19 Homesteading Books Every Homesteader Needs

One of the most frequently asked questions I see about homesteading is the best book to help you along your journey. So, I’ve compiled a list of the best homesteading books to help you along. Each is fantastic in different ways and can help you in a multitude of areas on your journey.

19 Of the Best Books for Homesteading

1. Encyclopedia of Country Living – By Carla Emery

No homestead library should be without this book, which is akin to the homesteader’s bible. Everything from purchasing a plot of land to building a cabin, beekeeping, home remedies, and everything in between can be found in this book.

Everything is laid out in a clear, concise manner and you’re sure to find what you’re looking for, at least from a basic standpoint, in this book making it a great reference book.

2. The Foxfire Series – By Eliot Wigginton

A series of 12 books, with two separate anniversary editions, the series contains a ton of information gathered from interviews about Appalachian heritage. Each book contains information on a series of traditional skills that are included in the title.

If you want to learn from people who have done it all and seen it all, these books are a must-have. All topics from planting by the signs to herbal remedies, blacksmithing, and hog butchering are covered in this series.

3. Welcome to the Farm – By Shaye Elliott

One of my favorite books, Welcome to the Farm is a great look into basic principles for modern homesteading in a practical, no-nonsense way. Shaye and her family are modern homesteaders and the book provides all kinds of info on starting your own backyard homestead.

Learn the basics of growing your own food from starting a garden, to raising chickens and dairy animals to preserving the harvest. Perfect for the weekend homesteader that is just starting to get their feet wet, Shaye gives information in a fun, easy to understand way that brings the knowledge we need in a great way.

4. The Resilient Farm and Homestead – By Ben Falk

Another favorite of mine, this book will help you turn your homestead from a barren wasteland into a regenerative, productive homestead.

Learn how to create a permaculture design, utilize compost, and food production strategies in more in this fantastic book full of detailed information.

5. Folk’s This Ain’t Normal – By Joel Salatin

Not necessarily a how-to book, but an essential book, nonetheless. This book is one of my favorite reads. It does give you some advice on how to live closer to your food and nature, within it. But more than that, it is thought-provoking.

This book will take you down the lane of how perverse our culture is and how far removed from our food and purpose we truly are. Definitely a must.

6. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – By Barbara Kingsolver

Written by Barbara and her family, this book takes you over the course of their first year moving from suburban Arizona to rural Appalachia and spending the year living off of local, seasonal foods. Full of advice as well as inspiration to take the next step toward food freedom, this book is fantastic.

It also has some great recipes utilizing what they had available in Virginia for each season. Its pages are all dog-eared and post-it noted up on my book shelf.

7. The Family Garden Plan – By Melissa K. Norris

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned pro, The Family Garden Plan is sure to have lots of helpful tidbits of information in it for you to produce your own homegrown food. This book is a complete, guide on producing food from your garden to feed your family.

Full of a twelve-month guide for gardening, practical advice to get you going on the right foot, charts, and worksheets to help you plan out the best, most productive garden ever are in this book. It’s definitely a must-have.

8. Mini-Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre – By Brett L. Markham

Probably the first book I ever picked up on homesteading, this quickly became one of my favorites. Perfect for those of us working with a small space, this book is an excellent place to start and makes backyard farming seem so much more achievable than some other books where people have large tracts of land at their disposal.

From planning to purchasing and saving seeds, caring for your seedlings, and growing your crops in raised beds and everything in between can be found in the pages of this book and make your small plot of land seem so much larger and more productive than it looked before you read the book.

9. The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It – By John Seymour

Another good book, this book is a complete guide that will help you on your way to a self-sufficient lifestyle. Learn the basic steps to create the life of your dreams as well as why you should take those steps.

This book contains the basics of cultivating self sufficiency and is a great tool to keep in your arsenal.

10. The Independent Farmstead – By Beth Dougherty

Learn to start from scratch and create a productive farm, no matter the state of your land. This book goes in-depth on the processes and things that have worked for this family on their farm, which was deemed “not fit for agriculture.”

This book is comprehensive, has a holistic approach, and can help fill in any gaps that the other books don’t quite get to, another must-have.

11. Back to Basics – By Abigail Gehring

Another comprehensive book, this book will help you on your journey from finding land to turning it into a nice, productive piece of property to meet your self-sufficiency goals.

If you want to know how to live self-sufficiently as our ancestors did, this book is fantastic. Learn everything you need to know from choosing land to building a home and barn by hand to growing and raising your food and preserving the harvest.

12. Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs – By Rosemary Gladstar

Living off the land includes utilizing what that land provides. Whether you’re a beginner or not, this book is a fantastic resource for cultivating, identifying, and utilizing medicinal herbs for a more holistic approach.

This book contains all the things you need to know about growing and identifying your own medicinal herb garden as well as recipes to make your own salves, tinctures, and more.

13. The Skillful Forager – By Leda Meredith

While I am a huge proponent of purchasing foraging books specific to your area, this book is fantastic for all areas. This book will help you identify wild edibles as well as when the best time to pick certain edibles are as well as picking the best of the best.

From fungi and barks to leaves and berries, this book contains a ton of info to find and identify wild edibles as well as creating delicious recipes with your finds.

14. The Complete Book of Home Preserving – By Judi Kingry

Food preservation is a big part of the homesteading journey and can be a bit overwhelming. This book is a must-have to get started on your canning journey.

Find tried and true recipes and techniques to preserve your high-acid foods via water bath canning and your low-acid foods via pressure canning and you’ll know that the recipes are tried, tested, and safe, giving you peace of mind while you begin your journey.

15. The River Cottage Curing & Smoking Handbook – By Steven Lamb

Curing meat the old-fashioned way was a skill we wanted to learn as soon as we began this journey. But, it can be so difficult to find recipes that aren’t full of pink salts and nitrates. I wanted to learn traditional methods that could stand the test of time.

This book did not disappoint. Full of info from sourcing your meats to butchering and plenty of recipes to keep you busy smoking and curing your own meat just like they’ve done for generations, I highly recommend this book.

16. The New Organic Grower – By Eliot Coleman

This book is great for anyone, but especially useful for small-scale farmers growing on a couple of acres or less. Full of applicable information, this comprehensive guide will help you grow your garden from nothing to productive in no time.

Perfect to pick up and read during the winter and grab for reference during the growing season, you’re sure to find lots of useful information in this book that will help you produce food for your family with simple, easy to understand instruction.

17. Gaia’s Garden – By Toby Hemenway

Permaculture is such an important part of modern homesteading, but it can be difficult to scale it down to size for those of us without much space.

This book is the solution, providing step-by-step instructions to create permaculture, an “ecological garden” on your own homestead.

18. The Self Sufficient Backyard – By Ron & Johanna Melchiore

This is a great place to start for those of us pursuing a self-sufficient, off-grid lifestyle. Ron and Johanna share plenty of helpful tips on how they have created their own homestead and thrived off of it for several years.

DIY projects like water collection, generating electricity, and other things that aren’t necessarily covered in other guides in this list are covered here.

19. The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals – By Gail Damerow

This is a great resource to use as a general guide to animal husbandry. Everything from dairy cattle to dairy goats, grass-fed meat production, raising chickens and rabbits and even bees is covered in this book.

This is a great book for getting started with raising your own backyard animals, and then you can look into other, breed-specific books for a more in-depth guide once you’ve covered the basics in this book.

While not a complete list, these books are sure to help you toward self sufficiency and your homesteading lifestyle.

If you’re looking for ideas on how to reconnect with your food, nature, and the heritage way of life, you’ve come to the right place.

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