Homesteading.
I never really knew the true definition of this word until recently, when my husband and I started realizing that we wanted a more self-sufficient life.
We wanted to be able to raise our own meat, grow our own vegetables, and pick our own berries. We desired to live off the land 100% so that we could have full control over everything we consume.
Along with that, we realized we had a strong desire to cultivate the earth God has given us and be good stewards of it. We want to create a legacy for our future children and have a remote place that is a simple lifestyle away from the unnecessary hustle and bustle of today’s culture.
Homesteading became our goal. And so we decided to start our homesteading journey right where we are, in our own backyard. (Check out the beginning of our journey here in detail!)
Perhaps you’re like us. You want a better life for your family. You want a life that reflects the good, simple, and necessary things. And, you can’t wait to get started.
But, where do you even start?
Keep reading and let me introduce you to the way of life you have been craving…
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What Even Is Homesteading?
For our family, homesteading is living with the intention of caring for a home, family, animals, garden, etc. to be self-sufficient and in control of what you do with the resources God has given you.
Homesteading is by no means easy.
We’re just getting our hands wet and can start to feel overwhelmed at times with the learning curve in front of us. From chickens to dogs, rabbits, and a garden, the list of chores seems to grow bigger and bigger each day.
But let me tell you something, as much as the chores keep growing, so does the joy we experience!
Homesteading can range quite a bit from person to person. That’s why I read so many books on how to homestead and still do!
Being a homesteader means you are a continual learner. Books and Google quickly become necessary resources, and hopefully, you can find a mentor too that will help you with their knowledge and wisdom in certain areas (I’m still working on this one!).
The best part of homesteading in the modern era is that you can start anywhere! You can be an urban homesteader, backyard homesteader, or large ranch homesteader.
In your apartment, you can grow plants on your windowsill. On the ranch, you can start a full farm that will feed your family for years. In the city, you can keep two chickens in your quarter-acre backyard.
Basically, homesteading usually consists of growing your own food in some capacity; raising small livestock; preserving your own food; building structures for energy and water conservation; and ultimately learning from your mistakes to become a better homesteader.
Since there is simply so much to learn when it comes to homesteading, as I quickly had to face it, I thought I would put together a list of the top 10 most enlightening books on how to homestead for beginners.
It’s no fun being a beginner and making mistakes all the time. You can make your learning curve a bit easier by checking out each of these books!
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The Best Books On How To Homestead
Check the book out on Amazon here!
This is definitely one of the books on how to homestead that you need to read to get started correctly. Why?
Because it will give you the right mindset and attitude.
After reading this book I was so encouraged because I felt like I was given an honest and realistic expectation of what homesteading really entailed of me.
The Backyard Homestead shows you that you can be a homesteader on a small plot of land. On a quarter-acre or less, you can grow a garden, preserve the harvest, collect eggs, pick fruit, and so much more.
My husband and I live on just over an acre of land and I realized that I have so much space to start homesteading right now with the resources I currently have. Even though one day we want to move up north to about 100 acres of land, that doesn’t mean I have to wait till that day.
I found out that I could start homesteading today with this book. There is no reason to not start today. What will you start with first on your homestead? Let me know in the comments at the end of this post!
Just like I didn’t know anything about homesteading when I started this journey with my husband, I didn’t know anything about gardening either.
I was so glad I started reading Weedless Gardening because it taught me how to work smarter, not harder when it came to gardening. With this concept alone the book rightly earned its spot on The Top 10 Most Enlightening Books On How To Homestead.
This book also tremendously helped me in learning to compost correctly. It inspired me to look up different options and ask my husband to build a compost tumbler for me.
Lastly, I also gained a very beginner’s level amount of knowledge without feeling overwhelmed. Gardening really can be quite simple but often big books on the subject can leave beginners feeling extremely overwhelmed.
I appreciate the illustrations, simple bullet points, and condensed information in this book to make the weedless gardening method seem achievable to even a complete beginner like me!
After my husband and I finally received our 25 baby chicks in the mail I immediately wanted another animal. I could see that we were becoming more self-sufficient already and I couldn’t wait to keep the trend going.
So, I picked up this book next. With only an acre to currently work with and being in a neighborhood, I knew the larger farm animals were out of the question. However, this book introduced me to the concept of raising meat rabbits.
And, before you know it, we had a few rabbits in our backyard!
I highly recommend The Backyard Homestead Guide To Raising Farm Animals as one of the books on how to homestead because you can find out what animals will work best for you. The book lays out each of the main farm animals in detail.
Everything you need to know about each animal is in one spot. Check it out here today to see which animal fits your lifestyle the best!
Check the book out on Amazon here!
Wow, can I just say this book is a beast?! Cheryl knows everything you could possibly know about keeping a home and somehow fit it all into one book. But honestly, this could be broken into several Encyclopedia editions.
I have to be honest, I skimmed a big portion of this book because the amount of information was overwhelming. Also, some of the information was obvious or common sense and was pointless for me to read.
However, overall this book did an amazing job educating me on tasks that go into running a house, the main aspect of the homestead! From the laundry to the kitchen, to the bathroom and beyond, this book as everything you could even wonder about the house.
This book won’t be a book you just sit down and read. Instead, I recommend using this book as a reference guide when you are just getting started homesteading. When you wonder about something, pull it off the shelf and read a few pages for honest wisdom.
You don’t always know who to trust on the Internet, so instead open this book and see what you can find on how to homestead as a beginner.
