Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!

Top positive review

5 Stars

Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2023

I have been researching books for a while. I love structure along with pictures to aid with the information and this book goes above and beyond to provide both. It is truly well organized and an easy read. However my favorite parts to this book are the charts that list the items and what to do with each.

5 people found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

Auntie Claus

Thoughts after Owning it for a Few Years

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2011

Much of this time was spent fantasizing about one day having a 1/10th or 1/4th acre homestead. During that time, the book was eye-opening as to what is possible with that little space. Having soaked up these ideas about raised beds, chickens, dwarf fruit trees, and so on for so long, when I finally got a house recently, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it, which alone is probably worth the price of the book.

But now that I have fruit trees to prune and chicks to raise, I'm not looking to this book for information. For building raised beds, I'm using the instructions fromThe Urban Homestead (Expanded & Revised Edition): Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (Process Self-reliance Series), which also details composting with worms, reducing your reliance on the energy grid, and using water more intelligently -things The Backyard Homestead doesn't even mention. Or take pruning. On page 111, "Pruning a Fruit Tree in Four Steps," Step 2 says "First shorten the branch to about a foot, then undercut the branch slightly before sawing it from above. Finally, saw off the stub, leaving a slight collar to promote good healing." These are just the kind of clear-as-mud directions that would greatly benefit from an illustration; unfortunately all that is there is a drawing of a man sawing a branch with a long-handled tool of some kind, nothing to show what exactly a collar is or how much of the remaining foot qualifies as the stub or even why he selected that particular branch. So for pruning, I attended a workshop presented by my local nursery, which was far more informative and has the advantage of pertaining entirely to where I live. Regarding chickens: There are some interesting points, like letting a fresh egg age in the fridge a week before hard-boiling so it won't be difficult to peel or selecting a dual-purpose (egg laying and meat) breed because they are more disease-resistant than specialized breeds, but nothing that will in anyway get you started. For that I'm presently using the bookChick Days: An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens from Hatching to Laying. For rabbits, you'll get two pages most of which just informs you that there are different breeds.

The only section of The Backyard Homestead that I was able to test out in my apartment days was the section on herb gardening. I killed all of them, until gettingGrow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces), which revealed why the rosemary survived but did not grow (too small a pot), why the basil died (unrelenting exposure to wind), how all of them could have benefited from mulch, and how to make simple plant foods. It also explained terms I had seen thrown around in several gardening books, like the warning to not let your plants "bolt" (which at the time I could only imagine involved my herbs running away to a more competent home). All those other books have unhelpful charts describing the exact conditions favored by each plant (type of soil, pH, full sun vs partial shade, etc) until you believe each plant should be grown in its own meticulously placed test tube. And I spent years thinking "partial shade" meant some kind of sparse, broken shade, like under a tree. Turns out the "partial" refers to time; 4-6 hours of direct sun per day compared to 8 hours of direct sun per day for "full sun." And if you've always wanted to grow herbs, but wondered what you might do with them beyond cooking, then absolutely getMaking It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World, a brilliant DIY book on everything from making your own shampoo to beer to how to slaughter a chicken (The Backyard Homestead refers you to other books for any slaughtering instructions).

By all means, get The Backyard Homestead. Pour over it for hours in a coffee shop/bathtub/Cracker Barrel/escape-of-your-choice. Gaze lovingly at the beautiful, orderly homestead layouts at the beginning of the book. But think of it more as a course catalogue for college, that thick book (if they still put those out) that lists every class a college offers along with a brief description for each, rather than as the classes themselves. Use it to sketch out which topics you'd like to study, then find other resources (mentors, workshops, youtube demonstrations, books, meetup groups, feed stores, nurseries, magazines like Urban Farm) and go from there.

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From the United States

Lewis

5 Stars

Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2023

Verified Purchase

5 people found this helpful

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TPG

Great Book

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2024

Verified Purchase

This has been a great book for our family to start our homesteading journey. There is a wealth of information and I love how it gives you ideas on what you can do for your property my size.

One person found this helpful

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Tan

Favorite homesteading book ever

Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2023

Verified Purchase

This book is beautifully written, and so helpful for someone who learns visually. Lots of illustrations and not just information packed text. I absolutely adore this book. Proceed with caution when buying this book because you will want to make a huge garden in your backyard after reading it!

5 people found this helpful

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Seedawg

Lots of useful information.

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2024

Verified Purchase

Enjoyed reading but much of the information is geared towards the serious hobby farmer, not just someone who plants a small garden in their back yard.

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Mama Junn

Life Changing Book

Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2023

Verified Purchase

Saw this at a Cracker Barrel in Tallahassee Florida and talked myself into buying a copy in 2011. Read it from cover to cover in less than a week. A year later, my daughter dropped it in the tub full of bath water (silly me for laying it next to the tub!) and I bought another copy on Amazon. This book has been a life changer. Things I didn’t know I could do on my own like growing a garden and other projects I’ve now tried and succeeded at in the last 13 years-I’ve had chickens, made many batches of wine, had a small garden, propagated grapevines, and just fell in love with country living in general.
I’m now using it to plan our next adventure, we purchased a 20acre parcel to turn into a farm with a large garden. I’m not saying the book made me do it, but it definitely gave me the knowledge and confidence to get a good start on the basics and where to go for more help. ❤️ 5 stars, HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

23 people found this helpful

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Charles Chapman

Given as a gift

Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2024

Verified Purchase

My GF enjoyed the book.

