth, we are also giving back to the Earth as well. It makes me sound like such a hippy, but I don’t care. There is something poetic about giving back to the garden that gives to you.
• Vermiculture Bin – This is a bin created to use worms to speed up and improve the overall quality of your composting.  The worms in a vermiculture bin break down scraps and produce a very powerful and organic fertilizer (i.e. worm castings).
• Easy Plank Raised Beds – Have you seen the raised garden beds for sale? They are often really expensive. I have seen many that are 200+$ for a handmade wooden bed. The good news is, you can make this yourself and it is EASY. You can make this project with scrap wood or the wood from wood pallets, which we get for free!
• Stacked Lumber Raised Bed – Just another version of a raised bed. Personally, I really love the look of these! In this particular plan they give you directions on how to build a beautiful trellis, which is much needed for vine plants like tomatoes or cucumbers!
• Potato Planter – Did you know that you can grow approximately 100lbs of potatos in a compact 2ft by 2ft area?  The directions they give includes wood made from a wood pallet. (Remember how I said you can often find them for FREE??!)
• Tiered Lettuce Rack – ever think to shelve your lettuce? I had no idea that was even possible. I think lettuce is a must in gardens and this seems like a great way to conserve space and add a little variety to your home garden.
• Wall of Tomatoes – I think this looks absolutely awesome! You will have to get the book to build it but it’s definitely a useful AND decorative wall of tomatoes.
• Bean Leaner – I bet this would be great on an apartment patio.
• Squash Ramp – This is a corral for your favorite sprawling squashes and melons. (Cantalope, cucumber, honeydew, pumpkin, etc.)
• Grapevine Ladder – This is AWESOME and I cannot wait to make this. It’s like a pergola for grapes. Doesn’t that sound like the coolest concept? I think I will be doing this against our backyard shed.
• Pea Trellis – Just like it says but the materials it recommends is actually pretty cool.
• Greenhouse – Using a greenhouse will help jumpstart early plant growth before planting.  This project uses recycled windows. There is a window place near us who has a dumpster out back that has hundreds of old windows and guess where they will end up going — the dump. What a good way to recycle old windows!
• Cold Frame – This is kind of the inbetween tool you would use from sprouting in the greenhouse and before planting into the ground. This helps allow the plant to harden off prior to planting.
• Wire Mesh Cloche – This helps protect your plants from frost. Florida doesn’t get really cold, but when it does, it can do so really quickly and really irritate plants. Creating a wire mesh cloche would be a great project to add for the cooler months.
• PVC Cloche – I swear, you can do so much with PVC that it’s a bit crazy.
• Top Bar Bee Hive – We’re not doing bees – ever. But, I’d definitely love some organic honey. Yum!
• Rabbit Hutch – Rabbits smell, big time. They are soft and cuddly and sooooo cute. But, they stink. The hutch in Building Projects for Backyard Farmers & Home Gardeners, though, is spacious and looks like it could be nicely personalized. If I was somehow tricked into getting a rabbit for the girls, though, the hutches in this book are ideal for us.

Besides just given project ideas, we are also given the materials list, which is incredibly important and directions on how to make these projects. It’s not just an idea book, but a guide to create these projects into your own garden. Inspirational gardeners are also profiled and I found their stories rather interesting.

I only had a few issues with the book, one being the fact that such a highly image detailed book was very slow to load using the required Bluefire Reader app on my iPad. So if you are going to purchase this book, I definitely recommend getting the physical copy over the kindle or nook version. In fact, I don’t even think it’s available in e-format for the public so you probably do not even have to worry about that.

The other issue I had was that it only included two backyard projects for animals — the bees and the rabbit hutch. I would have loved if it included plans for a chicken coop and a chicken brooder. I mean, that’s a huge part of backyard farmers. That would have been more important then the rabbit hutch. (I mean, just how is rabbits needed for backyard farming? I don’t know…)

Overall, I found this book really informative and I cannot wait to utilize a lot of these projects in my own backyard garden.

The Babies

We got 3 baby silkie chickens yesterday for our self-sufficient home. They are SUPER cute and cuddly. They are currently in a brooder now until they get a little bit bigger and then they will be moving to the coop that hubby is building for them.

Lulu, the black one, was the first named and she was named by the Hubs. I named the second one Bacon, and Carli named the third (the white one) Molly after the Bubble Guppies.

Who else has chickens? Any advice?

This is The Sunday Salon meme; dedicated to chatting about your literary ventures of the week.

This week I have to discuss pushing through difficult reads. Everyone raves about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but I cannot get more than a few chapters into it. The first chapter in which discusses a yearly flower on the birthday is clear without any issue. Then we get into the introduction of Swedish names and places and they are all new to me and bombarded on my ADD brain.

It’s too much.

My brain stops working, unable to differentiate between the different people and places. The same thing happens with science-fiction/fantasy novels. If there are too many made up words and names and places, it’s overwhelming. Not to many, of course, but to me.

