Product Details

• Actors: Marjory Wildcraft
• Directors: Marjory Wildcraft
• Format: NTSC
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Rooster Crows Productions
• DVD Release Date: October 1, 2009
• Run Time: 110 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0578046725
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #30,881 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

About the Director

Marjory Wildcraft, is a nationally recognized expert in organic backyard food production. She is the creator of a widely acclaimed video tutorial titled Food Production Systems for a Backyard or Small Farm. Marjory teaches people with no gardening or agricultural experience, how to successfully grow healthy, vibrant, life-giving nutritious food. Her video is endorsed and carried by such notables as The Organic Consumers Association, The Permaculture Activist, Acre s USA, Bountiful Gardens, SurvivalBlog.com, Alex Jones, and The Weston-Price Nutrition Foundation. She has been featured as a guest on a diversity of national radio shows such as "Coast to Coast AM" and The Power Hour with Joyce Riley.

Product Description

This video set is for those seeking self-reliance in growing food. The DVD was developed by a family that depends on these systems for a large part of their diet. Section 1: Overview * Why we began this journey * Soil types and climate of the site Section 2: Water * Water sources and qualities of water * How much water do you need? * Rain water collection systems * Wells * Ponds Section 3: Garden * Garden location * Size - how much area do you need? * Bio-Intensive gardening overview * Fertility * Watering the garden * Wind * Sun and shade * Bugs and insects * Vegetable varieties and seed saving * Getting started Section 4: Rabbits * Housing and protection * Watering systems * Feeding * Breeds * Reproduction * Other resources Section 5: Home Butchering * Tools * Butchering a rabbit * Tanning hides * Butchering poultry * Other animals Section 6: Poultry * Chicken breeds * Feeding * Watering * Housing and egg collecting * Predator protection * Getting started Section 7: Dogs * Why dogs? * Dog training * Feeding * Housing * Size and breeds * Final thoughts Section 8: Perennials: Orchards, Food Forests, and Edible Landscaping * Locations and micro climates * Watering * Fertility * Using geese for fertility * Tree varieties * Planting and care of trees * Getting started Section 9: Other Essentials * Calorie crops * Solar food dehydration * Home made herbicide test * Fire ants * Injuries * Hog panels and tee posts * Water levels and mapping contours * Rocket stove and hay box cooker * In The Wake; a manual for outliving civilization * Propagating leuceana

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars thorough resource for all aspects of homesteading!!, April 26, 2010

By 

J. M. Robinson "joshua" (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Food Production Systems for a Backyard or Small Farm (DVD)

This is an amazing DVD for anyone interested in backyard food production!!

From simply adding a few hens to your backyard to incorporating an entire closed system of food production and water collection, this DVD has something for everyone. It is the most comprehensive yet compact instruction I have seen for becoming more self-reliant from the standpoint of a homesteader.

Water collection and treatment systems, garden success, rabbit and poultry production, home butchering, benefits of having dogs, food forests and edible landscaping, solar food dehydrators, contour mapping . . . the list goes on.

The DVD itself is about 2 hours long and is very easy to understand. The DVD is broken up into 9 main chapters and is further divided into sub-chapters making it very easy to go back and locate any particular topic to watch again.

Obviously it would take much longer than two hours to go into the detail necessary to understand all of the subjects on the DVD, and so an excellent resource CD is also included. There are 64 PDF documents included on the CD. Some documents, such as the one that instructs how to make a spray to get rid of fire ants, are only a few pages in length, but others, such as permaculture and rain water harvesting, approach 100 and 50 pages, respectively. Other documents include subjects such at catfish ponds, companion planting, rabbit and poultry butchering, hide tanning, compost tea, solar food dehydrator construction, homemade vegetable oil, water treatment, contour mapping and many others.

Learning something on your own invariably involves much trial and error . . . well, Marjory and her family have endured many of these errors and she goes through great lengths to point out the right and wrong ways. Everyone's system will vary and require different approaches depending on climate, soil, variable rainfall, but this DVD provides an invaluable starting point. I could not imagine approaching homesteading or permaculture without this wonderful resource.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Guide to Home-Scale Self-Reliance, March 28, 2010

By 

Archangel (Bloomington, IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Food Production Systems for a Backyard or Small Farm (DVD)

I received an advanced copy of this DVD as an apprentice at the homestead of the Permaculture Activist, and it is remarkably helpful. The featured family has an impressive home system, and they present their findings and practices in a concise but thorough way. There's great information about poultry and rabbit raising, utilizing dogs for livestock and garden protection, garden and orchard design and maintenance, water systems and food preservation. I especially appreciated the respectful and highly practical demonstration of a rabbit's slaughter and butchery. The second disc offers a great collection of useful material, covering information on permaculture, overseas aid (perhaps to become highly practical for us domestically too in a low-energy future), and myriad useful topics complementing Marjory's presentation on the main disc.

Overall, an excellent, highly useful production done by a quite clearly sincere, dedicated, informed and deeply grounded family. Highly recommended.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Lot of Information for One DVD!, April 26, 2011

By 

Ms. Pam K. Larson "Pam Larson customer" (Boone Iowa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Food Production Systems for a Backyard or Small Farm (DVD)

One thing I wish right off is that I had waited a couple of weeks to get this. I bought it on her website and it was quite a bit more expensive than Amazon and that always bums me out.

But that is not a review, is it?

There is virtually too much information on this one DVD. She needs to break down each subject and make a DVD just on that one subject. Every subject she covers is a great introduction but just not enough meat.

I saw the miniture cows, but no explaination on what she uses them for. Nothing that produces milk? No butter, cream, milk, etc. for this family?

I also know there is a much faster way to kill a rabbit and a lot less messy if you bleed it out before you butcher it. And what does she do with the fur? How does she market it?

I appreciate all the information I did get, just not enough of it. I LOVE the newsletter, guess the price was worth it just to get that!