For the would-be homesteader,
The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan, is one book I can highly recommend. Just leafing through the chapters, you’ll be astounded at the sheer quantity of information you can find in this book. I found it to be a huge inspiration to try things and learn new skills.
The author, Carleen Madigan, who is listed on the book as a gardening editor at Storey Publishing, gives an amazing breadth of information in this fairly compact book.
At 339 pages, not including the appendices, this book is packed with ideas on how to make your property produce for you. The sample plan for laying out a 1/4 acre piece of property with a plan to produce a huge amount of homegrown food is simply inspiring.
The topics included range from gardening (including information on herbs, grains and orchards) to raising dairy goats and building your own chicken coop. She covers the basics of breadmaking, cheese-making, beer brewing, seed-saving and more.
Since buying this book, I have learned to love gardening, dehydrating foods, sprouting, wine- and beer-making, seed-saving and more. I still have more horizons to explore when we get the homestead going, so I plan to continue using this helpful book as an inspiration and guide.