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With just a quarter acre of land, you can feed a family of four with fresh, organic food year-round. This comprehensive guide to self-sufficiency gives you all the information you need to grow and preserve a variety of vegetables, fruits, herbs, nuts, and grains; raise chickens for eggs and meat; raise cows, sheep, and goats for meat or milk; raise pigs and rabbits; and keep honey bees. Simple instructions make it easy to enjoy canned, frozen, dried, and pickled produce all winter; use your own grains to make bread, pasta, and beer; turn fresh milk into delicious homemade yogurt, butter, and cheese; make your own wine, cordials, and herbal teas; and much, much more. It truly is possible to eat entirely from your backyard.
This fascinating, friendly book is brimming with ideas, illustrations and enthusiasm. The garden plans are solid, the advice crisp; the diagrams, as on pruning and double digging, are models of decorum. Madigan makes it all look so easy.
More Reviews and RecommendationsBefore becoming an editor at Storey, Carleen Madigan was managing editor of Horticulture magazine and lived on an organic farm outside Boston, Massachusetts, where she learned the homesteading skills contained in The Backyard Homestead. She enjoys gardening, hiking, foraging, baking, spinning wool, and knitting.
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November 21, 2009: I found this book to be a very helpful guide to gardening, preserving, and cooking! The book is well organized, and also is convenient in size: it is more "midsized" rather than being large like many gardening books. It can be conveniently brought on trips, read in bed, etc. The pages, print, and pictures are also laid out for easy reading.
Finally, the best test of a good book: my friends always "borrow" this book from me!Reader Rating:
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October 26, 2009: I found this book to be quite well written and very engaging. If your goal is to be as self-sustaining as possible or, at the very least, take full advantage of that backyard vege plot, I recommend adding this book to your reading list. The organizational suggestions are especially useful if you're simply not sure where to start.
Best of luck! Everyone can save money if you know how to do it efficiently.