Damn ADD. It seriously sucks big time. (And no, I am not taking anything for it. Not yet.)

I am determined to try reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo again, soon. After all, many people have told me how good it is if I would just push through the beginning. Right now I am having the same problem with Game of Thrones. Too many characters with unusual names and places thrown at me all at once. I find myself having to reread pages slowly just to figure out who is who and who does what and where they are.

But then the reads become forced and it almost feels like homework. Gah! Plus, these kinds of reads always make me feel like the biggest idiot (which I know that I am not.) Because of this, over the past week, I am only about 8% into A Game of Thrones. Forgive me if it takes me a long time.

So that leads me to wonder — does anyone else have difficulty with fantasy novels and their over abundance of new words, new names, and new places? If so, do you just have to push through or do you give up on it all together?

To check out other blogs that participate in The Sunday Salon:

I honestly thought no one would find the book that I was having trouble finding, based on its age and vauge description. For one, the 50s was a while ago and even though my Dad grew up with the book, he still doesn’t remember it. All of the sudden, just a few days later I receive this text message from my Mother-in-Law:

Tada!!!

Could this possibly be it?? I immediately went on a web search for the book Two Men and a Tree by Arthur I. Gates. (How could it be such a simple title?!) Was it really that easy?

Now, if I could just find a synopsis on the book. Maybe I could even find someone else talking about this book. If I could find just some verification that this was the correct book then maybe I could say, with certainty, that THIS was the book. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an actual synopsis anywhere. All I know is that the book was created for beginner readers by MacMillan Readers in the 1950′s (according to amazon)
.

Oddly though, which I didn’t anticipate, the book has two covers. The one that immediately comes up on the search didn’t look like what I had remembered. But, as it’s been about 20+ years since I’ve read the book myself, maybe my memory of the book wasn’t 100%.

I figured I would see if I could find if there was a copy somewhere that I could purchase (without breaking the bank). Then, I found this:

A different cover.

At the moment I saw this version of the book cover, I knew it. This was the book I have been looking for, for many years. I have found it at last.

Thank you to my Mother-in-Law and to Susan for finding this book for me. I cannot wait to read it to my girls.

Blogger Meme: Friday Firsts I try to tweet about all participants, so don’t forget to include your Twitter username if you want to be notified of your tweet mention! The first line can make or break a reader’s interest. Just how well did the author pull you in to the story with their first sentence? To participate in this weekly book meme is extremely easy.

• Grab the book you are currently reading and open to the first page.
• Write down the first sentence in the first paragraph. (If you want to use 2-3 sentences, that is okay but limit it to the very beginning.)
• Create a blog post with this information. (Make sure to include the title & author of the book you are using. Even an ISBN helps!)
• Did this first sentence help draw you into the story? Why or why not?
• Come back to this blog post, hosted on WellReadReviews.com and add your comment to the post.

That’s it

Here is my Friday Firsts: Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (ISBN: 978-0553386790) 720 pages.

“We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. “The wildlings are dead.”

Fantasy is not my normal genre. I get overwhelmed easily by names I’ve never heard of and lands I have never heard of. In fact, I have started this book a few times, but am finally getting into the groove of reading this novel (which I am enjoying.)

The first sentence definitely drew me in. It caused me to wonder, “Just why are the wildlings dead?”

Synopsis: (Taken from Amazon.com)

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

Here is the first volume in George R. R. Martin’s magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin’s stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.

Check out eBooks at Skoob.com

Nowadays, you can do almost everything online, whether it is shopping for clothes, buying food, online banking or reading the news. Also, buying books online and reading them instantly was never a possibility before. When you wanted to get yourself some amazing new story to read, you usually had to travel down to your favourite book store and endlessly browse for a book there. However, this is no longer necessary as this process has been so much facilitated through the internet over the last couple of years, that now, everything is about ebooks.

It is so easy. You simply have to register on the online bookstore where you want to shop, browse through the online book shelves and finally buy and download your preferred ebook. What is even more attracting is the fact that there is also a choice of free ebooks available online.

For example, the romantic Eat, Pray, Love ebook by Elizabeth Gilbert is available for free. Consequently, you are not only rewarded by free bestseller literature, but also by a free guide of how to enjoy life. If you are not so much into romance, maybe another choice out of the huge selection of ebooks might do it for you. What about the exciting and hooking story of Stieg Larsson with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo ebook? If you like this edition, you will also like the other volumes by Stieg Larsson, such as ‘The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest’ or ‘The Girl Who Played With Fire’. All three editions deal with the ‘wanted’ woman Lisbeth Salander and two Millennium journalists who are trying to expose the truth about sex trafficking in Sweden, (political) corruption and murder. Can’t get enough of this? Just download the electronic format of Stieg Larsson’s amazing stories, store them on your little Kindle device, take it anywhere you want and enjoy these stories at any place at any time.

Yes, it is really that easy!

