What better way to celebrate the new look and feel of NW Edible than with a chance to win the best new urban homesteading book on the market?
When Annette Cottrell, co-author with Joshua McNichols of The Urban Farm Handbook and author of the site Sustainable Eats, asked me if I’d like to host a giveaway of her book, I was in the middle of reading it and I jumped at the chance.
But in truth, I have mixed feelings about The Urban Farm Handbook.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the book. On the contrary, it’s wonderful. Annette and Joshua managed to cram planning guides, seasonal recipes, inspirational photos, beginner-to-advanced tips and techniques for all things urban homesteading into an easy-to-read sub-400 page book filled with honest and compelling prose. All this and nothing ever feels rushed or truncated. It’s quite the accomplishment.
No, my reservation about The Urban Farm Handbook is entirely and exclusively personal: this is the book I would have written, and it’s better than I could have written it. It is everything a primer on urban food self-sufficiency should be, written by two authors who know their stuff and have complementary gardening and literary styles. So it’s a little bittersweet for me, knowing I’m going to have to go back to the drawing board for ideas if I want to write my own book one day. And it’s also a little intimidating, because Annette and Joshua have set the bar pretty damn high with this work.
So you want The Urban Farm Handbook? Here’s your chance to get it for free, and signed by Annette to boot! Leave a comment below telling me what your big Urban Homesteading goal is for 2012. Entries will be accepted until Monday, January 16th at 8:oo pm Pacific Standard Time. Winner will be selected by random number drawing and announced on Tuesday, January 17th. Contest only open to residents of the U.S. – sorry international friends!
Good luck!
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My ‘big’ goal is to keep the chickens happy and healthy as we go into our 1st year anniversary.
Well, next weekend I will be following my husband to a new city, leaving behind the homestead we’ve been putting together here in Portland over the past three years. So my goal for 2012 is to get settled in the new place, figure out some general climate/growing differences and get some staples in the ground ASAP! I also strive to 1. learn from my husband’s native american family and 2. be an example in a town where KFC, BK and Wal*Mart are the main food sources.
My husband and I hope to get laying chickens and maybe pigs this year!
Also joining our first CSA. Looking forward to trying new foods.
Awesome give-a-way, thank you.
My goals are to grow enough food for my family and have some surplus for friends who don’t grow, grow and preserve some common medicinals, and learn to can. Thanks for this opportunity!
Ooooooh yes, I want in on this! My biggest goal is to expand the garden. I’m in a rental, so that means I can’t add permanent things – chickens, greenhouses, larger gardens, but I hope to utilize the space I have and grow far more leafy vegatables and herbs. And tomatoes. Oh – did I mention zuchini and eggplants? So much to grow…..
My big plan is to learn how to maximize my 10×6 garden plot to help boost my harvest and to find some shade friendly crops to put in a new bed on the side of my house. Finding a source for more local flour and eggs is also top on the to do list because I’m certainly not going to be growing grains or keeping chickens any time soon. One thing at a time! I may have to go check out the Urban Farm Handbook at the library.
I’d love to add this title to my library.
I have to keep fighting with City Hall to allow Chickens. My biggest goal in 2012 is constructing row covers to extend our growing season in both directions.
Cheers,
Cate
I have the hugely lofty goal of starting a container herb garden and getting some tomotoes going in 2012. I tried several things last year only to have everything die in our really heavy terrible clay soil (Yes, even well amended….. even the hosta’s died a slow and painful death). I’ve got some upcycled containers and wood to help convert our beautifully sunny and animal free back yard into a producing “garden”.
My big plan for this year is to keep pressure on our City Council to make chickens legal this year! We have had one public meeting about it (mostly favorable) but we still have a lot of work to get it through. Closer to home, I just had soil testing done for my raised beds, and now I am dreaming of spring with my stacks of seed catalogs.
Heck to the yes I want this book.
My goals for the year are: to save up a year’s supply of food; to learn more of the native plants, both medicinally and as food; to keep the *&$% scrub jays off my hazelnuts (feathers are in fashion, you little winged rats!); and to have something edible growing in my garden for an entire year, starting in spring. Learning how to make soap would be a good thing, too.
We are planning to buy a few acres this spring. I want to start some chickens before the end of the year.
My goal is to build a bigger coop for more chickens. I want to get better with my bees and controlling the varroa mites using natural treatments. I want to use every single piece of fruit that comes off our trees and not waste as much fruit. I also want to increase my composting.
This year, I will plant pasture grass in the back-most third of my 50 x 120 foot lot, creating true forage for my 30 hens. I shall! I shall! In addition, I hope to see my first sizeae berry crop, and bring three more vegetable beds into production.
Looks like a great book! Thanks for giving us the opportunity to win a copy.
