Great Links
(and Other Resources):

Here's a list of great links, books, blogs and other resources
(organized by topic) to help, entertain or inspire you in
your Urban Farming pursuits. Enjoy!

General Farming Topics:

Country Wisdom & Know-How
(Everything You Need to Know to Live Off the Land)
From the Editors of Storey Books
Just as the cover says--everything you need to know--at least mostly! The book boasts 8,167 useful skills and instructions...on everything from gardening and taking care of livestock to canning and cooking. There are even crafts thrown in! (Another great thing about this book is that it's very inexpensive). A definite MUST HAVE.

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer
By Novella Carpenter
Great memoir about starting and running a farm in inner city Oakland.
A must read for urban farmer wannabe. The book is inspiring and funny.
And if we're all lucky, we'll learn from Novella's story!

Made from Scratch:
Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life
by Jenna Woginrich
Another memoir-like book on living the simple (and not-so-simple)
life of greater self-sufficiency.

Hit by a Farm:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn
by Catherine Friend
Yes, yet another memoir...but they don't get old to me because they each tell a unique story, and have something to teach you (usually from their mistakes). This one is well-written and funny. A good read.

The Dirty Life:
A Memoir of Farming, Food and Love
by Kristin Kimball
Okay, this might look like a theme...another memoir...but they all have merit for one reason or another. This one is well written. But it's more than that. It's a love story between a Harvard graduate, New York City Girl who falls in love with a Pennsylvanian Farmer. Not only that, they take the whole CSA concept to the extreme, offering their CSA memebers the full spectrum of foods...meat, syrup, veggetables, eggs, grains...everything they need. Many of their members don't buy groceries from anywhere else. Interesting read.

 

Blogs:

Chickens in the Road
Witty insights and funny pictures of life on the farm in rural America

The Fraker Farm
Another Farm Girl blog with stories and photos

Da Garden
Deckside Veggie Garden
Da Garden (2)
Reader Submitted Blog Entries About Gardening
(that have some great gardening photos, too)

Chickens:

Raising Chickens For Dummies
by Kimberly Willis and Rob Ludlow
This is a great guide for anyone wanting to get into chickens. It's pretty comprehensive and easy to read. This book does a good job at covering all the bases in chicken raising. Because of that, it's my favorite go-to chicken resource.

Homemade Living:
Keeping Chickens with Ashley English:
All You Need to Know to Care for a Happy, Healthy Flock  
There are a few things I love about this chicken book.
One, it's beautiful. The layout, the pictures, all of it. It's just pleasing to look at.
But this book is more than a picture book. It's filled with everything you
need to know to get started with chickens, including supply lists and plans
to build your own coops and chicken nest boxes. There's also a great
section on chicken breeds, along with full-color photos to help
you decide which breeds will be the best fit for you. And there's even egg
recipes included!

Keep Chickens!
Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs, and Other Small Spaces
by Barbara Kilarski
Another good overview book for people wanting to get into raising chickens with special emphasis on those wanting to keep urban chickens.

Chicken Coops: 45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock
by Judy Pangman
This book is a WONDERFUL resource for gleaning ideas in making your own backyard coop. There's many great coops in the book with pictures and plans to get your juices flowing.

Just A Couple Of Chickens:
Raising Poultry and a Family in Hard Times
by Corinne Tippett
This is another true-life chicken raising story. It's worth the read because:
1. It's very funny. 2. If you're wanting to raise poultry of any kind, you can learn from
someone else's experience 3. There's a section in the back filled with practical
information and resources for you to get started with a flock of your own--whether
that's chickens, quail, pheasants or more.

Canning:

Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving
400 delicious and creative recipes for today
Edited by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine
A great collection of canning recipes from one of the leaders in canning know-how.

Put 'em Up!:
A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook,
from Drying and Freezing to Canning and Pickling
by Sherri Brooks Vinton
This 2010 book is great! Wonderful recipes, illustrations and information.
I especially like that it's organized according to vegetable/fruit so you get all the different ways you can preserve carrots, for example, all in one section. I also love the graphic layout of this book. It's my favorite to LOOK at.

Canning for a New Generation
Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry
by Liana Krissoff
This book gives you 200 recipes to make throughout all four seasons.With a twist. The book is filled with unusual, new recipes to try.
Things like Tomato and Basil Jam with SherryVinegar,
Pickled Romano Beans with Indian Spices and
Slow-Roasted Fig Preserves with Lemon.
There's also some traditional favorites and
recipes for meals to use the exotic food you've just canned.

