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Do you have a friend who is a gardener or homesteader (or even wants to move in that direction)? Then this list is for them! I have a ton of fantastic sources of knowledge and inspiration for those who are passionate about this lifestyle.
Find the gardening book you want right away!
| Image | Title | Price | Prime | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Tenth Anniversary Edition: A Year of Food Life | PrimeEligible | Buy Now | |
 | Step by Step Organic Vegetable Gardening: The Gardening Classic Revised and Updated | Prime | Buy Now | |
 | The Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in the Southeast (Regional Vegetable Gardening Series) | PrimeEligible | Buy Now | |
 | No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture: Pesticide-Free Methods for Restoring Soil and Growing Nutrient-Rich, High-Yielding Crops | PrimeEligible | Buy Now | |
 | Your Edible Yard: Landscaping with Fruits and Vegetables | PrimeEligible | Buy Now | |
 | Grow Your Own Herbal Remedies: How to Create a Customized Herb Garden to Support Your Health & Well-Being | PrimeEligible | Buy Now | |
 | The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole Systems Design Approach | PrimeEligible | Buy Now | |
 | Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition | PrimeEligible | Buy Now | |
 | By Bill Mollison - Introduction To Permaculture (2nd Revised edition) (5.2.2002) | Prime | Buy Now |
To prepare for my gardener life, I (like so many others) have bought books, watched homesteaders on YouTube and took online courses. Thus my list below is a compilation of my own books and courses, as well as those recommended by my homesteading friends or others I trust.
Click one of the links below to go straight to your fav topic!
Gardening Books | Homesteading Books | Cookbooks | Permaculture Books | Home Living | Food Preservation | Raising Animals
Now, my friend Jen homesteads as much as she can on her amazing 10 acre farm in East Tennessee (up against the Smoky Mountains). We are including a little of her story below.
Big hello from Jen!
Hey folks! I’m so honored Amy asked me to write a quick note about my homesteading and gardening experience because it’s not always easy but it’s always rewarding and fun for our family.
If you’re thinking about friends who are making some changes, I want to share this book with you. I think it’s a must read for anyone thinking about growing their own food, animals or even about becoming more self sufficient.
When I decided to buy my house, I knew I wanted to live simply. Grow my food, be self reliant and eat meat that I felt I’d built a relationship with. “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” By Barbara Kingsolver is outstanding. It’s a compilation of stories, recipes and science that really makes you think about how our food is produced, how far it travels to get our tables and what we can do support local farmers if we can’t grow it ourselves. Of all the books on this page, I recommend people start with this one. Especially if someone is at a crossroads right now and really want to make a change in their household.
Jen’s gorgeous East Tennessee garden
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – Tenth Anniversary Edition: A Year of Food Life
- A beautiful deluxe trade paperback edition celebrating the 10th anniversary of Barbara Kingsolvers New York Times bestseller, which describes her familys adventure as they move to a farm in southern Appalachia and realign their lives with the local food chain.
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Below are my fav cookbooks, gardening and homesteading books and resources
My current nighttime reading
Best Homesteading Books
The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 50th Anniversary Edition: The Original Manual for Living off the Land & Doing It Yourself
The 736 page Encyclopedia of Country Living is the end-all be-all book for serious living off the landers. I don’t know one homesteader who does not own a copy of this. If you could only choose one book out of my entire list, I would recommend this one.
- The definitive manual of basic skills and country wisdom for living off the land, being prepared, and doing it yourself--whether its a farm or homestead, suburb, or city.
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Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living
This is another book recommended by my friend Jen. If she loves it then I love it too!
- The urban homesteading movement is spreading rapidly across the nation. Urban Homesteading is the perfect back-to-the-land guide for urbanites who want to reduce their impact on the environment. Full of practical information, as well as inspiring stories from people already living the urban homesteading life, this colorful guide is an approachable guide to learning to live more ecologically in the city
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The Beginner’s Guide To Living Off The Grid
I watched Gary’s class in the Mother Earth News Fair mentioned previously. He is the real deal and offers an entire book of homesteading tips for us all.
- Wondering if an off-the-grid lifestyle is right for you? Afraid it’ll be too challenging for you and your family to handle? Author and speaker Gary Collins literally wrote the book on how to transition to a life off the grid. After almost a decade of walking the walk, he’s sharing his successes and failures alike so you can live the simple life without missing out on creature comforts.
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The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!
Both Jen and I have and love this book. It is quite informative and is a good start for those of you who want to homestead but need to stay where you are to do so.
- Following the authors suggestions, you can harvest your own fruits and vegetables, nuts, eggs, even grain and meat, all a few feet from your back door
- Also includes instructions on milling grains for flour, making your own cheese and cooking, canning, curing or pickling the fruits of your labor.
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The Solar House: Passive Heating & Cooling
Ah. I also watched one of Dan’s courses in the online fair. I consider this book to be a must own before I build my house in Central FL.
This book is not available on Amazon. Instead, you can pick it up here at Mother Earth News’ shopping site.
