Countryman Know How – serie

Backyard Building will cover backyard accessories, the fundamentals of tools and materials, and useful tips based on real-life questions from the couple’s popular website. Its unique style, with hand-drawn illustrations to guide the reader through the building process in a user-friendly way, stands out from the crowd. The clear, detailed drawings are not only easy to follow but a pleasure to look at; they are supplemented by irresistible color photographs.

There are many ways to preserve a strawberry. You can freeze it, dry it, pickle it or can it. Milk gets cultured or fermented and is preserved as cheese or yogurt. Fish can be smoked, salted, dehydrated and preserved in oil. Cucumbers become pickles. There is no end to the magic of food preservation and in Preserving Everything, Leda Meredith leads readers—both new to the art and old hands—in every sort of preservation technique imaginable.

Jerky has been a vital source of sustenance for centuries. But what started out as an important food for travellers and a way to safely preserve meat in the days before refrigeration has become the health nut's favourite snack, the hiker and sportsman's manna, the dieter's delight and a boon for gourmet food sellers.But why stop at beef, or even meat? Jerky Everything encompasses not only a variety of dried meat snacks but also veggie and fruit jerkies. Forget the ho-hum beef sticks of the past, Jerky Everything offers tasty dried treats for every palate, with flavours that range from orange beef to cheddar bacon to pina colada. Yes, you heard it here first—you can make yummy pineapple jerky at home! Recipes for meat jerkies make low-calorie, high-protein treats that curb hunger pangs. Recipes for fruit and veggie jerkies make wholesome treats that will help pick you up when your energy is waning. Homemade jerky is a thing apart from its shop-bought equivalents; most of these recipes are even compatible with paleo, Atkins and low-fat eating regimens.

Three years in the making, written by a licensed pharmacist and expert healthcare professional, this book contains not only more than 100 easy, all-natural recipes for face, hair and body, it also offers help on determining if a shop-bought product is truly organic or natural by reviewing and explaining ingredients found in most of them.

Driven in large part by the popularity of the NHL’s Winter Classic, outdoor hockey is enjoying an unprecedented revival. For a sport that began under the open sky, a backyard rink allows for a return to the origins of the game and can provide a memorable neighborhood gathering place and a place for players to train without the expense of indoor ice rental.In Backyard Ice Rink, blogger and professional rink builder Joe Proulx guides you through every step of building your own backyard ice skating rink. From the simplest wooden frame to elaborate tall-board rinks, from measuring the slope in your yard to constructing your frame using parts found at your local hardware store, Proulx makes the project easy to tackle. In addition to the four easy-to-follow photo-intensive rink plans, Proulx also covers ice maintenance, building your own bench and goals, teardown, and storage through the summer months.

Delicious wild edible plants and mushrooms are abundant throughout North America, not only in the wilderness but in urban areas, too. Learn how to identify, harvest, and eat the tastiest plants in your backyard. Intended as much for the cooking enthusiast as for the survivalist, this book includes recipes that will transform even the most common edible backyard weeds into guest-worthy fare. Even experienced foragers will be impressed with plantain leaf chips that are crisper and tastier than kale chips. Dandelion flowers become wine, Japanese knotweed becomes rhubarb-like compote and tangy sorbet, red clover blossoms give quick bread a delightfully spongy texture and hint of sweetness.

This beginners guide for anyone interested in starting an herb garden explains in simple terms everything you need to know about choosing the site, preparing the soil, choosing the plants, caring for them, dealing with pests and diseases and what to do with the harvest at the end of the summer. Included are easy-to-follow garden plans, lots of helpful tips, expert advice and useful figures.

This little book swept maple sugarin’ buffs off their feet when it first appeared and is still the top-selling guide to the craft after over 40 years in print. Backyard Sugarin’ tells you how you can make maple syrup right in your own backyard without having to build a sap house or buy buckets, holding tanks, evaporators, and other expensive paraphernalia.This new edition also features a foreword by maple expert Michael Farrell, author of The Sugarmaker’s Companion, who provides a contemporary look back at the old-school techniques presented in this book. With detailed “how-to” information and tips from sugarers across the country, this is the only maple sugaring guide you’ll ever need.

