The Backyard Homestead Read online

  THE

  BACKYARD HOMESTEAD

  THE

  BACKYARD HOMESTEAD

  Edited by Carleen Madigan

  The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by

  publishing practical information that encourages

  personal independence in harmony with the environment.

  Art direction and book design by Dan O. Williams

  Text production by Dan O. Williams and Jennifer Jepson Smith

  Cover illustrations by © Michael Austin

  Additional back cover illustrations by Bethany Caskey: top row left; Beverly Duncan:

  bottom row right; Douglas Paisley: bottom row left; © Elayne Sears: top row center

  and right, bottom row center

  Interior illustration credits appear on page 353

  Indexed by Nancy D. Wood

  © 2009 by Storey Publishing, LLC

  Most of the text in this book is excerpted from previously published books by Storey Publishing. For a complete list of titles and author credits, see page 354.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce illustrations in a review with appropriate credits; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other — without written permission from the publisher.

  The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recommendations are made without guarantee on the part of the author or Storey Publishing. The author and publisher disclaim any liability in connection with the use of this information. For additional information, please contact Storey Publishing, 210 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247.

  Storey books are available for special premium and promotional uses and for customized editions. For further information, please call 1-800-793-9396.

  Printed in the United States by Versa Press

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  The backyard homestead / edited by Carleen Madigan.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-1-60342-138-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  1. Kitchen gardens. 2. Food—Preservation.

  3. Meat animals. I. Madigan, Carleen.

  SB321.B1434 2009

  641—dc22

  2009001338

  If I was to change this life I lead,

  I’d be Johnny Tomato Seed.

  ‘Cause I know what this country needs:

  homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see.

  — Guy Clark

  contents

  Welcome

  Start Your Own Backyard Homestead

  The Home Vegetable Garden

  Backyard Fruits and Nuts

  Easy, Fragrant Herbs

  Home-grown Grains

  Poultry for Eggs and Meat

  Meat and Dairy

  Food from the Wild

  Resources

  Appendix

  Credits

  Index

  Welcome!

  In the early 1980s, my family lived in a small gray house on what I now realize was a half-acre backyard homestead situated on a quiet, tree-lined street in Nampa, Idaho. I was just a small child then, but I still remember the vegetable garden my parents planted each year, tucked away in the far corner of our backyard. There must have been tomatoes and lettuce and squash, along with the other usual vegetable garden suspects, but I paid more attention to the pink raspberries that scrambled along the back fence. They were sun-warmed and sweet, and whenever I snatched a fistful of ripe berries and hid from my sister in the evergreens along the back property line, I felt that I had the makings of my own kingdom, or a fort of self-sufficiency.

  In the spring, my mother and I walked the abandoned railroad tracks, collecting wild asparagus (Euell Gibbons would have been proud). My father caught trout from the Snake River and smoked them, and the lingering aroma of the steel smoker inhabited the garage the rest of the year. With some women from our church, my mother started a gleaning group that collected imperfect vegetables and fruit from local farmers, canned them, and donated the goods to feed the needy in our town. She canned for us, too, and a whole room in our basement was filled with sparkling jars of cherries, peaches, tomatoes, and green beans. And, of course, there were her home-baked pita bread, granola, soups, casseroles, and pies. There was always something cooking.

  A whole room in our basement was filled with sparkling jars of cherries, peaches, tomatoes, and green beans.

  In 1983, Storey Publishing printed its first catalog of books, many of which would have appealed to my parents and other self-sufficiency enthusiasts of the early 1980s. The books included Sweet and Hard Cider (by the then less-than-famous Annie Proulx); Keeping the Harvest; Home Sausage Making; The Zucchini Cookbook; Woodstove Cookery; The Canning, Freezing, Curing, and Smoking of Meat, Fish, and Game; Carrots Love Tomatoes; Fruits and Berries for the Home Garden; The Family Cow; and, of course, the classic The Have-More Plan. (For a list of the other Storey titles you’ll enjoy, see page 345.)

  That all of these books are still in print after so many years is a testament to the timeless practicality of their content. Today, they are being rediscovered by a whole new generation of readers who — whether or not they were raised by parents who went “back to the land” — want to learn what it takes to provide their own food. They aren’t farmers, but they have a little bit of yard (or maybe even none at all yet) and a whole lot of passion. Maybe you’re one of those people.

  It’s about loving the process of creating something delicious and the joy of sharing my creations with people I care about.

  If so, The Backyard Homestead is for you. It’s an introduction to the best of Storey’s information about food production. I hope it’ll inspire you and give you a starting point, a foothold to learn a few practical skills. Whether it’s canning tomatoes from your own garden or making fresh chèvre from a goat you milked yourself, this book will show you the way forward. Maybe you don’t have a garden or a goat, and you’ll be canning tomatoes from a nearby farm and making cheese with milk from a local dairy. It’s a good start. It’s also a way to pass along to your own children skills for self-sufficiency and to create in their minds the memory of time spent doing something practical and fun with the people they love.

