Best Homesteading Books; Farming, Homesteading, Country Living with Reviews

See our recommended best homesteading books for farming, homesteading today and country living. Each farming book, homesteading book or country living book comes with a review and our personal recommendations. Please, be patient, the page may take some time to download.

Best Homesteading Books 1

I  Recommend
The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency: The Classic Guide for Realists
and Dreamers
The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency
$89.53
A  classic  and  in  depth  guide  to  self-sufficient  living.

I cannot talk more highly about this book and it is definitely one of my personal favourites. I only wish I could have met John Seymour while he was still alive, as I find him fascinating.

This is a book that you will use again and again. With a strong believe in all things organic he describes in easy terms everything that you need to know about being self-sufficient.

Even though it is written in the UK, it doesn't detract from the wealth of information he imparts and which can be used anywhere, no matter where you live. Learn about crop rotations and making compost for your vegetables. You will also get to grips with home brewing, making dairy products, hay making and basket weaving. He shows you how to cure bacon, make bricks, spin and dye wool, raising chickens and raising rabbits. The list is endless.

This is really a wonderful resource that you will be glad to have in your library.

Best Homesteading Books 2

This homesteading book definitely gives John Seymour's book on Self-sufficiency a run for its money. Written along the same lines, this is another one of those books that becomes an indispensable book for homesteaders and those who are looking to be self-sufficient.

Carla Emery was a national treasure and this book ensures her legacy. This is simply the most informative book ever written on country living, the next best thing to having a live-in grandmother who knows everything there is to getting homegrown food from dreams to dinner plates plus nearly anything else you need to know.

Begun as a 12-page table of contents for a recipe book in 1969, the present ninth edition has 858 pages of far more than recipes. growing vegetables, vines, trees, grains, poultry, goats, cows, keeping bees, rabbits, sheep, pigs. Planning, nurturing, harvesting, and home canning.

Flipping pages at random finds starting transplants, breads leavened with eggs and beating, speeding up tomato sauce-making, harvesting herbs, making cider, managing an existing stand of trees, root cellar storage, soap making, brooding chicks, secrets to safe cattle handling, cultured buttermilk, cooking on a wood stove, jams and jellies, making a wool quilt.

I use my "Carla book" constantly. If your budget or bookshelf has room for only one book, this is the book to buy. Yes, even before you buy mine.

Review by the author of: The Encyclopedia of Country Living: An Old Fashioned Recipe Book

Best Homesteading Books 3

Now here's a volume you can really drink to! Something's brewing in these pages, and it's moonshine —a word that evokes fascination, curiosity, and a warm sense of nostalgia.

Never before has there been such a richly illustrated, thorough, and entertaining celebration of the history of making fine distilled spirits.

Get in on the fun with how-to instructions that take into account all legal regulations and requirements before covering ingredients, building a homemade moonshine still, basic distilling techniques, and dozens of moonshine recipes, all adapted for the beginner. Whiskeys, brandies, grappa, schnapps: they’re all here, along with dozens of page-turning quotes, song lyrics, and vintage photographs and illustrations.

Best Homesteading Books 4


There are a handful of books and quite a few web sites that cover the subject of Home Distilling. None as well and complete as this book though. My opinion is that most material on Home Distilling is written by folks who do it for kicks without understanding the science behind it (least that's the way it appears when I read them).

This book covers the topic in a very structured manner and backs up each section with science and reasoning. The book not only does a splendid job of explaining still building but also explains malting, mashing, fermentation and distillation -- with clear instruction. I found it so useful that I bought a copy for my brother as well.

Review by: By Ashwin Umesh "ashmesh" (Jersey City, NJ United States)

Best Homesteading Books 5

I absolutely LOVED this book. If you are into cottage gardens, then this book is a must. I am a relatively slow reader, but this book was so wonderfully written and attention-sustaining that I actually read it in about a day.

'Tasha Tudor's Garden' is a true story that describes a year in the life of a fascinating lady, providing an elaborate narrative on how she maintains her animals and lavish, romantic gardens on her several-acre hilltop property in Vermont. She lives as though she is in the nineteenth century-- (in her attire as well as in how she does most of her work using traditional methods, such as cooking in a wood-burning stove). It also talks about another love of Tasha's, that being her art.

Within the text, you can pick up ideas and small tips here and there for how to design, create, and establish a cottagey garden, as well as other small things (ie: starting primroses). However, these things are not formally laid-out, but rather briefly and lightly discussed in small bits throughout the text.

