Buy used:

$31.63

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery Saturday, June 8 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 3 hrs 48 mins

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by Martistore

Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Other sellers on Amazon

New & Used (18) from $26.61 & FREE Shipping

#1 Must Have Homesteading Book!Better Together Homestead

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

John Seymour

Follow

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-to-Basics Guide Hardcover – September 4, 2018

by John Seymour (Author), Alice Waters (Foreword)

4.8 1,580 ratings

See all formats and editions

Sorry, there was a problem loading this page. Try again.

Embrace off-grid green living with the bestselling classic guide to a more sustainable way of life from the father of self-sufficiency.

For over 40 years, John Seymour has inspired thousands to make more responsible, enriching, and eco-friendly choices with his advice on living sustainably.

The Self-Sufficient Life & How To Live It offers step-by-step instructions on everything from chopping trees to harnessing solar power; from growing fruit and vegetables, and preserving and pickling your harvest, to baking bread, brewing beer, and making cheese. Seymour shows you how to live off the land, running your own smallholding or homestead, keeping chickens, and raising livestock.

Featured in pages of this off-grid guide, you will find:

- Detailed advice for achieving a self-sufficient lifestyle no matter your outdoor space, including guides for getting the most from urban gardens, allotments, and larger holdings.
- Encyclopaedic knowledge on cultivating fruits and vegetables, rearing and preparing livestock, foraging, brewing, and home crafts like woodwork and pottery.
- Beautiful illustrated galleries of fruit and vegetables to inspire growers.
- Charming original hand-drawn illustrations accompany step-by-step guides to dozens of home crafts and self-sufficiency skills, including storing crops, saddling horses, butchering a pig, making wine, and making a footstool.
- A new foreword from a high-profile current follower and advocate of his message.

In a world of mass production, intensive farming, and food miles, Seymour’s words offer an alternative: a celebration of the joy of investing time, labor, and love into the things we need. While we can’t all be able to move to the countryside, we can appreciate the need to eat food that has been grown ethically or create things we can cherish, using skills that have been handed down through generations. With refreshed, retro-style illustrations and timeless advice reviewed to reflect the latest organic gardening guidelines, this new edition of Seymour’s classic title is a balm for anyone who has ever sought solace away from the madness of modern life.

Print length

408 pages
Language

English
Publisher

DK
Publication date

September 4, 2018
Dimensions

8.75 x 1.41 x 11.13 inches
ISBN-10

1465477357
ISBN-13

978-1465477354
See all details

Carla Emery
4,466
Paperback
in Gardening & Horticulture Reference
63 offers from $12.45
Abigail Gehring
4,527
Hardcover
62 offers from $12.95
Kathy Harrison
421
Paperback
69 offers from $3.98
Carleen Madigan
4,783
Paperback
137 offers from $3.93
Murray Dickson
904
Paperback
23 offers from $10.97
Abigail Gehring
869
Hardcover
57 offers from $6.01

From the brand

Shop cookbooks

Visit the Store
Shop history books

Visit the Store
Shop crafts and hobbies

Visit the Store
Shop Travel Inspiration

Visit the Store
Shop gardening books

Visit the Store
Shop popular culture books

Visit the Store

From the Publisher

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-to-Basics Guide


	The Kitchen Garden	The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-to-Basics Guide	Self-Sufficiency for the 21st Century	Grow Food For Free

Customer Reviews	293	1,580	372	2,622
Price	$19.26	$31.63	$18.99	$13.79
What's It About?	Learn how to grow your kitchen garden and produce food all year round. This step-by-step guide will show you how to cultivate more than 60 herbs, fruits, and vegetables. An essential companion for beginner and experienced gardeners alike.	Appreciate the value of living by your hand. Be inspired to make sustainable and green decisions. Learn all the necessary skills to brew beer, raise livestock, butcher, and eat off the land.	Find your route to a more sustainable lifestyle. Learn everything D.Strawbridge and his son James learned as they share their experience and give you the tools you need for a more rewarding and environmentally conscious life.	Learn about self-sustainability with Huw Richards. This book has all the inspiration and practical advice you need to start, grow, love, propagate and harvest your own fruits and vegetables organically, and at zero-cost.
Skill Level	Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced	Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced	Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced	Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced
Step-By-Step Guide	✓	✓	✓	✓
Features	Packed with seasonal vegetable advice, essential to-do lists, and fruit and vegetable crop planners.	Learn with step-by-step instructions on everything from chopping trees to harnessing solar power, from growing fruit and vegetables, and preserving and pickling your harvest, to baking bread, brewing beer, and making cheese.	Be exposed to a more self-sufficient way of living by learning about cutting back on plastic and food waste, growing your own vegetables, preserving meat and fish, preparing jams and chutneys, and much more.	Includes a 52 week journal where Huw records how he grew his own food for free for a year.
Pages	352 Pages	408 Pages	282 Pages	224 Pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Seymour was a pioneer of the self-sufficiency movement, and worked as a writer, broadcaster, and activist in support of it. For much of his life he was a smallholder in Wales. He was the author of numerous books, including The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It, The Concise Guide to Self-Sufficiency, and The New Self-Sufficient Gardener. He died in 2004.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ DK; Illustrated edition (September 4, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 408 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1465477357
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1465477354
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.81 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.75 x 1.41 x 11.13 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #200,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #179 in Gardening & Horticulture Reference (Books)
- #245 in Gardening Encyclopedias
- #457 in Do-It-Yourself Home Improvement (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.8 1,580 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

