“This is one of the most practical, down-to-earth, dirt-under-the-fingernails, comprehensive explanations of all things homesteading and small farming. Whether you’re just dreaming or an old hand, Ben Falk’s longer experience horizon is invaluable.”—Joel Salatin, cofounder, Polyface Farm; author of
Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal
Informed by twenty years of successful land management and the professional design experience of his pioneering firm Whole Systems Design, LLC, author Ben Falk updates his classic text and delivers
the
definitive twenty-first century systems thinking manual in self-reliance—sure to empower readers to prioritize projects, make positive lifestyle decisions, and take strategic steps toward a regenerative future.
In
The Resilient Farm and Homestead, Revised and Expanded Edition
Falk describes how he has transformed a degraded hillside in the frigid Vermont climate into a thriving, biodiverse Eden that now provides year-round abundance for his family and community.
First published in 2013,
The Resilient Farm and Homestead
is a comprehensive how-to guide for building durable and productive land-based systems through the reciprocal interplay of humans and the natural world. In the ten years since he first published this seminal work, Falk has deepened his wisdom in harnessing nature-based solutions for increasingly challenging times, including addressing severe climate disruptions like drought and flood conditions.
The book covers every strategy Falk and his team have tested on the Whole Systems Research Farms over the past two decades and includes detailed information on earthworks, gravity-fed water systems, soil fertility management, growing nutrient-dense food and medicine, fuelwood production, agroforestry, managed grazing, and much more.
Complete with full-color photography and detailed design drawings
,
The Resilient Farm and Homestead, Revised and Expanded
Edition
includes new information on:
Designing greenhouses and microclimates
Reinvigorating human health and embodying a vigorous lifestyle
Raising children on a homestead
Creating failure-proof and resilient energy systems
Focusing on permaculture beekeeping
Cultivating proven cold climate plants
Overcoming analysis paralysis and mastering the art of knowing where to start and when to take strategic risks
And much, much more!
In an age that feels defined by disconnection, disease, and decline,
offers a roadmap to conquering uncertainty, maximizing efficiency, and creating a bountiful, manageable landscape that will endure.
“Essential reading for the serious prepper as well as for everyone interested in creating a more resilient lifestyle.”—Carol Deppe, author of
The Resilient Gardener
“This intelligent, challenging book, rooted somewhere between back-to-the-land idealism and radical survivalism, sees resilience as both planting and building for the use of future generations, but also as preparing food, water, shelter, and the human body and psyche for the onset of any imaginable extreme emergency. . . . The result is a comprehensive, open-ended, theoretical and practical system for a post-carbon-dependent life.”—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review of first edition)