This guest post is sponsored on behalf of Skoob.com

The Book Cover

Title: Lovely Knits for Little Girls: 20 Just-Right Patterns, Just for Little Girls
Author: Vibe Sondergaard
Publisher: Taunton Press
ISBN: 978-1600855030
Pages: 144
★★★

Synopsis:

(Taken from Amazon.com) While project books for making baby knits abound, what happens when your little cherub turns two? Lovely Knits for Little Girls solves the problem beautifully, with twenty patterns for pint-sized vests, dresses, sweaters, and skirts—all brimming with pretty, girly details. Forget about baby-weight yarn, tiny needles, and fussy patterns for clothes that are quickly outgrown. For Lovely Knits, knitwear designer Vibe Sondegaard creates a bright, stylish, little-girl wardrobe of fabulous projects that knit up quickly and allow knitters plenty of opportunity for trying a few design tricks (cables, bobbles, lace patterns) on a manageable, kid-sized scale. Best of all, the pattern shapes size up or down easily (with back of book instruction on doing just that), making this collection versatile enough to use again and again.

Review

I guess this will just be a mini review as there isn’t much to talk about in regards to a knitting book. While I loved the overall look of the book and as a photographer I appreciated the pictures, I just don’t think it was awesome. For a knitting book, it is average.

Lovely Knits for Little Girls is supposed to be a book on lovely knits for little girls. Well, honestly, little girls really wouldn’t want to wear anything in this book. There wasn’t a single item of clothing that I could look at and think, “Yes, this would make a lovely gift for a little girl.” I really didn’t like anything. The items looked fine in the photos, but in real life, that may be another story.

Another thing is that this book requires seaming and it seemed rather complicated extra step for such basic looking patterns especially since you can get a lot of patterns that knit seamless on Ravelry.com. The cloths aren’t really stylish, at least in American terms of what style is. This looks more like a book geared towards a grandparent, in which they think their child wants to wear.

If you have found this review because you are looking for adorable knits for little girls, I recommend the following links/designers.

• Elizabeth Daugherity of Sweet Monkey Baby
• Georgie Hallam of TikkiKnits
• Tina Good of SugarBubbie
• Melissa Simpson of DaKine Knits
• Nicole Ratliff of DaKine Knits
• Carina Spencer of CarinaSpencer.com
• Marilyn Porter of Evie Pants
• Claire Gentry of CiaoBellaBaby

These designers mentioned have created, in my opinion, the just-right patterns for little girls. I do not feel the book Lovely Knits for Little Girls comes close.

I hope this will be a regular thing over the summer and not just a one time thing!

Click HERE to participate in Wordless Wednesdays.

Carli in Our Home Garden

If you have participated in Wordless Wednesday on your blog, please fill out the link collection below.

STOP

Dear Authors,

Hi. I wanted to thank you in advance for thinking about me when you want your book reviewed. I am glad that my opinion matters. But, if you don’t hear back from me, it’s probably for a variety of reasons. Let’s take the example below. (I have posted the email in whole, minus names.)

I am very happy to announce my blog tour starting May 17th for [book title removed]. My email is [email removed]
I have a web site at [website removed] and I have a fan page on Facebook. I am also on twitter
@[twitter removed]
I will be very happy to have interviews if you are interested. Please let me know.
Have a wonderful week and happy reading!
[name removed]

Forget what you learned in elementary school (Grammar/Spelling/Punctuation)

Believe me. It is not optional. While I am not a stickler for perfect grammar (I am often grammatically incorrect), I do expect it to be readable. There is no excuse for spelling errors as we live in the digital age of spellcheck. Punctuation is not that difficult. Don’t forget periods, commas, and appropriate spacing. When I am sent jumbled emails filled with spelling, typos, and lack of punctuation I often think, “An author? Are they kidding me??!” I won’t waste my time trying to hurt my head reading it.

Fail to Know Your Blogger’s Interests

What kind of books does the blogger like to read? Does your book fit in that bloggers enjoyable genre’s? If not, why do you think your book would be the exception?

Make it Impersonal

When you email a blogger, it is probably wise to find out what their name is. “HI” or nothing, is not acceptable. My name is Allison and it says it on my sidebar. Please use my name as it makes me feel like you took the time to actually look at my website before pitching your book. Take the extra few minutes and read a few of the blog entries and comment on them, too. Make reference to them in your emails.

Represent Yourself

I am all for supporting self-published authors as that is something that I am working on in the future (a company that will open in 2013). But when you represent yourself, it just doesn’t feel right. Hire a public relations representative to pitch for you, as they often know exactly what to say. Or, at least, make up someone and pretend to be a PR person. Having someone appear to do the pitching for you, makes your work all that more impressive.

Expect Free Advertising

Forget to Tell the Blogger About the Book

A Title is not enough. Do not forget a professional synopsis. I don’t want to judge a book on its title alone. When you are pitching a blogger to read your book, it needs to catch their attention. A title without a description does not work.