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Melissa

I love this book

Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2024

Verified Purchase

It opens your eyes as to what you can accomplish in a small space.

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Kendog

Excellent for what it is.

Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2013

Verified Purchase

I live in cornfield county. Everybody around here is either a farmer or grew up working on a farm. This stuff is in our DNA; our parents and grandparents grew and canned or butchered just about everything they ate, many of us still do. So, I can tell you from years of experience that as an aid to inexperienced or new urban farmers, this book is worth its weight in gold. It does not take you by the hand and give you step by step instructions; instead, it helps to open your eyes to all of the possibilities for food production that many simply haven't thought about. It gives a general overview of what you can do on limited land and what the minimum space requirements are for each endeavor. Can you raise chickens just by reading the chapter on chickens? No; ditto for cows, goats, pigs and other edible critters. But it will give you a good starting point and keep you from making "rookie" mistakes.

Think of this book as an "idea" book. Identify what looks good to you and then use other resources to increase your knowledge of those subjects (the book does have a section of additional resources at the back). I grew up working on farms and still grow and preserve much of my own vegetables and fruit; still I found myself surprised at some of the things I read in this book that I simply hadn't thought much about, like dandelion coffee or flower fritters. I also got ideas on new things to grow.

For those of you who have not gardened much, you'll never go back to store bought spaghetti sauce or salsa once you make your own. And even your ugliest green bell pepper will taste so much better than that big sterile waxy green one in the store. Growing your own food and living at least partially off the land is a legacy that should be passed down to every generation, just in case. The Backyard Homestead can be an indispensable aid to helping you become at least partially self sufficient.

2023 update: I only garden about 75 sq. feet now (two 8'x4' beds and one 10sq ft grape arbor.) I typically yield about 20 lbs. grapes, 18 qts raspberries 400-600 Roma hybrid tomatoes and 60+ peppers . Pics show produce from various harvests over the years.

38 people found this helpful

Helpful

Auntie Claus

Thoughts after Owning it for a Few Years

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2011

Verified Purchase

Much of this time was spent fantasizing about one day having a 1/10th or 1/4th acre homestead. During that time, the book was eye-opening as to what is possible with that little space. Having soaked up these ideas about raised beds, chickens, dwarf fruit trees, and so on for so long, when I finally got a house recently, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it, which alone is probably worth the price of the book.

But now that I have fruit trees to prune and chicks to raise, I'm not looking to this book for information. For building raised beds, I'm using the instructions from The Urban Homestead (Expanded & Revised Edition): Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (Process Self-reliance Series) , which also details composting with worms, reducing your reliance on the energy grid, and using water more intelligently -things The Backyard Homestead doesn't even mention. Or take pruning. On page 111, "Pruning a Fruit Tree in Four Steps," Step 2 says "First shorten the branch to about a foot, then undercut the branch slightly before sawing it from above. Finally, saw off the stub, leaving a slight collar to promote good healing." These are just the kind of clear-as-mud directions that would greatly benefit from an illustration; unfortunately all that is there is a drawing of a man sawing a branch with a long-handled tool of some kind, nothing to show what exactly a collar is or how much of the remaining foot qualifies as the stub or even why he selected that particular branch. So for pruning, I attended a workshop presented by my local nursery, which was far more informative and has the advantage of pertaining entirely to where I live. Regarding chickens: There are some interesting points, like letting a fresh egg age in the fridge a week before hard-boiling so it won't be difficult to peel or selecting a dual-purpose (egg laying and meat) breed because they are more disease-resistant than specialized breeds, but nothing that will in anyway get you started. For that I'm presently using the book Chick Days: An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens from Hatching to Laying . For rabbits, you'll get two pages most of which just informs you that there are different breeds.

The only section of The Backyard Homestead that I was able to test out in my apartment days was the section on herb gardening. I killed all of them, until getting Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces ), which revealed why the rosemary survived but did not grow (too small a pot), why the basil died (unrelenting exposure to wind), how all of them could have benefited from mulch, and how to make simple plant foods. It also explained terms I had seen thrown around in several gardening books, like the warning to not let your plants "bolt" (which at the time I could only imagine involved my herbs running away to a more competent home). All those other books have unhelpful charts describing the exact conditions favored by each plant (type of soil, pH, full sun vs partial shade, etc) until you believe each plant should be grown in its own meticulously placed test tube. And I spent years thinking "partial shade" meant some kind of sparse, broken shade, like under a tree. Turns out the "partial" refers to time; 4-6 hours of direct sun per day compared to 8 hours of direct sun per day for "full sun." And if you've always wanted to grow herbs, but wondered what you might do with them beyond cooking, then absolutely get Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World , a brilliant DIY book on everything from making your own shampoo to beer to how to slaughter a chicken (The Backyard Homestead refers you to other books for any slaughtering instructions).

By all means, get The Backyard Homestead. Pour over it for hours in a coffee shop/bathtub/Cracker Barrel/escape-of-your-choice. Gaze lovingly at the beautiful, orderly homestead layouts at the beginning of the book. But think of it more as a course catalogue for college, that thick book (if they still put those out) that lists every class a college offers along with a brief description for each, rather than as the classes themselves. Use it to sketch out which topics you'd like to study, then find other resources (mentors, workshops, youtube demonstrations, books, meetup groups, feed stores, nurseries, magazines like Urban Farm) and go from there.

2,620 people found this helpful

Helpful

William Rice

Great read

Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2024

Verified Purchase

I know nothing about this stuff, so I read it cover to cover and loved every chapter.... Probably just for beginners though

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