Our Holiday Gift Suggestions

That dreaded holiday seasons is just around the corner. With unemployment still high we hope that many of you have negotiated a family gift truce to limit tedious shopping. Or perhaps you’re making things to give away.

But if you still need to get a little something for that special homesteader on your shopping list, we’ve got a few suggestions from our Homegrown Evolution Amazon Store. Even if you just click through the store and buy something else, your purchases will help support this website with no additional cost to you. Here’s a few suggestions from out list:

Edible Landscaping by Rosalind Creasy

Edible Landscaping


Rosalind Creasy just came out with a completely rewritten version of her classic book Edible Landscaping. The book is full of dazzling photos, helpful design suggestions and a long plant list with detailed growing and harvesting directions. I’ve been carefully reviewing this book as we redesign our yard. Especially helpful has been Creasy’s suggestion to draw a plan, to scale, and create lists of design ideas and problem areas. Going through this process helped me spot a few issues that I otherwise would have missed.

Haws Watering Can

Haws Practican Plastic Watering Can – 6 Liters 

The Haws Practican Plastic Watering Can – 6 Liters is the Cadillac of watering cans. I don’t know how I survived without this thing. For starting seedlings, nothing compares to the gentle rain this sturdy, well made can produces. Yes, it costs a lot more that most watering cans, but it will last a lifetime and pay for itself in healthy seedlings.

REOTEMP Compost Thermometer

At a raffle we recently attended at the Huntington Gardens a gasp actually went up from the crowd when this item, the REOTEMP Backyard Compost Thermometer, came up. It’s a handy tool to assess the health of your compost and judge when its time to turn. I use it all the time. 
The Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen
Then there’s our book, The Urban Homestead Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City, now in a revised edition.  Enough said.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Beekeeping

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping


If you’d like to get started in beekeeping there’s only one book out there that I can recommend. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Beekeeping by Dean Stiglitz and Laurie Herboldsheimer. It’s the only beekeeping book that advocates a completely natural, no-treatment method of beekeeping.

Perennial Vegetables by Eric Toensmeier

Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener’s Guide to Over 100 Delicious and Easy to Grow Edibles  by Eric Toensmeier is the perfect gift for the permaculturalist on your list. With it you can design a food forest of hardy, easy to care for perennials that provide food, medicine and habitat for beneficial creatures.
Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, Revised Edition 
When it comes to gardening, it’s all about the soil. Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web, Revised Edition by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis summarizes the pioneering work of Elaine Ingham who views soil not as an inert list of chemicals, but rather as a living “soil food web.” You don’t feed the soil, you feed the organisms that inhabit the soil that, in turn, form beneficial symbiotic relationships with plants.
The Modern Utopian
The Modern Utopian: Alternative Communities Then and Now 
Our publisher, Process Media, has come out with a collection of writings from the 60s and 70s back to the land era, The Modern Utopian: Alternative Communities Then and Now. The book is a collection of first person accounts and underground journalism from the period. Some communities are still around, but most failed. This book takes you inside this turbulent era to show what worked and what didn’t.
These books and garden items and many more are available in the Homegrown Evolution Amazon Store. Thanks for your support!

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4 Comments

  1. I just wanted to say that the Beekeeping book needs to be corrected – when I read The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Beekeeping they advocated a lot of treatments on the bees – antibiotics, etc.

    There are several other books out there that advocate for natural beekeeping, such as Natural Beekeeping by Ross Conrad.

  2. Jennifer:

    Perhaps you are confusing the Idiot’s Guide with the Dummies book? (Aren’t they terrible names?) This book, the new Idiot’s, is definitely all-natural, and rare because of it–we wouldn’t recommend it otherwise. It advocates the kind of beekeeping we’ve learned through Backwards Beekeeping.

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