A review by jenenglish
The Backyard Homestead: Produce All the Food You Need on Just a Quarter Acre! by Carleen Madigan

3.0

The audience for this book is someone who is interested in learning more about homesteading and self-sufficiency skills, such as gardening, food preservation, and raising animals. The book provides good overviews of each topic accompanied by clear and understandable drawings. The content is reliable and well-written, coming from a longtime publisher of homesteading books (much of the content is pulled from other Storey titles, and this book is partly a chance for them to capitalize on the homesteading trend by promoting their books). However, if you are interested in taking up one of the skills in the book, you will need more than this book. I would not recommend trying most of the projects in the book without first gaining more knowledge. And, if you already know you are looking for information about a specific topic (such as raising chickens, beekeeping, preserving food, brewing beer), you will be much better off getting an in-depth book on the specific topic than reading this one.