There is so much to learn before starting a homestead! Finding the best homesteading resources will help you answer questions like the following:
- How do you raise animals for meat and milk?
- What do you need to know before starting a honeybee hive?
- Are you prepared to bring pigs onto your property?
- What records do you need to keep?
- How can you eat seasonally and preserve food?
- What alternative energy options are available?
Sure, you can search Pinterest for tutorials on homesteading, prepping, and all other things related to living a self-sustainable lifestyle, however, there is something about having a book in your hands that makes learning a little bit more satisfying.
Because of this, I have put together this list of my favorite homesteading books, e-books, and printable resources for you to check out for yourself!
The Best Homestead Resources for a Self-Sustainable Lifestyle
The books and digital resources listed here are packed with practical information to help you create the most efficient homestead for you and your family!
Homesteading Books
1. Storey’s Basic Country Skills: A Practical Guide to Self-Reliance
Okay…so every single one of Storey’s Guides are excellent homesteading books!
There is a guide for almost anything you would want to do on your homestead from basic skills to raising specific animals to beekeeping and composting. So pick the one that suits you and get started!
- Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honeybees
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Pigs
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Dairy Goats
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Horses
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Rabbits
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Ducks
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Miniature Livestock
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Sheep
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Poultry
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Meat Goats
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Beef Cattle
- Storey’s Guide to Raising Turkeys
- Let It Rot! The Gardener’s Guide to Composting: Storey’s Down-To-Earth Guides
2. Born-Again Dirt: Farming to the Glory of God
If I could recommend just one homesteading resource to a beginning homesteader, it would be this one.
Born-Again Dirt is packed with encouragement and reminders of the real why of homesteading…stewardship.
I read this book for the first time begrudgingly as an assignment in a college summer class and it turned into one of my favorite assignments of my college career in spite of my original disdain.
My separate passions of agriculture and Christian ministry were merged with this book and I fell in love with it! The reading assignment was in 2010 and I still have the same book on my shelf today with no plans to discard it.
3. Rodale’s All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: The Indispensable Resource for Every Gardener
This book was given to me when I enrolled in my local Master Gardeners class. I have a pretty wilted green thumb, therefore I rely on gardening resources like this. Even if you don’t garden organically you can find tons of value in this book!
4. The Ultimate Self-Sufficiency Handbook: A Complete Guide to Baking, Crafts, Gardening, Preserving Your Harvest, Raising Animals, and More (The Self-Sufficiency Series)
The Ultimate Self-Sufficiency Handbook was the first homesteading book that I purchased. It contains many topics from cooking from scratch to preserving food to growing and raising your own food. This book works for beginners as well as experienced homesteaders.
5. The Backyard Beekeeper – Revised and Updated: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden
I purchased this book a couple of years ago after we decided to start keeping honeybees. It is an excellent resource to get started with and to come back to as you need it…and trust me, you will need it!
6. Raising Poultry on Pasture: Ten Years of Success
You can grab this book by the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association for pretty much any info that you need on pasturing birds.
We received this one when we became members of the APPPA a couple of years ago. If you aren’t raising poultry on pasture, but you are curious about the practice, this book can shed some light on the pros of pasturing.
7. The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 40th Anniversary Edition: The Original Manual of Living Off the Land and Doing It Yourself
The Encyclopedia of Country Living is the next homesteading resource on my purchase list. I have heard so many excellent reviews on it that I just can’t stand not having it on my shelf anymore. You should check it out as well!
8. The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It
Trying to figure out how to apply all of the self-sufficiency ideas that you have floating around in your mind? Then out John Seymour’s Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It to help you get it done!
9. Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills (Back to Basics Guides)
Flip through this Back to Basics guide to improve your practical skill repertoire.
10. One Acre and Security: How to Live Off the Earth Without Ruining It
Think you don’t have enough land to be self-sufficient? Think again! You don’t need 40+ acres to make your homestead dreams happen, in fact, you can homestead with less than one!
