Do you want to grow your own food, but don’t know where to start? Here are six books that I have read on gardening, homesteading, and animal husbandry that you might find helpful.
The Intelligent Gardener
by Steve Solomon
As one of the forwards puts it, TIG aims to help you compensate for the nutrients and trace elements that “go out the farm gate”…either in produce you sell, or in minerals you eat that are then locked into septic systems, or in the parts of animals that aren’t used and aren’t allowed to re-enter the soil (for instance bones that aren’t ground up for bonemeal). The goal is to not just help your vegetables flourish, but to pack in elements to make the right proteins to make them truly “nutrient rich.” (If you’re not interested in “nutrient rich”…well, the author has a chapter early on expounding on the benefits of high-mineral food, but the later chapters have a lot of math to slog through if you’re not fully on-board.)
That said, Mr. Solomon is at his best when laying out the science behind soil fertility and walking the reader through the equations necessary to get all the various elements into balance: sulfur, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, and more. His background is in geology, and the way he ties bedrock and landmass formation to what ends up in the topsoil is fascinating.
He’s at his worst when applying his expertise in soil fertility to other fields. For instance, he suggests that the European settlers were able to easily displace the previous inhabitants of North American because the American Indians lacked the metal tools to properly cultivate their soil, leaving vital nutrients only accessible to the deep-rooted trees. Is the world a complex place full of interlocking factors of which we are still only scratching the surface, including the fertility of the soil itself? Without doubt. But I think this is yet another case of what William Albert Dembski so succinctly expressed:
If you look at the history of science, people often have a good idea, and then they decide just to run with it. And they say, “We’re going to apply this everywhere.”
That said, Mr. Solomon is obviously very passionate about his subject, and offers a thorough deep-dive into an important subject. Whether you just want a quick-and-easy, DIY mixture to replenish your garden’s elements; figure out what compost is all about; or actually dig into the chemistry, biology, and math of what’s happening in your backyard, I think you could gain something from this book. You just have to decide how much you go along with the application of its principles to other areas of life.
The Family Garden Plan
by Melissa K. Norris
A lot of the pages are taken up with full, color photographs of garden subjects: baskets of fruit, rows of vegetables, tables strewn with tools, etc. I don’t mind a coffee-table book of mouth-watering portraits, but it feels like a lot of space was wasted. Especially when the photographs are never direct illustrations of the text, and are at best merely topical (there might be pictures of trees in the chapter about fruit trees, for instance, but they don’t pair an action shot of the author applying bird-netting to a tree next to those paragraphs, etc. In some of the veggie chapters, I’m not even sure the picture is of the plant being discussed – which is disappointing, because I could really use some high-quality photos to help me tell what my veggies are supposed to look like while they’re growing).
Of course, most people who pick up this book will probably be interested in the worksheets. If you’re going to actually feed your family off of what you grow, you’ll have to know how much to grow, and how to preserve it. TFGP starts with a diary of meals per week, then uses that to estimate meals per month/year, then calculates how much of your raw materials you will need to make all those meals. It also encourages you to keep records and adapt the plan to the changing needs of your family. I haven’t used them yet, but it’s definitely something I’m interested in.
TFGP doesn’t delve very deeply into its subjects, but it does touch on a broad range of things, including starting seeds indoors; pruning berries and fruit trees; soil fertility and micro-climates (sunny south porch vs. shaded west yard, for instance); companion planting; and basic preservation. (It doesn’t have recipes for canning, pickling, or fermenting; but it does contain tips for all these, plus freezing and drying, and charts to help you estimate how much fresh produce you need for a certain amount of preserved food).
If you’re a beginner who wants to know your options and have a broad-strokes description of the topic at your fingertips, and especially if you like colorful, inspiring garden photographs, this book might be for you.
The Backyard Homestead
edited by Carleen Madigan
It was hard at first to decide if this was a book for beginners. On the one hand, it covers a lot of basic information about a broad range of topics, serving as a good introduction to topics from raising cattle, goats, and fowl; to brewing your own beer; to planting a garden…without being an exhaustive reference for any of these things. On the other hand, the text is small and dense, and the few pictures are line sketches, not actual photographs, making the subject feel more theoretical than practical. In fact, TBH is very practical…but it might be a bit intimidating for someone brand new to the subject.
If you get past that, you will find a good primer on a broad range of topics, including details on how to harvest various vegetables; how to raise turkeys, ducks, rabbits, and other animals; how to make dairy products, sausages, jellies, and other ways to preserve your bounty; and more. (It also has like four recipes for homemade wine, which I just find hilarious for some reason).
Part of TBH‘s focus is teaching people how much they can do with a little space…and it includes a number of sketches of, say, a quarter acre lot or a half-acre lot, illustrating how someone can squeeze a vegetable garden, a handful of fruit trees, a chicken coop, berry bushes, etc. into surprisingly small spaces. Just because you’re in the suburbs doesn’t mean you can’t take control of some of your food!
It may not teach you everything, but after all there is no learning like hands-on learning, and TBH will at least get you pointed in the right direction. It also suggests more books by the same publisher for those who want to dive deeper into a particular subject.
The Weekend Homesteader
by Anna Hess
Designed for suburban families with “day jobs,” TWH has one project per chapter, ranging from building a chicken coop to foraging plants around your neighborhood to collecting an emergency water supply. Projects are also grouped by month, so you can try out something no matter the time of year; or start at the beginning of the year and the book and let it guide you through an entire season of homesteading.
Each chapter heading rates the coming project in terms of monetary cost, time investment, and appropriateness for kid participation. For busy parents without a lot of money who want to include their children in their vision, or just families who aren’t committed to buying acreage yet but would like a bucket of worms under the kitchen sink for composting kitchen scraps, this is a great beginning book, full of pictures.
Small-Scale Grain Raising
by Gene Logsdon
This thick tome provides extensive information about a wide variety of grains, from the basics like wheat, rye, and oats varieties to more advanced or experimental grains, like rice, broom-corn, or new strains entirely. Each chapter discusses the different types of each grain (where applicable); how to plant, tend, harvest, and process it; some tips about its profitability as a cash crop; and recipes that use it (often including nutritional information).
Even this book for “small-scale” farming is more geared toward a man taking a fifty-year-old, paid-for tractor to sow an acre or two of grain than my practice of sowing a few hundred feet with my bare hands, but it contains a lot of interesting information and could encourage you to try something you previously considered out of your depth (as long as you’re not intimidated by its heft). It does contain line-art pictures, too, which I find helpful.
Storey’s Guide to Raising Dairy Goats (2001 edition)
by Jerry Belanger
This is a book for those who wish to delve deeper. It covers potential diseases; building shelters and fences; hand milking; proper goat nutrition; breeding; and more. The information is certainly useful, but I would hate to have a conversation with the author…his tone is a bit on the stuffy side, and his disdain for individuals who would “spoil the experience” of milking with a noisy machine, or who would pour raw milk directly into a container without first straining it through an official “milk filter” (or at bare minimum a handkerchief from the drawer) is apparent.
That said, he has plenty of useful advice for housing, feeding, doctoring, breeding, and milking dairy goats, which is what’s on the tin. Any crotchety-ness in his manner is mostly swallowed up in plain facts. (I think the funniest part of the book was where he listed plants that might off-flavor the milk, if the goats ingest it: most of the list could be found on our farm. Until we eliminate the ragweed, protect the honeysuckle, etc., all we can do is laugh.)
Kimia Wood lives somewhere in 
the American Midwest with her family – including the brother people mistake for her boyfriend.
She’s bracing for the collapse of society by knitting, baking, writing, and other excuses for not gardening.