Composting:

Diary of a Compost Hotline Operator
by Spring Gillard
This book is part entertaining story, part helpful hints,
and part practical resource. You'll find yourself laughing on minute,
scribbling notes the next, and trying out solutions to common
composting problems.

Cooking:

Homemade Living:
Home Dairy with Ashley English:
All You Need to Know to Make Cheese, Yogert, Butter and More
by Ashley English

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day:
The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
by Jeff Hertzberg, MD, and Zoe Francois
This book does live up the the title. Amazing breads that usually take a lot of prep (or cost a fortune to buy from the store) are at your fingertips in virtually no time.

Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day:
100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables,
and Gluten-Free Ingredients
by Jeff Hertzberg, MD, and Zoe Francois
and it's equally remarkable, but using more whole grains
(And gluten-free friend of mine says the section on gluten-free breads
are the best she's tasted so far!)

Clara's Kitchen: Wisdom, Memories, and Recipes from the Great Depression  
By Clara Cannucciari
This is a charming little book by a 94-year old Great-grandma
who actually lived through the Great Depression.
You'll find stories, photos and recipes from her childhood.
It's a great book to make you thankful for what you have!
It's also a wonderful gift.
(You can see Clara in action on her YouTube Channel)

Gardening:

Mantis Gas-Powered Tiller/Cultivator
This little gem is both tiny and powerful
all wrapped into one. It weighs in at 25 lbs
and is only 9 inches wide so it can go
where conventional tillers can't.
A perfect addition to city and small space gardening!

Tomato Dirt
A great web site dedicated solely to everything you ever needed
to know about growing tomatoes!

Window Farming
A grass roots, innovative, very cool system for growing food in your windows.
This is NOT your flower pot on the window sill concept!
Perfect for city dwellers who want to farm but have no space to do it in.

Victory Garden
A great vintage film (only 4 minutes long) produced by
by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1941
to promote and educate on the how-to's of
starting a victory garden.

Lasagna Gardening for Small Spaces:
A Layering System for Big Results in Small Gardens and Containers
(Rodale Organic Gardening Book)
by Patricia Lanza
A low-effort, high-yield way to grow small gardens which involves NO TILLING!

Food Industry:

Food, Inc.
Excellent documentary about the food industry in the USA.
Anyone who eats food in the United States should watch this movie.

CAFO
(Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation)
The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories
by Daniel Imhoff, Editor
This substantial coffee table book sheds light on the horrors
of the big 'farm' industry in the USA
with lots of full spread graphic images as well as a volume
of much needed information to help American consumers
become more informed.

Just for FUN:

Fun books, kids books, coffee table books...
all having to do with farming, gardening, cooking, chickens, etc.

Duck on a Bike
By David Shannon
This is a super cute picture book with amazing illustrations
about a duck determined to break barnyard protocol and
go ride a bike!

Don't Throw It, Grow It!: 68 Windowsill Plants from Kitchen Scraps
By Deborah Peterson
This book is a goldmine of great ideas and information sure to spark
your (and your children or grandchildren's imagination). As I read through
this book, I found myself constantly saying, "Wow! I didn't know you could grow
that!" Also a great educational tool.

Books by Sloan Tanen...
She's got a quirky sense of humor and illustrates
lavish mini-scenes involving chenille pipe cleaner chicks. Some of her books,
such as:
Hatched!: The Big Push from Pregnancy to Motherhood
and
Bitter with Baggage Seeks Same: The Life and Times of Some Chickens
are targeted for adults, while others,
such as:
C Is for Coco: A Little Chick's First Book of Letters
and
Coco Counts: A Little Chick's First Book of Numbers
are for children.

First the Egg
(Caldecott Honor Book and
Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor Book)
By Laura Vaccaro Seeger
A picture book with two awards attached to it.
Simple illustrations and die cut pages.

Beautiful Yetta: The Yiddish Chicken  
by Daniel Pinkwater
A picture book story about an escaped chicken who misses home.
The story is written in English, Yiddish and Spanish.

 

Do you know of any great resource that we're missing?
Please share it with us and
we'll pass it on to the readers of City Girl Farming.
THANKS!