The Modern Homestead Garden

This was great! As a new homesteader, this was a great read. It is laid out well. The sections made sense, the charts were easy to figure out. The photo quality is excellent.

I find it easy to flip back through and find what I am looking for after the first read through too, since it's so well organized. Which makes it a good quality reference book long term.

I will definitely be recommending this book!

I started watching The Rusted Garden several years ago and was so excited when I learned that he was writing a book. I enjoy starting my day watching a video, but at heart, I am a book person, and to have so much of his gardening advice in my hands, to me, is worth a whole pile of compost, a/k/a black gold.
If you want to live more self-sufficiently and grow as much of your own food as possible, this is a great place to begin. The book is divided into ten chapters that cover everything from building your first garden, to seed starting, choosing the right variety of plants or seeds, disease, and pest control, and preserving or cooking with your harvest. The information is presented in a straight forward manner, and there are lovely pictures that accompany each chapter.
Whether you have room to grow a large garden or just enough room for some pots, you will find something to help you get started or improve your garden. I enjoyed my time reading this ebook, and I am looking forward to buying a physical copy when it publishes. A terrific resource shared by a great teacher.

Date reviewed/posted: December 30, 2020
Publication date: February 9, 2021

When life for the entire universe and planet has turned on its end, you are continuing to #maskup to be in #COVID19 #socialisolation as the #secondwave is upon us, AND the worst sciatica attack in your life means you MIGHT sleep 3 hours a night,  superspeed readers like me can read 300+ pages/hour, so yes, I have read the book … and many more today.

I requested and received a temporary digital Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley, the publisher and the author in exchange for an honest review.  

From the publisher, as I do not repeat the contents or story of books in reviews, I let them do it as they do it better than I do 😸.

If concerns about the environment and the health and wellness of yourself and your family leave you longing to make a change, start growing and preserving your own organic foods. With the guidance found in The Modern Homestead Garden, you'll discover how little land and effort it takes to start growing healthy, nutritious food.

Modern homesteading is a lifestyle focused on living lightly on the land and increasing self-sufficiency. It doesn’t matter whether “home” is 50 acres in the country, a suburban corner lot, or an apartment in the city; all you need is a desire to reduce your footprint on the earth and live a more sustainable life. To be a modern homesteader, you don’t have to live off-grid and you don’t have to give up contemporary conveniences.

For most modern homesteaders, it all starts with making the conscious decision to reduce your reliance on the commercial food supply chain. In The Modern Homestead Garden, author and YouTube gardening star Gary Pilarchik of The Rusted Garden walks you step-by-step through the process of building a homestead garden. 
From laying out the planting beds, nurturing the soil, and starting seeds, straight through to cooking and preserving the harvest, Gary serves as your warm and accessible guide, no matter how large or how small your homestead is. 

With the guidance found here, you’ll move at your own pace, learn, share, and enjoy the journey as you slowly transform your home into an edible landscape with:
**Practical advice to site and build your very first homestead garden
**Crop profiles to get you growing quickly 
**Cost-effective ways to source seeds and plants 
**The low-down on feeding plants in an earth-friendly way
**Methods for preparing planting beds and containers
**Soil prep advice every homesteader can use 
**All-natural trouble-shooting solutions 
**How to include berries, cane fruits, vine crops, and fruit trees in your homestead plans
**Food preservation advice that's easy and delicious 

Modern homesteading is as much an attitude as it is an action. It’s not dependent on how much land you have or even how much food you can grow; it’s about cultivating self-sufficiency and self-reliance, no matter its level. Welcome to The Modern Homestead Garden.

This is a great little book that will get you gardening and growing your own food.. The instructions are great for new gardeners, especially, and they make a lot of sense to this black-thumbed gal. (I once killed a silk plant. Seriously.) The advice on food preservation is especially relevant these days as food waste is obscene on both the personal and restaurant level.

 (BTW I, too, had to look it up as I thought from the description that I was going to be taught to grow sugar cane on my balcony....... The term "cane fruit" (or "cane-fruit"), or "cane berry" (or "caneberry"), applies to any Rubus species or hybrid which is commonly grown with supports such as wires or canes, including raspberries, blackberries, and hybrids such as loganberry, boysenberry, marionberry and tayberry.

Out in time to plan your garden/plot/container this year, I highly recommend this book.

As always, I try to find a reason to not rate with stars as I simply adore emojis (outside of their incessant use by "🙏-ed Social Influencer Millennials/#BachelorNation survivors/Tik-Tok and YouTube  Millionaires/snowflakes / literally-like-overusers etc. " on Instagram and Twitter... Get a real job, people!) so let's give it 🌱🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱

This is a great introduction to growing your own fruit and veg for a novice gardener. With just the right amount of expertise and common sense, accompanied by some stunning photographs, this is books takes the mystery out of home grown food and makes the reader want to get stuck in right away. The term “homestead” suggests its for an American audience but the advice is just as relevant for readers elsewhere.

This is now one of my favorite vegetable and fruit gardening books. It is comprehensive but doesn’t dwell on textbook style minutiae, which makes it an excellent how to reference for both new and experienced gardeners. The author covers growing techniques  for a variety of vegetables and fruits that are suitable for home growers, with helpful information on cool and warm season crops, optimum soil temperatures, days to harvest, etc. Topics addressed include seed starting, organic fertilizers and disease control methods, composting and growing in containers. All of the text is accompanied by gorgeous full color photos that make me itch to get out in the garden. I especially like the author’s laid back approach and recommendation not to be too dogmatic in following his directions, but rather to let experience guide your practice. I highly recommend this book.

This was a good beginner guide to growing an edible garden. There's a lot of information but it is set out in a good way, it gets to the point and is easy to follow.

This is exactly what I wanted... a look at sustainable gardening and some of the methods that might help a beginner. It has a step by step and covers all the basics....pests, containers, seeding, cold weather crops, and warm weather crops.

   What did I like? This is a great book for starting a homestead garden. This is my first year gardening and this covers a start of doing it yourself. With the recent pandemic more people are moving from the cities and it’s clear that survival may include growing your own food. I was tickled to be offered this book to peruse since I’m one of those people that want to eat my own crops.

   Would I recommend or buy? It’s really a beginners basic but still has a ton of tips and tricks. I would definitely buy a copy, and recommend to people looking to grow their own food. You don’t have to have a huge yard but it’d be difficult for people in apartments to get a ton out of this book. I really enjoyed it.

   I received a complimentary copy to read and voluntarily left a review! Five stars! Huge enjoyment for me!

The Modern Homestead Garden: Growing Self-sufficiency in Any Size Backyard by Gary Pilarchik
Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group – Cool Springs Press
Genre: Home & Garden
Release Date: March 23, 2021

The Modern Homestead Garden: Growing Self-sufficiency in Any Size Backyard by Gary Pilarchik is a beginners guide to starting a homestead garden and increasing self-sufficiency.

I found this book to be filled with so much great information and it was written in a easy to understand way. The pictures were beautiful and really added to the book.

I would definitely recommend this book to someone who is looking to start their own garden.
I'm so grateful to Joanne Fluke, Kensington Books, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this ARC ebook in exchange for my honest review.