2012 will begin the third year on our small (7 acre) homestead. Our goals include expanding our raised bed gardens and growing more root vegetables, finishing the fence to hold goats, and increasing our chicken flock to 20 or so. Most of all, our goal is to ENJOY the life that so many only dream to have!
We have lots of goals this year on our homestead and are satisfied with how we met last years goals. I guess the biggest goal for me would be beginning canning this year. Last year I froze alot of the garden produce and this year I want to can it too. My first time commenting/visiting. Thanks so much for this wonderful opportunity. :o)
First, new blog is looking great! Second, you are going to write a book (I’m waiting for you to punch out something to speak to the Gen X’er on down crowd of young women/mother’s finding themselves embracing the idea of Radical Homemaking and needing the practical advice to do it). We love the idea but have no skills. I’m thinking a month by month guide of interior/cooking/preserving/gardening projects/to do’s. Well, I’d read it at least 🙂
Homesteading goal? Setting up a new homestead in the burbs of PDX. Moving sucks. Cheers, Jenni
Wow, what a great give away!
My goal this year is to take better advantage of the limited garden space we have here. I need to move plants to keep the tomatoes from overrunning the peppers, I need to move the onions so the cucumbers don’t bury them, I need to pull the summer plants quicker to get fall plants in, even though that’s so hard to do when they are still producing!
I would like to get all my plants in the ground for my organic garden this year, along w starting my own seeds – didn’t happen last year because of miscarr. 🙁 Feeling better now. Also, I bought an amazing French Copper Jam Pan, I’d like to fire it up w some awesome strawberry jam.
I would LOVE this book. Nichole
My goal is to plant more onions, plant my tomatoes early enough to have them ripen (ie earlier than late July *cough*lastyearlaziness*cough*, and maybe try something new I haven’t grown before.
I’ve been drooling over this book! Saw an article in the Seattle Times about tomatoes that mentioned this book, and I looked it up and started dreaming!
My goals might vary this year – but I’d like to 1) learn to can/preserve 2) grow more than 10 tomatoes in PNW Maritime – ha! anything more than that will be gravy 🙂
This year, I am new to a colder, wetter climate in the Northwest and I’m trying to see what will survive in pots on the shady balcony of my apartment. Not much so far, except my lavender and my mature jalapeno plant seem to still be alive and well. However, I just reserved a plot at the local community garden and hope to get things going there real soon! Planning on starting broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts indoors this February for “spring” planting in a raised bed. If I can get the materials, I would like to experiment with row covers while they’re young transplants. As the season progresses, I will be planting more veggies such as onions, carrots, lettuces, tomatoes, and herbs. If my jalapeno plant produces as abundantly as it did last year, we will be pickling those again! They turned out so good! In the future, I hope to have a large yard for gardening again, but my dream is to own acreage with hoop-houses, a greenhouse, an aquaponics system, backyard chickens, with my own shop for crafting soap and candles, etc., and maybe even keep bees.
Thanks! Love your blog!
I love your blog ANd now I have a new one to investigate. We rent and have a small yard, so there is a limit to what I can do. the main goal is to teach my son the joys of gardening, that while it can be hard work & disappointing, it is well worth it. My work goal is to get my gardens to grow more efficiently, to plant more medicinal herbs, culinary herbs, edible flowers & veggies utilizing the existing garden beds, flower beds, space under & around trees and where ever I can fit them around other things, up fences etc!
I’d like to double the size of my garden.
My big goal is to tear out the stupid (non-edible) bushes at our rental and plant blueberries! The bushes are 41+ years old and those suckers won’t come willingly. It’s bushes vs. sawzall, and I’m determined to be the winner!
Man I want to read this book! I have been hearing so many good things about it.
My goal for 2012 is to learn to make some basics from scratch – I am woefully inept when it comes to the kitchen – lets change that!
My goal for 2012 is to keep my chickens happy and healthy and productive…and show the naysayers how awesome city chickens are!!
My goal is to start growing food, we just relocated and I am excited to start growing our own food and “putting up” food. I would also like some chickens!
Oh how fun!
My Urban Homesteading goal is this:
utilize the 2 4x 8 foot garden beds that I started last year and the chickens proceeded to consume the contents of….
before doing that – build a chicken escape proof coop for my very determined escapies….
can tomatoes and peppers from the garden – enough to last the winter…..
those are the short term goals…there are many more long term ones.
Thanks!
My big long-term goal is to operate a modern B&B complete with garden, bees and chickens; until then we rent as we save money for the deposit. That said, my big goals for 2012 are to be the most practical in what I grow and to use the little space I have as effectively as possible. Likely this means new strategies for abundant tomatoes, lots more peppers, doubling up my herbs and figuring out what I can grow in my mostly-shaded-front-yard-beds that looks pretty enough that the landlady doesn’t mind.
It goes without saying the book would be very helpful!
