A very well put together book with lots of useful information. However there is one area that it is glaringly lacking in information. The author states there isn't room for a dairy animal and suggests pigs instead, but they completely overlook the Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats. Two Nigerian Dwarf dairy does take up less space than the pigs, and even some urban areas area starting to allow them as "pets". A good Nigerian milk doe can give 1/2-3/4 of a gallon of very rich milk daily. Just be sure to buy from someone that breeds them for milking and not someone that just breeds them as pets.
Nigerians also get along well with chickens, and can share the same yard space as long as there is separate sleeping and feeding quarters for the chickens. And keeping 3-4 hens with your goats will keep the fly population down to nearly non-existent levels. So the back portion of your lot could be a single large pen, rather than two small ones, thus saving on the amount of fencing needed. A typical garden shed can be divided up to provide housing and feed storage for both goats and chickens, again saving on the cost (and space) of building separate structures. The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!
Like most of the people who buy this book, I'm interested in urban farming and the DIY ethos. So I found this book really exciting for the breadth of topics it covered. How to select a breed of beef cow? Goat? Chicken? Cool! But as I read through some of the sections covering topics I know about I was surprised how out-dated and incomplete they were, which makes me suspicious that the rest of this book is equally poorly researched.
I've been a homebrewer for 5 years, and I grow wine grapes at home. The home-brew beer recipies in this book are from 1989, and are based around buying pre-made beer kits from Coopers or Muntons. Some of the ingredients listed are archane: "Laaglander malt extract" good luck finding it, Laaglander went out of business nearly a decade ago, or "Russian Malt beverage concentrate" whatever that is, you don't need it to make good homebrew.
The wine grapes section is terribly out of date as well. The American hybrid grapes she recommends were the best varieties availible 20 years go (DeChanuc, Baco, Foch) leaving out newer varieties that are much better (Traminette, Marquette, Corot Noir). She refers to Baco, Foch, and Chardonel as European varieties which they aren't. (there's a great book on growing a back-yard vineyard if you search for that phrase)
It may seem like I'm nit-picking, but it leaves me to wonder what careless mistakes are in the sections I don't know anything about? How out-of date are the other varietal recommendations? I get the impression that she culled all of this info from old books and has little experience of her own.
I'm returning my copy.
This book was recently introduced to me by a friend who was tired of hearing me just *talk* about my preserving and canning aspirations - she thought, rightly, that having this book as my guide would spur action. What always sounded like a lovely annual ritual to me is now actually - I have been happy to discover, after reading "The Backyard Homestead" and its clearly, engagingly written advice - something I can and do do. But I have discovered so much more that is possible within - as it turns out, having only a balcony, and no actual backyard, is not a deterrent when looking to live more self-sufficiently, and Madigan addresses viable options for all kinds of living circumstances. There really is something for everyone within, and inspiration is inevitable.
What else could you want? Do you need? Well, after reading Madigan's book, apparently I want to have and do alot more with my life and garden in the city. I've already been trying to turn my 1/16th (?) of an acre city garden over to chickens, veggies, and fruit, but, yikes!, this book has been an absolute dream find for me. It has made me realize that I've barely cracked the surface as far as creating a life that is in happy harmony with the plant and animal world, not to mention how my family's eating experience will become more fun, more fresh, and more delicious! I can't wait to start making my own mozzarella and planting those nut trees! That will be the easy part...getting my husband to agree to those four gorgeous blue Andulusian chickens I've been coveting might be slightly harder.
This book has some wonderful planning diagrams and some really good info. Having said that, and having read many books on the subject at the library, most of it is not original information and has been gleaned from other Storey books. And it's very obvious! However, it's a good place to start for a beginner.
I don't like it because it doesn't go into enough depth (fencing, pest/critter deterrents, buildings) on certain topics and spends WAY too much time on things that don't really need explanation (flavors of ice cream, flowers, certain charts). I don't really care for some of the gardening advice either, but that's more of a personal preference. I prefer Ruth Stout's How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back: A New Method of Mulch Gardening approach.
In general, I prefer The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It for an well explained, well thought out, season by season, no-nonsense treatment of the homesteading subject.
I checked this out of the library before buying, and I'm so glad I did.
The premise of this book is exciting. I love the cover illustration, and first few pages have great illustrations of how much you can produce on different sized lots. However, the rest of the book is a simply a rehashed encyclopedia of information that is incredibly frustrating to read. There is no "story" here -- no personal anecdotes, no interviews with people who have done this, no journalistic writing. Since that's not the chosen direction of this book, I can accept that. But without an interesting story, I was hoping for really solid, detailed, concrete information about how to eventually accomplish the goal of turning one's yard into a homestead. I didn't get that either.
The information in this book is almost trivial -- there is a lot of it, and it's well organized, but nothing goes into enough detail to actually be useful. For example, the section on raising chickens provides a vague overview of what is required to keep chickens, then several pages on chicken breeds, but not quite enough information to actually *choose* a breed, then goes into a bunch of detail about how to determine the age of an egg, how to cook an egg, but no information on how to actually care for chickens. There is a section on butchering, which basically tells you to find someone who knows how to butcher a chicken. There is a rough diagram of a fancy chicken coop for 3 chickens, but no discussion of the pros and cons of different kinds of coops, or how to house more than 3 chickens.
Eventually, I realized I can get more information on any subject in this book by doing a Google search. The information in this book feels very rehashed, and I don't get the sense that the author has any personal experience with any of it (even though she might).
What this book is good for: Spend half an hour skimming through it for inspiration. Don't get bogged down on the unhelpful details. Write down any subjects that interest you, and go get a specialized book on that topic. - Beginning Gardening - Gardening - Sustainable Agriculture - Homesteading'
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