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Plan and plant a successful and sustainable backyard farm — from a quarter acre to a full acre and beyond — right in your own backyard. By raising and harvesting their own fruits, vegetables, chickens, bees, milk-bearing animals, and more, people are growing locally, sustainably, and at a fraction of the cost.
Backyard Farming on an Acre (More or Less) is written by someone who has planned and run a successful small-scale farm. Angela England guides you through the essentials of planning a small farm — deciding what should be grown or raised, implementing proven, sustainable techniques, and maximizing yield and harvest.
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A comprehensive and actionable guide to homestead abundance Backyard Farming on an Acre (More or Less) is the book I wished I had 30 years ago, when I first imagined our homesteading dream. It is comprehensive. It is actionable. Not like the first homesteading book I read, which was just a list of recipes from all over the USA, in no particular order, Angela England’s new book offers a thorough, step by step plan to add more self reliance to your life, whether you have a lot in town, a half acre in the suburbs, or a quarter section in rural paradise. My favourite part of this book is its emphasis on getting started right now, where you are at, even in a city apartment.If you have dreamed of homesteading someday, after you’ve paid off your debts, or after your partner retires, or after you find your dream rural property, you need to get this book and change your mindset. The reality is that the homestead lifestyle, will help you pay off your debt, it will help you get the lifestyle you want, while you are working in town, and it will prepare you to be more self sufficient even in the city. This isn’t one of those antique homestead books that says you have to find a remote location and be off grid to be a successful homesteader. It takes into account the modern realities of backyard chicken ordinances, ordering stock by telephone, and reliance on feedmills. The book even has suggestions for being more self-reliant from the feedmill, something many of the modern livestock books lack. You don’t have to make a huge life change in order to begin a backyard farm. For most of the people in the United States, it’s possible to begin living more self-sufficiently right where you are. Don’t wait for “the perfect setup” to get started. Start growing your own food now, even if it’s just 10 percent to start. Start doing for yourself. Start lessening your footprint. Start making things for yourself instead of having “buy it from the store” as your default mind-set. (p. 27)Backyard Farming is organized in the way most people adapt to the homestead lifestyle, beginning with gardening and moving into small livestock, and then bees. The book is divided into 5 parts. Part 1 “Living large on a small scale,” sets out the framework of the sustainable philosophy behind this lifestyle. This section discusses the growing food crisis, and leads the reader through different land choices from rural acreage to a lot in the city, zoning restrictions, water availability, and size restraints, offering several plans to get you off to a good start.Part 2 looks at gardening from an intensive and organic mindset. First, assess how much space you have. Include concrete patios and porches in this assessment. Any area that will get around six hours of sunlight or more can be adapted to a productive place. Balconies, window sills, patios, front yards, side borders, and more can be adapted and used to grow fruits and vegetables. Even relatively small backyards can house rabbits, chickens, or bees. (p. 27)The book offers growing conditions for several vegetables, fruit, perennials, and herbs that the backyard gardener in a temperate zone would consider.Part 3 explores raising livestock for eggs, milk, fiber, and meat. Butchering is handled in part 4 in only 3 pages, so this isn’t your sole resource for that. Animals cared for in a well-maintained system will not suffer the diseases of overcrowding, poor eating, stress, and misuse as animals in the typical commercial systems. Learn how to create a system that respects the land and your animals at the same time. Whether you want to raise animals for meat, eggs, milk, fiber, or honey, you’ll find some great options for getting started. (179)Part 3 lists several animal breeds under each species, that are appropriate for different uses or that are dual purpose. Not every possible option is listed but enough of the main breeds to set you in the right direction. If you are just starting out raising livestock, this book will give you enough information to allow you to search online for more information or to let you visit local breeders to get an idea of your local resources for breeding stock. The book will give you a good idea of the housing and forage needs of different livestock so you can make the best decision for your specific situation.Part 4 focuses on “Enjoying the Bounty” and offers a guide for eating seasonally, canning, freezing, dehydrating, and making herbal infusions, vinegars, and tinctures. This section includes a few recipes and some instructions, but only scratches the surface of the true bounty available from your backyard farm. From here you’ll be able to find additional cookbooks or more comprehensive how-to guides in the areas that catch your interest, from Amazon, or from my daily “Free Kindle Books for Homesteaders Lists”.Part 5 was my favourite part of the book — “Crafting from the…
Handy, Easy-to-Read Resource My usual M.O. with a book about living off the land is turning to the gardening chapters first. Since my move from California to Texas, I haven’t been able to grow a thing. Not even a self-respecting weed will take hold.When “Backyard Farming on an Acre (More or Less)” by Angela England arrived in my mailbox, the gardening chapter is where I started. I was looking for any hint to make something useful come up in my garden plot. I did find some useful tidbits of information that I had forgotten or hadn’t thought about.Next on my list were chickens. I’ve been reading a lot about chickens and beekeeping (also covered in this book) recently. I want to try my hand at both in the coming year. Sure enough, I found some additional pieces to add to my journal of information.Each section of “Backyard Farming” has something that I can add to my knowledge about using my land productively and wisely. In addition, Ms. England has added how to use products from a micro-farm, such as recipes, crafts, and household products.The book is nicely illustrated with photos from Ms. England’s own backyard farm. Throughout tidbits of information are sprinkled throughout in small sections: definitions, over the garden fence (homegrown hints), thorny matters (safety and other cautions, and more.Nearly half the content is about gardening. Gardening is the one thing most people can do even in cramped urban areas. The section on animals is about animals that are relatively easy to raise (chickens, rabbits, goats, and sheep). These are good starter animals.One thing to remember when reading this handy book is the definition of a backyard. Having been raised in suburbia, I still think of a backyard as a small (o.k. tiny) space behind the house. Ms. England is writing about a much larger backyard, more or less an acre.Gardening techniques, such as vertical gardening or container gardening, that are doable even in an apartment, are presented. However, the possibilities of raising productive animals in urban and suburban areas are not covered. With more cities and neighborhoods now allowing chickens within regulated guidelines, that topic would fit the suburban backyard.Two areas that I found lacking were details of how-to and Internet resources. In some ways these go together. For example, there’s a section on making goat milk soap. While there is detail and hints on the soap making process, there is no recipe or resource for recipesI like Internet resources. There are books in the resource section, which is listed by chapter. But only one Internet resource is available, a video. The companion website (backyardfarmingguide.com) has downloadable resources, including plans for some nifty chicken coops. But, again lacking in links to other Internet resources.A “Homeschool Companion Guide”, written by Susan Mueller, is offered as a free download with the purchase of “Backyard Farming”. Don’t pass up this offer just because you don’t homeschool or have children at home. The links to instructional videos are valuable to anyone starting this adventure.Ms. England’s conversational style makes this book a keeper on my shelf. The information and details are presented in non-technical and non-farm terms that I can relate to. No matter where you are on your road to independence, this is a handy reference.
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