Check out the book on Amazon here!
I liked that Backyard Farming On An Acre (More or Less) was about more than just the typical homesteading categories. It went deeper into the true meaning behind why you are doing all of this.
This book helped me re-center and re-group on why I was spending my time, energy, and resources on a backyard homestead. And then, it helped me take action on that “why.”
The chapters in this book alone show you this: The Backyard Farm Adventure, Finding Land: What Do You Need?, Building On Land You Already Own, Gardening, Animals, Enjoying the Bounty and Crafting.
If you want an all-encompassing book out of all the books on how to homestead, this is the one!
This is a fun picture book to really get your creative juices going on what you want your homestead to be.
As a homesteader, it requires you to get your hands dirty. You have to constantly create, build, mend, fix, and restore the homestead. Basically, you are never out of things to do!
This book will give you some amazing ideas on projects to do on your homestead. I have loved flipping through the book for ideas on the next thing to build, such as a rain barrel, chicken coop, or container garden.
The step-by-step method makes things simple and easy for a beginner. I found this book was a much better reference than a Youtube video or Google search because the detail is laid out in a very easy format to follow.
I’m not going to lie, this book is definitely dated! But that’s what makes it such a fun read!
I loved reading this book because it takes you back generations ago when the culture wasn’t as caught up in on-demand entertainment and addicting television and social media. The world was simpler even 50 years ago before technology increased so fast.
Yet, even then people wanted to escape the busyness of the city to the countryside.
The “Have-More” Plan will show that being away from the busyness of everyday life is truly a blessing. Being in the country, managing a homestead, and being self-sufficient are all-natural desires of humans.
God created us to work and He requires us to be good stewards of the resources He has given us. Being out in nature gives us this opportunity.
I loved reading about ways to cultivate a simple life in the country through this book. You truly can have more with less!
If you’re part of this community and have been hanging out on this blog for a bit then you know that I love essential oils and natural living.
However, I had never thought of incorporating so many natural remedies and herbs into the lives of my chickens! Amy, in her book The Homesteader’s Natural Chicken Keeping Handbook, shows me that there are so many natural ways to raise my backyard flock.
I love that this book shares new ideas that other chicken books fail to cover, such as incorporating fresh herbs and essential oils into your chickens’ diet.
I highly recommend this book to anyone that wants to prevent disease and have a healthy flock the natural way!
This book inspired me to create the best possible garden I possibly could.
Not only did it show me that there were other ways to grow fresh produce than tilling the ground, but also that you can weedless when you create the garden yourself.
What is a lasagna garden? Basically, you get to build the garden yourself above ground! A lasagna garden is layers of organic, rich material that resemble a lasagna you would make for dinner.
Here’s my lasagna garden as an example starting from the ground up: cardboard that soaked in a rainstorm, peat moss, dried leaves and clippings, peat moss, topsoil, woodchips, peat moss, hay/straw mix, peat moss, compost, peat moss, and wood ash.
The idea is that the different mix of nutrients supplies your plants with the exact mix of nutrients it needs to grow. It also prevents weeds from coming up through the ground, making it a simple and easy gardening method.
Curious? Be sure to check out the book to learn all the fascinating details of how to build you own lasagna garden!
One day I was walking through my local library and saw this book poking its head out of the shelf. It looked interesting and I was just getting my feet wet on the whole homesteading idea.
Never have I been more thankful for a run-in with a book!
This book is number one on my top 10 list of books on how to homestead for beginners because it is all you really need to start your homestead.
In a month-by-month format, The Weekend Homesteader will present you with about four things to concentrate on each month. Before you know it you will have a whole year of homesteading on your belt!
Once I started this book it was hard to put it down. I wanted to find out what the next project was that I could do or the next new homesteading trick I could learn.
If you’re about to start your homestead start with this book first! You won’t regret it.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Check out these other books I read on homesteading that I can’t help but share with you!
Homesteading by Abigail Gehring
Complete Book of Home Preserving: 400 delicious and creative recipes for today by Judy Kingry
Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew
Growing Vegetables by Sarah O’Neil
The Backyard Homestead Seasonal Planner by Ann Larkin Hansen
The Backyard Chicken Bible by Eric Lofgren
The Chicken Whisperer’s Guide To Keeping Chickens by Andy G. Schneider
Start Your Farm by Forrest Pritchard and Ellen Polishuk
The Backyard Chicken Book: A Beginner’s Guide by Lee Schwanz
Teaming With Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels
Home By Choice by Brenda Hunter
Well, there you have it! All the books on how to homestead that I recommend for you! Let me know in the comments below which book you will be checking out first or the reason why you are starting your homesteading journey!
I can’t wait to hear all about the books on how to homestead that you will be reading soon! (:
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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Thank you for sharing! I feel like if I had more space and if we didn’t currently live in a row home I’d do this! I don’t have the space to grow meat, but I think produce is something we could definitely do! I’ll have to look into this!
Yes, you can grow so much indoors! And no better time to start than right now! (:
This is such an informative post- I had never heard of homesteading before, but learning how to live a self sufficient life is something we should all learn more about!
Thanks Rachel! Yes, indeed!
Thanks for sharing! These all look like great book suggestions.
You’re welcome, Maggie! I hope they are helpful to you!
I’m intrigued by homesteading but don’t know a lot about it. These books are a great starting point!
You’ve come to the right place (:
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