Basically, this book gives the account for an average year's worth of successes, struggles, and mundane moments for a truly admirable woman--(although for most of us, almost none of her moments are really mundane).

I couldn't possibly recommend this book anymore than I already do. Even if you don't have a garden, the book will touch your heart and leave a lasting infatuation with old-fashioned gardening. I certainly enjoyed day-dreaming about the profusion of daffodils, messes of self-sown forget-me-nots and johnny-jump-ups, gigantic bleeding hearts, masses of bomb-petaled peonies, 6-foot tall foxgloves, and countless other floral delights. READ IT! YOU WON'T REGRET GETTING THE BOOK!!!

Review by:Arthur S. Guerra (White, GA)

Best Homesteading Books 6

I really enjoyed reading this homesteading book. It gives you all the information you will need to start your own homestead whether you live in an apartment, a home with a 1/8 of an acre or if you have 10 acres. Great information on being self-sufficient, learn to make cheese, grow vegetables and how to grow herbs, have a backyard orchard, keeping chickens, bee keeping etc. I strongly recommend reading this one. It's well worth the price.

Best Homesteading Books 7

For those of you who haven't heard about square-foot gardening it really is a concept that has revolutionized traditional vegetable patches. By just using one square foot at a time to plant a particular vegetable you eliminate the need for thinning out, save water, effort, time and money.

If you have enjoyed looking at our best homesteading books, have a look at our Country Corner Bookstore for more options.

If you have a favorite book on country living, send us the title and the review and we will look into it!
HOMESTEADING BOOKS - REVIEW on The Complete Book of Butchering, Smoking, Curing and Sausage Making by Philip Hasheider, published by Voyageur Press.

This homesteading book arrived in the post this week from the publisher who asked me to what I thought of it and if I liked it would I review it and pass a comment about it on my website.

Now I get some rather mediocre books across my desk from time to time, and don't bother reading past the first chapter. But once in a while you get a good book like this one and you are really pleased it came your way. This is undoubtedly one of the best homesteading books on home butchering around at the moment.

The Complete Book of Butchering, Smoking, Curing and Sausage Making by Philip Hasheider, published by Voyageur Press, is the perfect resource for people who want to provide meat for themselves and their families that doesn’t involve plastic, polystyrene or a trip to the supermarket.

This hands-on guidebook for self-sufficient and small-scale farmers, hunters and anyone interested in processing meat of any kind provides step-by-step instructions and illustrations explaining the entire process.  From properly securing the animal, slaughtering and processing, methods of preservation such as smoking and salting, to safely and humanely transforming the meat into a family meal, every aspect of handling meat is covered.

With information on how to butcher everything from wild game to livestock animals; different cuts of meat; tools, equipment and safety practices; the humane treatment of animals along with recipes for using what you’ve processed, The Complete Book of Butchering, Smoking, Curing, and Sausage Making will open up new opportunities for using locally sourced game and livestock.

This is a very comprehensive book written by an informative author on home butchering of every description. The only animal he didn't include that I could see was wild boar. However, that would only disappoint the Italians! Not only are smaller animals included, from fish, chickens, rabbits, goats, and lambs, but also larger animals like cows, deer, bison and pigs. There are step-by-step photos of each butchering process along with text telling you what equipment you need, the type of knives you need and then where and how to slaughter it, skin it and cut it up.

I warn you, the glossy colored pictures can be a little stomach-churning if you are not an avid home-butchering fan, but certainly necessary for a novice if you want to be totally self-sufficient.

The other nice feature about this book is that it also gives you some simple recipes that you can use when you have butchered the animal, including some recipes on the fringe for squirrel, possum and raccoon. However, there are also recipes here for mainstream cooking, and I particularly liked the homemade sausage recipes.

At $16.49 it is well-priced.



See an excerpt from this book on Smokehouses and Equipment

HOMESTEADING BOOKS - REVIEW on " The Fresh Girl's Guide to Easy Canning"  by Ana Micka, published by Voyageur Press.
For those of you who are novice home canners or proficient at creating delicious food with your pressure cookers and pots, there is still room on the bookshelf for one more book on home canning. Filled with canning recipes from around the world, including award-winning recipes from US state fairs, and a great little DVD that makes this book come to life and interactive. Either click below to see more reviews about this book, or go to our home canning instructions page and see our own book review as well as a couple of canning recipes taken from the book.




Read the rest of the review on our page on Homemade Cheese. Or click on the picture below to see reviews about this book on Amazon.com.

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