Best Cookbooks for Homesteaders
How to Cook Everything―Completely Revised Twentieth Anniversary Edition: Simple Recipes for Great Food
This 960 PAGE book was recommended as an excellent resource from Jen. She said she has been referring to it weekly for the past 20 years. Now THAT’S some street cred!
- For twenty years, Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything has been the definitive guide to simple home cooking. This new edition has been completely revised for today’s cooks while retaining Bittman’s trademark minimalist style—easy-to-follow recipes and variations, and tons of ideas and inspiration.
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The Prairie Homestead Cookbook: Simple Recipes for Heritage Cooking in Any Kitchen
- Jill Winger, creator of the award-winning blog The Prairie Homestead, introduces her debut The Prairie Homestead Cookbook, including 100+ delicious, wholesome recipes made with fresh ingredients to bring the flavors and spirit of homestead cooking to any kitchen table.
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The Creative Kitchen: Seasonal Plant Based Recipes for Meals, Drinks, Crafts, Body & Home Care
- Award-winning author of The No Dig Organic Home and Garden Stephanie Hafferty offers a pathway to low cost, zero waste and as plastic free living as possible. She shows you the advantages and pleasures of cooking seasonally and making organic products for you and your family’s health and happiness. Learn how to be resourceful, creative and inspired by what is seasonal and close to hand for a 100% organic home.
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Top Gardening Books
Step by Step Organic Vegetable Gardening: The Gardening Classic Revised and Updated
Do you recognize the author’s last name? If not, let me throw a little hint your way. Ogden Publications is the publisher for Mother Earth News, Grit, etc. This is another book my friend Jen recommended to me.
- Covers every aspect of organic gardening from siting, planning, and soil preparation through composting, cultivation, and pest control
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I just bought this book a few weeks ago. It is excellent. Written by Ira Wallace, the owner of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. It has been integral in starting my raised bed gardens this Fall.
- There is nothing more regionally specific than vegetable gardening—what to plant, when to plant it, and when to harvest are decisions based on climate, weather, and first frost The Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in the Southeast tackles this need head on, with regionally specific growing information written by local gardening expert, Ira Wallace. Monthly planting guides show exactly what you can do in the garden from January through December. The skill sets go beyond the basics with tutorials on seed saving, worm bins, and more.
- This must-have book is for gardeners in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
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No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture: Pesticide-Free Methods for Restoring Soil and Growing Nutrient-Rich, High-Yielding Crops
- From a veteran organic grower: a unique agricultural methodology that delivers higher yields, higher quality, and higher profitability―absolutely free of herbicides or pesticides
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Your Edible Yard: Landscaping with Fruits and Vegetables
- Journey into the good food movement by unleashing the potential of your yard, transforming it into a beautiful and vibrant space that offers a continuous supply of food.
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Grow Your Own Herbal Remedies: How to Create a Customized Herb Garden to Support Your Health & Well-Being
I watched this author’s course in the Mother Earth News fair on Herbal Tinctures. It was excellent. LOVE the idea of growing my own herbal first aid kit!
- In Grow Your Own Herbal Remedies, Groves provides 23 garden plans specially tailored to address the most common health needs, along with simple recipes for using each group of herbs. Discover the three to six herbs that are most effective for what ails you, whether you’re seeking headache relief, immune support, stress relief, or a simple daily tonic.
- For chronic stomach problems, marshmallow, plantain, rose, fennel, and calendula make the perfect medicine, with recipes for tummy tea and gut-healing broth. Groves teaches you how to plant, harvest, and care for each medicinal herb, and in all of her plant suggestions, she emphasizes safe, effective, easy-to-grow herbs that provide abundant harvests and can be planted in containers or garden beds.
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Permaculture Books
The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole Systems Design Approach
This book is quite respected in the permaculture circle. I have been slowly reading it since March. Very intense but also very good. I am learning a LOT.
- The Resilient Farm and Homestead is a manual for developing durable, beautiful, and highly functional human habitat systems fit to handle an age of rapid transition.
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Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition
Gaia’s Garden is in my Amazon cart waiting for me to pull the trigger!
- The first edition of Gaia’s Garden sparked the imagination of America’s home gardeners, introducing permaculture’s central message: Working with Nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. This extensively revised and expanded second edition broadens the reach and depth of the permaculture approach for urban and suburban growers.
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Introduction To Permaculture (2nd Revised edition) (5.2.2002) – By Bill Mollison
Bill Mollison invented the concept of permaculture. His book is required reading for the permaculture crowd.
- Permaculture is about designing sustainable human settlements. It is a philosophy and an approach to land use which weaves together micro-climate, annual and perennial plants, animals, soils, water management, and human needs into intricately connected productive communities
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Home Life Books
A Householder’s Guide to the Universe: A Calendar of Basics for the Home and Beyond
This is a very interesting book. Jen and I also both own it. The author Harriet Fasenfast gives many personal stories (some sad-many thoughtful), and then has the book broken out by months so each month you have things to do around your home to keep it moving in an orderly fashion (my words not hers – can’t think of a better way to put it). Then each month is sectioned out by Home, Garden and Kitchen.
