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Reviews
The Backyard Homestead: Produce All the Food You Need on Just a Quarter Acre! by Carleen Madigan
lvmuth's review
5.0
This is an excellent top-level overview of urban homesteading and gardening, but it should not be taken as a comprehensive gospel. Still a fun and enlightening read for the novice.
atl_reader's review
5.0
Sometimes I think I should have gone into farming because I'm totally obsessed with where food comes from and would love to raise everything that goes on our table. While our neighborhood covenants prevent us from raising our own chickens and cattle and I probably don't have the time or inclination to make our own cheese, I completely loved the idea of this book and did find a lot of useful information. Since we do a lot of gardening and are starting a new yard from scratch, the info about raising, harvesting, storing and utilizing all your own veggies, fruits and herbs was really interesting and I'm sure will be helpful when we put in our yard this spring.
stenaros's review
This is a good general overview. I really liked the schematics for what could be produced on varying lot sizes: standard backyard, quarter acre, half acre, full acre.
hrusewif's review
5.0
This book has a wealth of information that can help you get started with the basics of Homesteading- including minor information on various livestock crops, tips for structuring your land to make the most of it, and more. Outside of Homesteading, it also has applications for normal gardening, and I've used it extensively for my non-homestead when growing food crops in town.
What really makes this book for me, though, is the wide use of pictures to help illustrate what the authors are talking about.
What really makes this book for me, though, is the wide use of pictures to help illustrate what the authors are talking about.
mandybee's review
5.0
This was a good intro for a newbie like me. Great, general advice for all aspects of homesteading.
ellimister's review
5.0
Great resource for homesteading. Some of the solutions are "ask a local" because everything can vary depending on where you live.
jephers's review
4.0
This book covers a lot of interesting topics. Unfortunately, it covers A LOT of interesting topics, but BARELY covers any of them. It's definitely a great starter book for someone interested in all sorts of backyard gardening, food preserving, livestock raising, bee keeping, maple tree tapping/syrup making, etc topics, but think of it more as a book to sort of make you aware of the basic ideas/issues, and then from there you can decide if you want to read more by getting other resources.
The funny thing is, I didn't even remember checking out and reading parts of this book before... Because of it's broad-yet-shallow coverage, it just doesn't catch the attention that well I'm afraid.
The funny thing is, I didn't even remember checking out and reading parts of this book before... Because of it's broad-yet-shallow coverage, it just doesn't catch the attention that well I'm afraid.
eswee's review
informative
2.0
Very factual. This book is action packed and full of lists. It really is more of a reference book than interesting to read. As such, it covers A LOT of things you might possibly want to learn about when starting your own half-acre homestead.