In your Backyard: Living Lightly online extra resources
In Your Backyard: Living Lightly, is a guide to making small steps towards a lighter footprint. We’ve compiled extra materials and videos here to help further your understanding of this exciting topic.
Video stories
A tiny house that includes upcycled parts of a state home is the first step towards sustainable living for an Auckland couple.
Video: Take a tour of Rory Harding’s George Street Orchard in Dunedin
An inventive landscape gardener has transformed a dull inner-city garden into an overflowing food forest.
Video: Dr Compost Ben Elms recipe for a good life and tips for top compost
As a champion of the health and happiness benefits of rich, rotting compost, nothing makes Ben Elms more content than the multitude of microscopic critters squirming in his soil.
CHAPTER 1 Little Living
Video: Sustainable living in a tiny house on wheels, take a tour of Cam and Amanda’s sweet tiny home
CHAPTER 2 Green Design
CHAPTER 3 Waste Not
Waste reduction inspiration
Japanese Furoshiki: An eco-friendly alternative to paper gift wrapping
Sustainable food producers thinking outside the box on Great Barrier Island
CHAPTER 4 Grow Your Own
Design ideas
Video: How Kate Coughlan’s inner city courtyard garden became a 100% edible oasis
A food farm in the heart of Remuera: Take a tour of zero-waste gardener Peter Ng’s garden oasis
Video: Take a tour of Rory Harding’s George Street Orchard in Dunedin
Tips for healthy soil
Dr Compost Ben Elms’ recipe for a good life and tips for top compost
Pests and diseases
A Whitby gardener deep in mulch
Guest blog: Elien Lewis uses deep-mulching to grow a bounty of produce in her shady Whitby garden
Small space garden ideas
DIY project: Build a vertical Spud Stacker for growing potatoes for only $35
5 space-saving vegetables that can be trained to grow vertically
CHAPTER 5 Birds and the Bees
Become an egg producer in the city
What is your chicken trying to tell you? A guide to poultry signals and hen clucks and cackles
Chicken diet dos and don’ts
Getting started with beekeeping
Attracting beneficial insects
CHAPTER 6 From Scratch
Additional vegetable based vegetables from thisNZlife.
Bread making recipes
Fermentation recipes
Recipe: Forage & Ferment’s Wild Sauerkraut with Turmeric, Ginger and Marigold
How to make tempeh: the high-protein, low-fat food you can ferment yourself
Preserving recipes
CHAPTER 7 Energy Smart
Extra online resources
Solar energy
EECA has several tools to use to ascertain if solar is cost-effective.
Hot water: energywise.govt.nz/tools/waterheating/
Solar panels: energywise.govt.nz/at-home/solar-electricity/thinking-of-investing-in-solarpanels/
Solar calculator: energywise.govt.nz/tool/solarcalculator
Geothermal heating
https://www.eeca.govt.nz/energy-use-in-new-zealand/renewable-energy-resources/geothermal/
https://nzgeothermal.org.nz/geothermal-energy/geo_benefits/
Micro wind turbines
https://www.energywise.govt.nz/at-home/generating-energy/small-wind-turbines/
Micro hydropower systems
https://www.energywise.govt.nz/at-home/generating-energy/micro-hydro-systems/
Water wisdom: greywater systemsand rainwater harvesting
smarterhomes.org.nz
Eco-friendly heating ideas
Energy-hungry appliances to avoid
energywise.govt.nz/at-home/appliances/
Solar Dehydrator plans