Thanks for the give-away!
What an awesome give-away! My urban homesteading goal for 2012 is to finally get my hive built and get my bees. To go along with that, I’m also ripping a few rose bushes out of the front yard, and planting more bee-friendly plants (lavender, oregano, thyme, Mexican sage, etc). This fall, when I make jam from the fruits of our trees, I’ll use our own honey to sweeten it, rather than store-bought!
This is the year I get serious with my gardening. My goal is 90% of our vegetables and 25% of our fruit (my fruit trees aren’t bearing yet). Looking around at what is happening on this planet, between extreme weather, social unrest, and population explosion, I believe that food shortages are inevitable. I want to do my part to free up the food available for those who are unable to grow their own. This book would be great to have to help me (and others) with my goal.
My Urban Homesteading Goal for 2012 is to START!!! I have a great piece of land with sprinklers already in place. My challenge has been HOW TO BEGIN? My desire is to grow my own herbs (i.e., rosemary, basil, oregano and maybe mint). In addition, I’d like to grow vegetables conducive to this wonderful California sunshine. A Really Good Mentor…Book…would be such a Tremendous Blessing. Thanks. M
Wow what an awesome giveaway!! I’m so excited. My goal this year is to get started. Yep I’ve been dreaming the dream this past year and reading everything I can to get prepared and know what I am doing. This book would be a dream come true for a beginner like me.
My homesteading goal for 2012 is not to get stung and/or if I do to handle it with calm and grace 🙂 We are getting BEES!
I would LOVE to win this book! Baby chicks are ordered and arriving mid-February. Chicken coop plans purchased and building will begin in the next month or so. We’ve also covered our next raised bed expansion area with newspaper and tarps to remove the grass (plus one old tree stump that is in our path), so we can break ground and build up 3 more 4X10 beds (currently 13 beds in production). Planning to grow year round this year too! So excited!
I have a few goals:
1. To maximize/utilize my space more…last year was my first year for gardening and I didn’t plant as well as I could have for items I would actually utilize in the kitchen.
2. To eat more from local farmers markets Spring through Fall..especially meat
3. To learn how to dehydrate my foods.
As each of my household & body care products run out I’m switching over to homemade. Also My goal is to put up as much local and wildcrafted food as possible over the summer.
I have to do little goals, otherwise I get too overwhelmed and stress out! So, my #1 goal for this year is to put in blueberry bushes. We have been slowly converting more and more of our urban yard from lawn to food, and the blueberries are the next addition to the backyard orchard. 🙂
My goal for the year is to add veggie beds to the front yard.
My goals are so small compared to many others. My biggest goal is to grow something successfully! I don’t really have a garden, but I have a yard. I hope to turn at least a little bit of it into productive space.
My goals for 2012 are to significantly expand our little garden, get the kids involved, and tackle some winter gardening. I’d also like to try some food preserving.
I want to venture into doing my own beans; growing, cooking, etc rather then using the canned ones.
My goal is to finally grow a balanced garden in my shady yard. I’ve had varied amounts of success in the past two years since moving into my house and this year I really want to have a plan, follow through, and eat from my garden all year. Your blog helps so much with this!
Woohoo! Looks like the book I’ve been looking for! My big goal this year is to have a 3 season garden, to use my raised beds more efficiently, and to get my new flock of chickens to get along! (seriously… my one, one year old chicken from my original flock (the rest of whom were killed by a fox) is not taking to her new, teenage coopmates). Oh, and I’d really like to start canning this year. 🙂
My goal would be to start raising Chickens. Unfortunately my city is currently looking at changing our laws about farm animals being allowed in the city, so that is going to have to wait, at least for a while. In the mean time I am hoping to grow and preserve as much food as I can. I am going to try my hand at succession planting to try to maximize my garden space and growing season.
I have heard many good things about this book! I would like to win it please. 🙂
My biggest goal is to can more crops in order to buy less during the winter. Last year tomatoes were the main canning ingredient but I am hoping to get a big enough harvest of beans to make a sizable chunk. Also am planning to put more fruit into the backyard beyond just berries (plums and pears, perhaps).
2012 Urban Farming goals? Oh, so many, but I will just throw out the big one: obtain permission from the landlord to do a little edible landscaping (beyond the tomatoes and herbs I planted in the flower bed last year)! The book looks great and if I don’t win, I plan to order it anyway! 🙂
PS Love your blog
Our goal is to grow more vertical and grow some atop our shed to increase our yield by about 1/2. More food grown by us would be great. Also increase our chickens.
My big goal for 2012 is just re-establishing the set up we had last year in line of vegetable production. We just moved this week and are expecting our first baby in March, so I think gardening is probably going to be a big enough project for me.
A few of my bigger goals this year are chickens, fruit trees, and making wine/beer/mead.