11. Soil Sisters: A Toolkit for Women Farmers
Soil Sisters is a homesteading book specifically for female farmers and homesteaders. It guides you through business planning, tool use, blending family & home life with farm life, and more!
12. Mountain Medicine: The Herbal Remedies of Tommie Bass
If you are interested in foraging, herbalism, and natural medicine, then this is THE book for you! Darryl Patton, a.k.a The Southern Herbalist, composed this book based on the teachings and remedies of the late Tommie Bass.
13. Keeping Bees with a Smile: Principles and Practice of Natural Beekeeping
Interested in natural beekeeping? This book will walk you through low maintenance beekeeping that allows the bees to do what they do without too much interference.
14. Polyface Designs: A Comprehensive Construction Guide for Scalable Farming Infrastructure
This book contains designs and plans from Joel Salatin’s farm. The egg mobile, a rabbit cage stand, hoop houses, handling facilities, and soooo much more!
15. The Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve-Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency
This book has homesteading projects for you to try out each month of the year! For example, food preservation and seed saving.
16. Rebuilding the Foodshed
Learn how to create a local and sustainable food system from your homestead with Rebuilding the Foodshed.
17. Woman-Powered Farm: Manual for a Self-Sufficient Lifestyle from Homestead to Field
It may seem odd to think that women need a separate farm manual than men, but let’s face it… men & women are different creatures.
We have different strengths and weaknesses, different learning styles, and different ways of achieving goals (generally speaking).
Woman-Powered Farm encompasses farming, homemaking, and home or farm-schooling from a woman’s perspective.
18. The Self-Sufficient Backyard
This book is packed full of projects to help you live a lifestyle of self-sufficiency on as little as ¼ of an acre! Read this book to learn more about sustainable food production for your backyard!
19. The Farm Girl’s Guide to Preserving the Harvest
Ann Accetta-Scott’s most popular book will guide you through preserving the food that you grow and raise throughout the year using the following methods:
- Canning
- Freezing
- Dehydrating
- Fermenting
20. The Homesteader’s Herbal Companion
Make the most use out of your herb garden with Amy Fewell’s book, The Homesteader’s Herbal Companion.
This book will walk you through:
- Harvesting and preserving herbs
- Safe medicinal uses/Creating a home apothecary
- Treating livestock illnesses with herbs
- Making all natural cleaners
- And more!
21. The Homesteader’s Natural Chicken Keeping Handbook
This book is a great resource for backyard chicken keepers!
It will help you to:
- understand why chickens do what they do
- how to naturally treat chicken health issues
- how to set up your chicken coop
- how to hatch chicks
- how to create your own poultry or egg business
- and even how to cook yummy food with your eggs and poultry!
22. 50 Do It Yourself Projects for Keeping Goats
If you have goats, you need this book! Janet Garman from Timber Creek Farm will show you step-by-step how to complete 50 different projects from fencing to milking stands to play structures and more!
23. 50 Do It Yourself Projects for Keeping Chickens
If you have backyard chickens-you guessed it- you need this book! Janet will walk you through step by step how to complete 50 DIY projects for your flock from chicken coops, brooders, dust baths, and more!
Homesteading E-Books and Courses
E-books and courses are great homesteading resources! Even though hard copies are my fav, there is a ton of value to be found within digital resources.
Online resources can be accessed on-the-go for easy referencing and they don’t take up any physical space.
There are many electronic homesteading books available online. These are my favorites:
24. Starting a Homestead from Scratch
This e-book will walk you through all of the very first decisions that need to be made when you are starting your homestead.
- What should you look for in land?
- How do you choose the right livestock?
- How can you manage your farm finances efficiently?
- What kind of goals should you set?
The best thing about this book is that it is FREE and you can get your copy here.
25. Welcome to the World of Homesteading
You will find a guide to seasonal homestead goal-setting plus goal-setting worksheets in this free e-book!