  It’s amazing to me that I can still remember so much of my food life from when I was a child. Something from those days must have stuck with me, because I’ve become a person who gardens, forages, bakes, makes cheese, and puts up fruits and vegetables, much like my parents did. Through the summer, I harvest fresh vegetables from my garden (though most of my produce comes from a local farm), forage for wild mushrooms, freeze blueberries and cherries, and can apple-sauce, tomatoes, and peaches. On weekends during the winter, there’s almost always a pot of soup on the stove and a loaf of bread or a batch of biscuits in the oven. And as long as my local dairy farmers are milking their herd of grass-fed Canadiennes, I’ll be making my own mozzarella and cottage cheese.

  But to me, it’s not about food production, which sounds like an industrial term better suited to a factory farm than to my tiny kitchen. It’s about loving the process of creating something delicious and the joy of sharing my creations with people I care about.

  I hope that, after reading this book, you’ll discover these joys for yourself!

  Carleen Madigan

  Start Your Own Backyard Homestead

  Whether you’re starting off with an acre or two or just an apartment with a small
patio, there’s something you can do to provide some of your own food.

  Who knew, for instance, that an ordinary front yard can be planted to wheat, which you can harvest and grind for flour? Or that you can grow as many as 15 pounds of tomatoes from just one self-watering container on the back patio? Or that you can keep as many as a dozen chickens on a quarter-acre lot and still have space for vegetables, fruit trees, herbs, and even pigs? How exciting is that!

  But before you pile the kids into the old minivan and head out in search of dairy goats and hazelnut trees, take some time to consider the logistics of what you’re about to embark on.

  Step into the Yard

  The first step is simply to step outside. Take a look around and evaluate your landscape. How much space do you have to work with? Does your yard get enough sun to support a garden? (Most vegetables and fruits need six to eight hours a day in order to thrive.) How much rain does your region normally receive, and at what times during the year? Will you need to irrigate frequently? Do you live in a place that freezes solid during the winter, or will you be able to grow a few hardy greens through the colder months?

  If you’re thinking about keeping animals, there’s a lot to mull over, but you can start with the space they’ll require. Chickens and rabbits can be kept in fairly small quarters. Pigs need a surprisingly small amount of space, too (see page 286). You really shouldn’t think about keeping larger animals like goats, sheep, and cows, though, unless you’ve got at least a quarter acre to devote to pasture.

  Consider Your Preferences

  What kinds of food do you eat the most? Zucchini is one of the easiest and most productive vegetable garden plants you can grow, but if you don’t really like zucchini, there’s no sense in planting it. A good plan is to make a list of the foods you and your family eat on a daily basis and start with that. You can always add a few fun things, too, but better to have your plot stuffed with carrots and tomatoes you know you’ll eat than with ground cherries and exotic peppers you’ve never tried before.

  Another preference to consider is how much work you really want to do. Although the idea of making your own cheese from fresh milk may be wildly appealing to you, the thought of being tied to milking a cow or goat twice a day, every day for 10 months straight (never mind feeding and watering it twice a day for all 12 months), may not be. Even a vegetable garden can become overwhelming if you try to make it too large. So start simple and start small.

  Follow the Law and Make Nice with the Neighbors

  Before you begin, be sure to check in with the folks at Town Hall to make sure you won’t be violating any local ordinances. For instance, each town has its own regulations about what kinds of animals you can keep in your backyard (see page 349 for an overview of different city regulations regarding backyard chickens). Some neighborhoods and planned communities have bylaws to keep up appearances, and might not like it if you suddenly decide to plant a wheat field in your front yard.

  Hopefully, your amber waves of Pleasantville grain won’t do more than raise an eyebrow among the neighbors. However, if they’ve gotten only two hours of sleep because your rooster has been crowing through the night, they may be a tad on the twitchy side and less than sympathetic to the goals of your mini-farm. It might be worth a quick meeting with the abutters if you’re hoping to keep animals that will be crowing, bleating, mooing, and emitting odors not normally found in a suburban neighborhood. Even something as simple as the considerate placement of a compost pile (e.g., not over the fence from Mr. Wilson’s barbecue) will be appreciated.

  You can grow as many as 15 pounds of tomatoes from just one self-watering container on the back patio.

  Preserve Your Harvest

  Reading through The Backyard Homestead, you’ll see that each chapter includes not only information on growing plants and raising animals, but also tips on how to use and preserve the food you’ve produced. After all, in most areas of the country, there are only so many growing months in the year. Preserving food — which includes canning, freezing, drying, and root cellaring — makes it possible for you to eat from your own backyard year-round. And even if you don’t currently have a garden or animals, you can try out many of the techniques in this book, using vegetables, fruit, meat, and milk from local farms.