Solar energy is clean, efficient, sustainable—and expensive. Or is it? Many homeowners simply assume that the cost of solar panels is out of their reach, but in reality, the technology is quickly becoming attainable for the middle class. Rather than leasing panels from one of those home solar startups (and letting them reap the financial benefits), why not join the thousands who are doing it themselves? In Solar Rooftop DIY, sustainable energy expert Mike Sullivan offers five design plans—ranging from a few simple panels to a complex, roof-covering array—for building a rooftop PV energy system for any home. Each plan has clear and detailed step-by-step photographs showing the installation process. Many of them require no additional labor—just a few days' commitment for the average weekend warrior. With energy costs only set to increase in the future, now is the time to make the switch to solar and start selling power back to the grid.

Nothing matches the look and feel of stone structures in and around your home. Yet most people are intimidated by the very thought of masonry, despite the obvious rewards. In Stone Building, Kevin Gardner distills his decades of experience building and maintaining iconic New England–style stone walls into this concise, informative guide. Gardner offers step-by-step instructions for building everything from flagstone walkways to classic patios and ornate fire pits. He also offers time-tested tips to help care for your stone, as well as repair and restoration advice for existing structures.

Lavender is calming and relaxing; lemon uplifting and stimulating. But why do each of those scents provoke these particular, visceral responses? In Nature’s Essential Oils, licensed massage therapist and aromatherapist Cher Kaufmann demystifies the how and why behind the uses and effects of essential oils. She explains the environmental factors that impact the chemical make-ups of herbs and other plants, and how they trigger our physical and emotional responses.The book includes recipes for blending oils for home and health, as well as how to select, store, diffuse and apply oils. A valuable resource for readers hoping to expand their knowledge of essential oils and their properties, it also includes a glossary of more than 30 of the most common essential oils for well-being.

Who owns our forests? We do. And it’s up to us to care for them.More than 10 million ordinary citizens own over half of the forestland in America. The vast majority of landowners want to do right by their land, but until now, there’s been no single resource to help them do so. Backyard Woodland is a comprehensive guide to nurturing the land in your care, from soil and water protection to fostering wildlife diversity and keeping the land whole. Backyard Woodland also features tips for the financial considerations that come from land-owning, including how to save money on your taxes and how to make some extra income from responsible timber sales and viable farming. Owning a piece of the forest is a rare privilege, and this complete guide will help you get the most out of the experience.

Buffalo isn’t just a city full of great wings. There is a great hot dog tradition, from Greek- originated “Texas red hots” to year-round charcoal-grilling at Ted’s that puts Manhattan’s dirty water dogs to shame. This is also a city of great sandwiches. It’s a place where capicola gets layered on grilled sausage, where sautéed dandelions traditionally make up the greens in a comestible called steak- in-the-grass, and chicken fingers pack into soft Costanzo’s sub rolls with Provolone, tomato, lettuce, blue cheese dressing, and Frank’s RedHot Sauce to become something truly naughty.Food and travel writer Arthur Bovino ate his research, taking the reader to the bars, the old-school Polish and Italian-American eateries, the Burmese restaurants, and the new-school restaurants tapping into the region’s rich agricultural bounty. With all this experience under his belt (and stretching it), Bovino has created the essential guide to food in Buffalo.

Brewing Everything is a thorough, accessible and humourous guide to brewing anything from beer to cider to sake. For every brewing project there is both an easy way and a hard way, a method useful to both the curious novice and the hardcore brewing veteran. Each chapter includes interviews with experts (brewmasters, cidermakers, new meadery startups and small-batch kombucha sellers) as well as the author’s own home- tested recipes.Brewing Everything walks you through the process from start to finish, beginning with easier shortcuts until you get the hang of it, and then upgrading to the harder stuff after you’ve brewed a thing or two. With step-by-step instructions, colour photographs and methods for every level of experience. This is the ultimate guide to all things home-brewed.

Pickling is more than a form of food preservation. It is also a way of turning mild-flavored vegetables and fruits into crunchy, tangy side dishes and intensely flavored condiments. In Pickling Everything, food preservation expert Leda Meredith covers the ins and outs of home pickling, explaining the differences between lacto-fermented probiotic pickles and vinegar-based pickling and how to pickle and can safely. In addition to favorites like cucumbers, green beans, and beets, she includes recipes for nuts, legumes, eggs, and meats, encouraging readers to try something new. The 80+ recipes include:Half Sours (deli dills)Tabasco-Style Hot Sauce48-Hour Mixed Garden PicklesSpiced Pickled PlumsMake the most of garden and farmers’ market abundance, create fabulous gifts, and expand your pantry with the unique flavors of pickled foods.