The Backyard Homestead: how to make the pages a reality
Several months ago my wife, Pan, and I were at the bookstore wasting away a rainy Saturday afternoon. I have to admit it was a little oxymoronic to be sipping my chai tea latte whilst I peruse the self-sufficiency and homesteading books. But I digress.
After picking up a few of those titles that have great book jackets and catchy subtitles but little substance I came across a book by Carleen Madigan called The Backyard Homestead. With its etsy-esque cover and obvious homages to the neo-homesteading venture it captured my attention rather quickly.
After reading just a bit I found that the author, Carleen Madigan, was born into a self-sufficiency oriented family and the had the opportunity to grow up eating homegrown foods. She continues to live this way and now brings a comfortable even keeled passion to the subject matter.
I found myself mesmerized by even just the first chapter with its simple quarter acre plot sketches and landscaping ideas. It is a huge source of information and while it is fairly dense on content it is an easy enough ready with a lot of illustrations, charts and graphs. It is most certainly a resource that every homesteader, hobby farmer and aspiring one should have in their personal library. I am proud to say that now – some 3 months later – I have my own copy compliments of Santa Claus.
The main premise of the book is that you can produce all the food you need on 1/4 acre (dependent, of course, on your zone and your personal diet). The back cover boasts that on a 1/4 acre you can yield:
- 1,400 eggs
- 50 pounds of wheat
- 60 pounds of fruit
- 2,000 pounds of veggies
- 280 pounds of pork
- and 75 pounds of nuts
How encouraging is that? For a homesteader like myself who lives on just over an acre, this is not just food for thought. This is divine agricultural intervention! It gives my brain new possibilities to get lost in.
I am still reading and will likely give a more detailed report when I finish. But with my own gardens to prepare for and two new seed catalogues having just arrived in the mail, I don’t think it will be soon. But make no mistake about it. I recommend this book for its simple, straightforward ways as well as it is robust amount of information.
January 11th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
I liked this book too. My only qualm was that a lot of it was just reprinted from other Storey Books (which would have been okay if I didn’t already own all the original books). But I still found some useful stuff in it and think it would be super useful to someone with a smaller acreage and such. Good Luck!
January 11th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Thanks Jason for visiting our blog.
I have heard that a lot of the info was reprinted from a Reader’s Digest book or series of articles. I had never heard of the books (probably because I used to live in Brooklyn? hahahah) so this one was a delight for me. What kind of acreage do you have? Out of curiosity, of course, not farm envy! hahahahaha
January 11th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
I have a book similar to this…I can’t remember the name and it’s packed away!…that I enjoyed but it seemed to be geared toward older generations/ways of doing things and larger land. This sounds more up my alley though. I’ll have to get my hands on one.
January 12th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Oh I don’t have a whole lot. Just 5 acres right now officially. My brother (who lives with me at the moment) owns 25 acres adjoining my property, about one third of which is pastured. We have access to that, but haven’t really branched over onto his land yet, though we are considering getting some cows over there. I’m right on the upper edge of the books land plot size I suppose, but we haven’t even used 3 acres of my property yet. I did plant about 1 acre of corn/sunflowers last spring, but that didn’t turn out too well since I tried a “natural” approach and didn’t do much/any weeding…
January 12th, 2010 at 11:11 am
@Jason – sounds like you have a promising spread. We have about 12 acres in the rear of our land that has been harvested for pulp wood and then left Idle (thus the name Odom’s Idle Acres). I don’t know what we intend to do with it but I am envisioning a few dairy cows, a few steers, a few goats and a lot more “garden.” We’ll see though.
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:52 am
I remember seeing this book on Amazon a few months ago when I was searching for self-sufficiency books. I never did order any – it seemed the customer reviews were not full of applause for any of the books I found. But I’ll revisit this one based on your review… it sure sounds intriguing!