  What to Grow, Meal by Meal

  One way to start figuring out what to grow is to think about what you actually eat. Try tracking what you eat during an average day and break each meal into its components. You might be surprised at how much of it you can grow yourself! For example, if your family eats a lot of pasta sauce, you’ll want to start your vegetable garden with plenty of tomatoes, onions, peppers, and garlic. Your herb garden should have oregano, thyme, rosemary, and perhaps a bay tree (which can be brought indoors for the winter). When harvest time rolls around, you can make a few batches of sauce and can it for the winter.

  How Much Food Can You Produce?

  The following illustrations show some of the possibilities for the amount of food that can be produced in an average yard. A quarter-acre lot, planned out well and cultivated intensively, can produce most of the food for a small family. Adding another quarter acre of pasture enables the family to keep a couple of milking goats or to raise steers for beef. These are just examples of what can be done in this amount of space, allowing for a fair amount of diversity. You may decide to forgo the fruit trees and vegetables and just fill the yard with oats. Or you might want simply a flock of chickens and nothing else.

  A Homestead on One-Tenth of an Acre

  A Homestead on a Quarter Acre . . .

  . . . or Half an Acre

  By adding a quarter acre of pasture, you’d be able to keep two or three goats for milk or a beef steer to grow through the summer.

  Estimating Harvest

  It’s difficult to say exactly how much food you’ll be able to produce from your backyard homestead, since so much depends on the kinds of vegetables, fruits, and animals you select, what the weather is like, how long your growing season is, and how intensively you’re planting. But to give you a general idea of just how much it’s possible to produce, given the quarter-acre layout on page 14, here are some ballpark numbers:

  • 50 pounds of wheat

  • 280 pounds of pork

  • 120 cartons of eggs

  • 100 pounds of honey

  • 25 to 75 pounds of nuts

  • 600 pounds of fruit

  • 2,000+ pounds of vegetables

  CHAPTER 1

  The Home Vegetable Garden

  Your first vegetable garden doesn’t have to be an experience like that of The $64 Tomato author, William Alexander, whose first step was to hire a landscape architect to design his garden. (No wonder that tomato cost $64!) Gardening can be as simple or as complicated (feel free to substitute “inexpensive or costly” there) as you want to make it. The simplest version, assuming you have no land and very little money? Buy a bag of compost and two tomato plants, slice two Xs into the bag, and plant the tomatoes directly into the compost. Voilà! An instant garden that can be set out in any sunny spot.

  The next steps up from there, of course, are planting containers (self-watering containers — see page 28 — are an especially good method) or digging in with an all-out in-ground garden. As you gain experience, you might eventually want to try growing most or all of your own vegetables. It’s surprising just how many pounds of food can be produced from a small plot, with the right planning and careful attention paid to soil preparation, watering, weeding, and succession planting. Crop yields will vary quite a lot, depending on which cultivars you choose to plant (cherry tomatoes or plum tomatoes?), weather conditions, and soil fertility, but it’s possible to get at least a general idea of how much you can produce (see page 15). Keep in mind, though, that this kind of undertaking is a lot of work. Start off small, maybe with just a few plants, so you don’t get overloaded.

  Chances are, if you’re gardening for quantity, you’ll want to preserve some of your
harvest for the off-season. Even just a couple of tomato plants may produce more than you can eat off the vine. There are several ways to “put food by,” including root cellaring, freezing, drying, and canning (see pages 56, 78, 79, and 80), to ensure that you have plenty of food to last once the growing season is over.

  Starting Off Right

  Starting a vegetable garden is exciting, but it can be a little intimidating, too. Every gardener dreams of a bumper harvest, but it’s hard to know how to manage the details of planting and caring for so many different crops. Following are some basic principles to keep in mind.

  Keep it simple and start small. Don’t try to grow everything! Plant just a few easy-to-grow crops.

  Start composting. Once you’ve used compost, you’ll realize you can never have too much!

  Mulch. To control weeds and retain soil moisture, cover garden beds with a thick layer of organic mulch.

  Visit your garden often. Pull weeds as soon as you see them, add mulch where it’s thin, water plants that are dry, redirect wayward stems, look for signs of pests and diseases, and check for produce that’s ready to harvest.

  Take notes. Start a journal to record spring weather, what and when you planted and transplanted, when certain pests emerged, and how much you harvested.

  Grow what you can’t buy. Concentrate on crops that you can’t find at your local supermarket and ones that offer unusual color or taste.

  Plant crops you love. If you adore tomatoes or peppers, grow several cultivars. Try to avoid growing the same selections offered in the grocery store.

  Try crops your neighbors swear by. It helps to know what crops are easy to grow in your area — and when they’re easiest to grow. Ask your neighbors, along with experts at garden centers, garden clubs, or the local Cooperative Extension Service.