The Backyard Homestead: A Review

I had been wanting to read The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan for quite some time, and finally had my turn from the Portland Public Library. This book is a great introduction for someone looking to turn their home into a homestead and become more self-sufficient. This book covers creating a garden, growing fruit and nut trees, raising poultry for meat or eggs, raising meat, growing grains, growing herbs and foraging for food. Throughout the book there are also great tips (like how to sprout seeds and how to grow a ginger plant) and recipes (like how to make yogurt, noodles, and herbal vinegars). I enjoyed this book and found some great ideas that I plan to use in the future (like growing squash plants vertically instead of on the ground). However, I didn't learn as much as I had hoped from this read... We already have a pretty established garden (although I could surely use some help as there is much room for improvement!), we don't have space for fruit trees, to grow grains, or to raise livestock, and we already raise ducks for eggs. So this book gave me a lot of ideas for my dream-homestead that we one day hope to create. For now, we are dong the best we can with a city lot! Pin It Now!