John Seymour

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

John Seymour, the acknowledged founding father of the self-sufficiency movement, was an active campaigner for the countryside, the environment, and above all a sustainable, compassionate way of living. He wrote over 40 books and broadcast widely on television and radio. His farm in Wales and later Ireland welcomed visitors seeking guidance on a more self supporting life.

John lived back on his old Pembrokeshire farm with his daughter's family for his last years. He died on September 14, 2004 and is buried in the top field of his old farm in an orchard that he planted.

His legacy lives on, and his books 'The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency' and 'The New Self-Sufficient Gardener' are still best sellers. His more intimate books about his family's self-sufficient life include the classic 'The Fat of the Land', now in its 50th year in print, and its sequel 'I'm a Stranger Here Myself', which is back in print at last.

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5

1,580 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all photos

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

headerhugs

Loving it so far!

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2024

Verified Purchase

It may just be a pipe dream, but someday I’d love to be self sufficient! This book is full of great information and actually holds my attention at the same time!

Helpful

Ace Hunter

Amazing reference book.

Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2023

Verified Purchase

This book starts by showing you little ways to provide more food for yourself. Little ways to be more efficient. By the end, it shows the basic outline on how to run a small farm. It doesn't give as much detail as I would like in certain areas. But how much could you really fit in one book? The man's writing style is easy to read and follow, and I have found myself spending many quite nights reading far more than I had planned. An ideal to try and live up to, but certainly, and self admittedly in the book, an impossible one to totally execute. The insight into the agricultural systems that it truly takes to support our society have changed the way I look at our world, forever. Well worth buying and reading, even if you never plan of doing more than growing you our salad veggies.

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

Carlos T.

The Gandalf of self-sufficiency & modern-day pioneers

Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2023

Verified Purchase

This is the ultimate survival manual for modern-day pioneers and wannabe off-the-grid heroes. It's like the Gandalf of self-sufficiency, leading you on a journey to a world where you milk your own cows and make your own soap. Just don't be surprised if you start getting fan mail from Little House on the Prairie characters!

When I first cracked open this book, I felt like I was stepping into a time machine, traveling back to an era when people churned butter like it was a competitive sport. It's like a crash course in "How to Adult: The 1800s Edition."

The knowledge it imparts is like a collection of ancient secrets passed down through generations of hipster farmers and homesteaders. "Did you know you can make your own windmill out of twigs and a dash of elbow grease? Your ancestors totally did."

And let's talk about the illustrations. They're like a renaissance painting meets a survivalist's sketchbook. You'll find yourself studying diagrams of chicken coops and beekeeping techniques like you're about to ace an exam on 19th-century agricultural engineering.

The best part is when the book suggests you try something seemingly simple, like making your own cheese. Suddenly, you're knee-deep in curds and whey, with a kitchen that looks like a dairy explosion. "I wanted cheddar, but I got a mess-der!"

But be prepared to face challenges you never thought you'd encounter in the 21st century. Forget troubleshooting Wi-Fi issues; now you'll be dealing with questions like, "Why aren't my tomatoes growing in Morse code?" It's like you've entered a parallel universe where plants communicate in dots and dashes.

In conclusion, it's a hilarious journey back in time, a crash course in vintage survival skills, and a potential ticket to starring in your very own modern pioneer reality show. So, grab your overalls, dust off your butter churn, and may your journey into self-sufficiency be as enlightening as it is entertaining! 🌾📚😄

18 people found this helpful

Helpful

Carmen D. Thurman

Beautiful book for your home library

Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2023

Verified Purchase

Beautiful book with lots of good information about having a homestead of any size.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

jackson cabisca

very basic, unless you grew up in the city you probably know a lot of this already.

Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2023

Verified Purchase

I thought it was well written and easy to read. but not a lot of new information for anybody who grew up in rural America. There were some gems in there though that opened up knew ways of thinking about some old problems. I'm glad I bought the book just for those.

Helpful

Daunine Jillson

Another way of living

Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2023

Verified Purchase

This is a gift. She is going to love it. I flipped through it. Lot's of great ideas and information.

Helpful

Robert D Hummels

Awesome book a great read get it!

Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2023

Verified Purchase

Love the book Thanks!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

repairmy

Excellent book. Many details on how to be more self sufficient

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2023

Verified Purchase

I liked that fact it covered so many things to help you understanding the basics around being more self sufficient. Many of the things mentioned are not new but have long been forgotten by many.

Helpful