This page is has all our recommended homesteading books, videos, publications and other resources.
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One of the things I consider most valuable when learning from other homesteaders and farmers is to look at their book shelves, so here I would like to return the favor to my fellow homesteaders. Below I have compiled a list of all the homesteading resources we know and love.
Quick Navigation
- Livestock
- Gardening
- Herbalism
- Pasture Managment
- Permaculture
- Desert/Dry Climate
- Off-Grid Living
- Philosophy/Pleasure Reading
Homesteading Resource: Livestock
Cows
Keeping a Family Cow: the Complete Guide for Home scale Holistic Dairy Producers, by Joann S. Grohman. This book is fabulous and we used this a lot when we were keeping our family cow.
The Family Cow, By Dirk Van Loon. A complete guide to keeping a milk cow, this book is a very good resource. This book was our most used book when we had a cow.
Salad Bar Beef, By Joel Salatin. This book is a great place to learn how to grow pasture raised beef for yourself and for profit.
Goats
Natural Goat Care, by Pat Coleby. You can buy this here on Amazon.
Storey’s Guide to Raising Dairy Goats. Get it here.
Storey’s Guide to Raising Meat Goats. Get it here.
Caprine Supply Visit their site here. This store has products specifically tailored to goats and their needs, if your looking for something specific to goats, I would check here first.
Chickens and Poultry
Below I have listed the best hatcheries I have ordered from:
Whatever I can’t get or find at those two I go to Murray McMurray Hatchery
Butchering And Meat Preservation
Butchering, By Adam Danforth. This is an in depth, step by step guide to butchering poultry, sheep, goats and pork. It is very beginner friendly and leads you right through the process. He also has another book Butchering Beef that I haven’t read, but if it anything like his other book is an amazing resource.
The YouTube channel The Bearded Butchers, is a great video guide to get you started butchering. Their channel and Adam Danforth’s book got my husband through his first time butchering a pig.
Home Dairy
The Art Of Natural Cheesemaking, by David Asher. This book is AMAZING. It is a must if you are interested in making cheese without freeze dried cultures.
Homesteading Resource: Gardening
The Resilient Gardner: Food Production and Self Reliance in Uncertain Times, by Carol Deppe.
The Tao of Vegetable Gardening: Cultivating Tomatoes, Greens, Peas, Beans, Squash, Joy, and Serenity, By Carol Deppe. These two books by Carol Deppe are down to earth and practical. They are a great place to learn how to grow sustaining food from your garden, not just garnishes here and there.
The One-Straw Revolution: An Inroduction to Natural Farming, by Masanobu Fukuoka. This book causes major paradigm shifts. An essential read.
Four Season Harvest
The Winter Harvest Handbook, by Elliott Coleman. A wonderful guide to learning how to get a winter harvest.
Compost and Soil Building
Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web, by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis. This is a MUST and is a necessity to understand the soil and how it works.
Holy Shit, by Gene Logsdon. This breaks down the various manures and how to compost. Is a great starting place for composting.
Homegrown Humus: Cover Crops in a No-Till Garden, by Anna Hess. This is a small book but is a good jumping off point for learning about cover crops.
Biodynamics
Agriculture: Spiritual Foundations for the Renewal of Agriculture, by Rudolph Steiner. This book is a transcribed series of lectures that Steiner gave. A bit dense and sometimes hard to understand, this is the foundation of biodynamics.
Culture and Horticulture: The Classic Guide to Biodynamic and Organic Gardening, by Wolf D. Storl. I haven’ actually read this one, but everyone who I have asked for recommendations for biodynamic reading recommend this book.
Biodynamic Gardening, by Monty Waldin. This is a beginner friendly introduction to biodynamics.
Growing Grains
Small Scale Grain Raising, by Gene Logsdon.
Seed Saving
Landrace Gardening, by Joseph Lofthouse. There is so much here and is an important perspective to consider when both gardening and saving seeds.
Homesteading Resource: Herbalism
School Of Natural Healing, by Dr. John R. Christopher. It is dense and has a lot of information, but it is the herb bible.
Herbal Home Health Care, by, Dr. John R. Christopher. This is a great starting place and is easy to understand.
The Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook: A Home Manual, by James Green. This book is an excellent guide to basic herbal preparations, what they are and how to do them.
Pasture Management
Holistic Management, by Allan Savory. A MUST if you are in the desert or a drier climate. This book has so much to offer. I have learned so much from this book.
Homesteading Resource: Permaculture
Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual, by Bill Mollison. This is the mother of all permaculture books. It is thick and dense, but it has everything.
Introduction to Permaculture, by Bill Mollison. If Permaculture: a Designers Manual intimidates you, this is a good place to start.
Edible Forest Gardens, by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier. This is a very beautiful and informational two valume set. They have every table/ graph you would want in permaculture.
The YouTube Channel Discover Permaculture with Geoff Lawton is super handy when you just need to see how someone is doing it.
Homesteading Resource: Desert/ Dry Climate
Rain Water Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, by Brad Lancaster. This is a two volume set that is comprehensive and practical.
The New Create an Oasis with Greywater, by Art Ludwig. This is a very practical book with stuff for those who want a deep dive and those who just need the basics. It includes how to design and install your grey water system.
off Grid Living
Masonry Heater
Masonry Heaters: Designing, Building and Living With a Piece of the Sun, by Ken Matesz
The Book Of Masonry Stoves: Rediscovering An Old Way Of Warming, by David Lyle
Rocket Mass Heaters: Supereffecient Stoves You Can Build, by Ianto Evans and Leslie Jackson.
Philosophy/Pleasure Reading
These books aren’t necessarily how to, but they are just as helpful if not more in gaining inspiration and insight.
Flight From The City: An Experiment in Creative Living on the Land, by Ralph Borsodi. As an economist during the great depression Borsodi approaches homesteading with a lot of practicality and interesting insight.
The Unsettling of America, by Wendell Berry. A homesteading classic, you can’t go wrong with Wendell Berry.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver. A memoir of sorts, Kingsolver and her family chose to eat food from within a hundred mile radius for a year. This is one of my favorites and has changed how I view local food.
Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, by Shannon Hayes. This is one of my new discoveries and it has made me re think and reprioritize.