Below, you will find a list of what I consider to be invaluable resources for homesteaders, preppers, and anyone wanting to live a simpler life. We update this page regularly with books, websites, products, and YouTube channels that we think our readers might find useful or interesting.
Resources for Homesteaders: Books I Own and Love
My collection of books about homesteading, farming, gardening, preparedness, and self-sufficiency is enormous! These are links to my must-haves! I have multiple copies of most of them and have read them all over and over again.
- The Encyclopedia of Country Living: The Original Manual of Living Off the Land & Doing It Yourself -This one is a MUST HAVE! If I could only have one homesteading book, it would be this one! I have two copies of this one, just in case. It covers everything you can possibly imagine and a million things you never thought of! Seriously, YOU NEED THIS BOOK if you are interested in starting a homestead! Even experienced homesteaders will love this book and refer to it regularly.
- The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It – This another really good general reference book for the new homesteader. It is not as detailed as The Encyclopedia of Country Living, but it has a section on planning out your homestead or farm that I have found really useful. There’s a lot of great information in here on how to make your homestead self-sufficient, the way the old-timers did things.
- The Homesteading Handbook: A Back to Basics Guide to Growing Your Own Food, Canning, Keeping Chickens, Generating Your Own Energy, Crafting, Herbal Medicine, and More – The title says it all! A great all-around book for the beginning homesteader.
- Backyard Market Gardening, Market Farming Success, and The Market Gardener – If you are at all interested in market gardening as a way to make money from your homestead, these three books will cover everything you need to know.
- Ball Blue Book Guide To Preserving – I would call this book “required reading” for anyone who wants to learn how to preserve their own food at home by canning, dehydrating, or freezing. This really is the only book you will need on the subject because it covers everything on the subject in-depth and includes detailed pictures, tutorials, and recipes.
- Cookin’ With Home Storage – A great beginners guide full of recipes using long-term food storage.
- Homestead Kitchen: Stories and Recipes from Our Hearth to Yours by Eve and Eivin Kilcher -In this beautifully done cookbook, the Kilchers share 85 original family recipes and advice on gardening, preserving, and foraging, as well as lots of wonderful stories from around their homestead.
- Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner’s Guide: 33 Healing Herbs to Know, Grow, and Use, Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives for Treating Drug-resistant Bacteria, and Herbal Antivirals: Natural Remedies for Emerging & Resistant Viral Infections – I have a huge collection of books about herbal remedies, but these are the three I would call must-haves. I actually have all three of these on my e-reader plus an additional physical copy of each one. I refer to these books regularly and wouldn’t want to be without them.
- Light’s Out by David Crawford and Patriot’s: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse by James Wesley Rawles – Believe it or not, these are the two books that started it all for me. I first read Light’s Out when it was free to read on the prepper forums online before it was even in print. If you haven’t read these, and you are at all interested in preparedness, you really should check them out. They were both life-changing books for me!
- The First Aid Companion for Dogs and Cats and Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats – My go-to books for all things related to dog and cat health.
- Where There Is No Animal Doctor – An amazing manual that covers all domestic animals and deals with many different animal health-related topics, including disease prevention and good animal nutrition.
- Where There Is No Doctor and Medicine for Moutaineering – These two manuals are necessities if your homestead is in a very rural area where medical treatment is not always immediately available.
- Peterson Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs and Edible Wild Plants – Essential field guides for foraging for wild edibles and medicinal plants. Note that these are specific to my region and may not be the best field guides for your particular region.
Resources for Homesteaders: My Favorite YouTube Channels
I could go on for days about YouTube channels that I love! I would never be able to list them all here. With great difficulty, I have narrowed it down to my 10 most-watched channels. If you know of a good homesteading or preparedness related YouTube channel that is missing from this list, mention it in the comments below so that we can all check it out! Many of these channels also have really good blogs, websites, and/or Facebook pages, so be sure to check those out also!
- Appalachia’s Homestead with Patara – Patara is cute as a button and full of useful knowledge about everything homesteading and self-sufficiency related!
- The Boss of the Swamp – J.C. does an amazing job with his videos on homesteading and backwoods living. This is my favorite Sunday morning, drinking my coffee, YouTube channel. His videos always leave me with a peaceful, content, meditative, frame of mind…. seriously, they are almost magical! He doesn’t make many new videos, but I still love to watch his old ones.
- Off Grid with Doug and Stacy – Doug and Stacy live on an off-grid homestead in an amazing little house they built themselves. Their videos are full of first-hand information on homesteading and off-grid living. They do a lot of really great videos about natural living and natural remedies!
- Big Family Homestead – Brad and Christa make entertaining, informative videos about all things homesteading and saving money.
- Couponing with Toni – Toni is just a sweetheart! If you are interested in getting started with couponing, saving a ton of money, and building a stockpile, I highly recommend watching her channel.
- Full Spectrum Survival – I watch the news updates on this channel every morning. This is an excellent survival and preparedness related channel that shouldn’t be missed.
- Deep South Homestead – Danny and Wanda are an adorable couple. Their videos are full of great information on gardening and a back to basics lifestyle.
- The Fewell Homestead – Amy is a hard-working, work at home Mom and homesteader. I really admire her, and her videos are full of great information on all things homesteading and working from home.
- Dirt Patch Heaven – This channel covers all sorts of topics, from gardening and animal care to tiny house and nomadic living.
Resources for Homesteaders: Blogs and Websites I Follow
Here is a listing of the blogs and websites I find myself referring to time and time again, sometimes even daily. There are so many really good blogs and websites out there, and I could never begin to list them all! If there’s a particular one you love, please mention it in the comments section!
- The Prepper Website – This is a blog that lists preparedness, homesteading, bushcraft and survival articles, videos and podcasts for preppers. It is updated daily and I check it every morning.
- Survival Blog – Survival Blog is a daily weblog for survivalists and preppers that is maintained by author James Wesley Rawles. I also read this one every day.
- Drudge Report – I check Drudge throughout the day to stay on top of news headlines that are not always reported by the mainstream media.
- Mother Earth News – An online magazine that is chock full of articles on farming, gardening, herbs and much, much more!
- Fias Co Farm – The best online resource I have found for all things dairy goat related!
- Fresh Eggs Daily – A beautiful website/blog full of great information on keeping chickens naturally.
- The Chicken Chick – Another beautiful blog about chicken keeping, as well as DIY projects and recipes.
This is by no means an exhaustive listing of resources for homesteaders, just the ones that I refer to most often. I will update it regularly when I find something new that I think will be most useful to you. Feel free to mention your favorite resources for homesteaders in the comments section, or on my Facebook Page. Contact Me if you have a blog or YouTube channel you would like me to consider adding to this page.