She also has some wonderful recipes. I am currently looking at July and this month its Fresh Fruit Cobbler. Ugh. WantNow!
- In an era when go local, organic food, and sustainability are one the tip of everyones tongues, Harriet Fasenfests A Householders Guide to the Universe takes up the banner of progressive homemaking and urban farming as a way to confront the political, social, and environmental issues facing our world today.
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Food Preservation Books
Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving
If you only start with one beginning canning book, this has to be the one. It has all of the important basics in it for those just learning to can. Consider it a safety guide.
*Amy Tip: And if I might make a humble recommendation, get the spiral bound version. You will be VERY glad you did!
- Comprehensive guide to home canning and preserving
- The book includes complete directions on safe canning and preserving methods plus lists of required equipment and utensils. Specific instructions for first-timers and handy tips for the experienced make this book a valuable addition to any kitchen library.
- 448 pages total
- Can be used by rookies and pros
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Canning for a New Generation: Updated and Expanded Edition: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry
K bought me this book for Christmas last year. It’s a wonderful book with wonderful recipes although not all are for canning. The interesting part of this book is she has broken out the sections by harvest season. I.e. Spring Fruits, Spring Vegetables, Summer Fruits, Summer Vegetables, etc.
- In Liana Krissoff’s breakout success, Canning for a New Generation, home cooks were introduced to a hip, modern guide to canning, chock-full of approachable, time-tested, and accurate recipes, as well as intriguing new flavor pairings. In this Updated and Expanded Edition, Krissoff includes 50 new recipes for food preservation
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The Complete Guide to Pressure Canning: Everything You Need to Know to Can Meats, Vegetables, Meals in a Jar, and More
Diane Deveraux is The Canning Diva. She has some great recipes that I think you would love.
- The Complete Guide to Pressure Canning is a safe, practical, step-by-step resource to preserve the low-acid foods that you love.
- From soups and stews, to meals-in-a-jar, to kitchen staples like broths and beans, pressure canning is a time-honored craft that allows you to safely and affordably preserve the food your family loves to eat.
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Books on Chickens and Raising Other Animals
Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens, 4th Edition: Breed Selection, Facilities, Feeding, Health Care, Managing Layers & Meat Birds
This is the first book I bought when we decided to get chickens. It is incredibly comprehensive. I don’t feel like the author missed a thing.
- Serious poultry farmers and backyard bird raisers have relied on this best-selling reference for more than 20 years.
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It is part of a bigger series called the Storey’s Guide to Raising. I would recommend any of these books in this series for animal husbandry. Honey Bees, Turkeys, Goats. They cover it all. Click here to see the series.
The Small-Scale Poultry Flock: An All-Natural Approach to Raising Chickens and Other Fowl for Home and Market Growers
- This encyclopedic guide offers extensive information on raising chickens and other domestic fowl based entirely on natural systems
- No other book on poultry takes an entirely whole-systems approach!
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Best Homesteading Courses
The Ploughshare Institute
The Ploughshare Institute’s Sustain Life video series offers a ton of back to the basics courses – from Building a Cold Frame, to Beginning Machine Sewing, to making Mozzarella Cheese. This is also a good resource for you fledgling woodworkers out there as there are a ton of interesting looking woodworking classes.
https://www.sustainlife.org/video/ (this page free but they do have paid courses)
Learning With Experts
Learning with Experts has a ton of very interesting courses such as Self Sufficient Vegetable Gardening, Natural Beekeeping and An Introduction to Breadmaking. Check them all out below.
Online Homesteading Fair
That 50 year old publication that epitomizes back to the earth living, Mother Earth News, is where we all begin, right? Their annual fair which has been out of reach for me all of these years has finally gone online and it’s excellent.
They have a ton of topics. Everything from DIY Skills to Modern Homesteading to Organic Gardening. Within each of those topics, there are courses such as honey bee management, sheet mulching techniques and yogurt creation. Click on the link to see all of the available courses and register.
Homesteading Channel on YouTube I Love
I also have a YouTube channel I recommend. Homesteading Family gives us some really, really meaty advice on gardening, preserving, homeschooling, how to choose a homestead property, etc. Carolyn’s online courses are here: https://www.schooloftraditionalskills.com/store
A couple of the course titles are The Art of Homemade Bread (which sounds like it took OFF after the lockdown began in March) and The Abundant Pantry: Canning. She has several more so check them out. Oh, I should mention Carolyn was a teacher before they decided to homestead and currently homeschools their NINE children. So yeah, I imagine that girl can teach!
Free Canning Videos on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUdL3XGccEJHT7Xki_pSc495Su9rZAVns
https://www.youtube.com/user/BallCanning/videos?shelf_id=1&view=0&sort=dd
Is your mind going a million miles a minute?
There is a LOT to think about and consider when making major life decisions like these. Thousands do it though, and have been for hundreds of years – so you can too. Just go into it with your eyes wide open. Many YouTubers will make their life look idyllic. It’s not. It’s HARD but in the end worth it if it gives you back control over your life, food and family.
We are incredibly interested in hearing your plans so please share them in the comments below. Oh, and good luck!