26. How to Save Money By Homesteading
This FREE guide is just what you need to get you on the right path to saving money and living healthier on your homestead!
27. The Holistic Gardening Handbook
This free e-book comes with 15 lessons for becoming a better organic gardener. After you read this book, use The Homestead Garden Planner to maximize your garden’s profitability.
28. Creating Your Off-Grid Homestead
Learn how to create your off-grid homestead from scratch with this step-by-step e-book!
29. The Homestead Goal Setting Mini-Course
This online course is one that I created to help you set actionable and attainable goals for your homestead.
It walks you through homestead goal setting from brainstorming to setting deadlines and action steps that help to ensure your success.
In this mini-course, you will also set up a 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year homestead plan to keep you on track.
30. The Sustainable Canning Course
Ann Accetta-Scott is the queen of canning! In this course, she shows you how to properly preserve your garden’s harvest through canning so that nothing you grow will go to waste.
31. The Sustainable Living Mentorship Program
This program has a huge amount of value! When you sign up you get:
- Bi-monthly mentorship sessions with Ann via Zoom
- Seasonal tutorial videos
- Two recipe cards/month
- And more!
Homesteading Websites and Youtube Channels
There is a wealth of valuable information to be found within homestead blogs and websites. Check out these homestead resource posts, then get to work building your dream!
32. Mama on the Homestead
That’s me! I am working hard to create content and products that will help other homesteading women build the homestead of their dreams from scratch no matter where they are.
I write about livestock husbandry, cooking from scratch, old-world skills, kids on the homestead, sustainable gardening, and homemaking.
Mamaonthehomestead.com
33. A Farm Girl in the Making
This website is dear to me. It is operated by my friend, Ann Accetta-Scott who just moved from Washington State to Tennessee only a couple of hours from me!
She is a food preservation queen who can help you with pretty much anything you need on your homestead! She also makes some delicious homemade co*cktails that you definitely need to try!
34. The Honeystead
Kaylee Richardson knows her stuff when it comes to beekeeping. Watch her on Youtube to learn about natural beekeeping and grab one of her hive tools from the Etsy Shop!
35. Homesteaders of America
The Homesteaders of America website has a wealth of information for homesteaders whether you are in your first year or if you already have an established homestead.
You can view a lot of the information for free, but there are a ton of additional videos, courses, and perks to an HoA membership.
If you would like to attend an HoA conference and are interested in volunteering, email me at jessica@homesteadersofamerica.com and I can give you all the info you need to get signed up!
36. The Fewell Homestead
If you are interested in herbalism, chicken keeping, and cooking from scratch, then you need to run over to The Fewell Homestead!
37. Timber Creek Farm
Fiber arts, raising sheep, and keeping backyard chickens are all passions of Janet Garman from Timber Creek Farm. Check out her website and her books here!
38. Justin Rhodes and Abundance+
Justin and Rebekah Rhodes have created an incredible online community for homesteaders. Abundance+ gives you access to a ton of documentary style videos on homesteading, private groups forums, building plans, recipes, discounts to quality companies, a homesteader directory, and more!
Homesteading Resources: Printable Management & Record Keeping
Printable homestead resources can help you to streamline your homestead planning and management. These products and freebies are so worth checking out!
39. The Homestead Management Binder
The Homestead Management Binder will allow you to streamline your record keeping and planning for your livestock, garden, farm finances, and goal setting.
It includes the entire Livestock Management Binder, Homestead Garden Planner, , AND !
40. The Homestead Mama Planning Pack
The Homestead Mama’s Planning Pack is the homestead, homeschool, and household management tool that I use for my home, farm, and school.
It has almost 300 record keeping and reference sheets tailored to homesteading mamas!
This planning pack includes the entire Homestead Management Binder, The Household Management Notebook, AND the Simplified Homeschool Planner!
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