Best gardening books for self-reliance
A garden is the most practical long-term food prep there is. These books cover small-space methods, season extension, seed saving, and growing the high-calorie staples that keep a family fed.
21 books, beginner-friendly first.
All New Square Foot Gardening
Mel Bartholomew, Square Foot Gardening Foundation · 2018
A simple, grid-based way to grow a lot of food in a small raised bed. Easy for first-time gardeners.
beginner
The Backyard Homestead
Carleen Madigan · 2009
What you can produce on a quarter acre: vegetables, fruit, chickens, and more. A friendly overview.
beginner
The Encyclopedia of Country Living
Carla Emery · 2012
Carla Emery's massive reference on growing, raising, preserving, and cooking food. If you only keep one homesteading book, many people pick this one.
beginnerLarge referenceGardening When It Counts
Steve Solomon · 2006
Steve Solomon's guide to growing food on low budgets with few inputs, written with hard times in mind.
beginner
Mini Farming
Brett L. Markham · 2010
How to produce most of a family's food on a quarter acre.
beginnerRodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening
Fern Marshall Bradley, Barbara W. Ellis, Ellen Phillips, Deborah L. Martin · 2018
An A-to-Z organic gardening reference covering vegetables, fruit, pests, and soil.
beginnerLarge reference
The Vegetable Gardener's Bible
Edward C. Smith · 2010
Ed Smith's wide-row, deep-soil method with profiles of common vegetables. Clear and practical.
beginner
Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener's Handbook
Ron Kujawski, Jennifer Kujawski · 2011
A week-by-week task calendar for a vegetable garden. Takes the guesswork out of timing.
beginnerSpiral / lay-flatThe Year-Round Vegetable Gardener
Niki Jabbour · 2012
Niki Jabbour's guide to growing vegetables through every season, including winter.
beginner
Four-Season Harvest
Eliot Coleman, Barbara Damrosch · 1999
Eliot Coleman shows how to harvest vegetables all winter with cold frames and unheated tunnels.
intermediate
Gaia's Garden
Toby Hemenway · 2009
The best-known home-scale permaculture guide: design gardens that feed you and need less work over time.
intermediate
The Holistic Orchard
Michael Phillips · 2011
Growing fruit trees and berries without heavy spraying. Orchards are a long-term food source.
intermediate
How to Grow More Vegetables
John Jeavons · 2017
John Jeavons's biointensive method for growing a lot of food in very little space.
intermediate
The Humanure Handbook
Joseph C. Jenkins · 2019
Safe composting of human waste. If the sewer stops, sanitation becomes urgent, and this book covers it in depth.
intermediateThe Market Gardener
Jean-Martin Fortier · 2014
How to grow a lot of vegetables profitably on about an acre and a half, with hand tools.
intermediateThe New Organic Grower
Eliot Coleman · 2018
Coleman's guide to small-scale organic vegetable production. A cornerstone of market gardening.
intermediate
Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond
Brad Lancaster · 2012
Shows how to read your land and capture rain with earthworks and tanks. Volume 1 is the place to start.
intermediate
The Resilient Gardener
Carol Deppe · 2010
Carol Deppe on growing staple crops (potatoes, corn, beans, squash, eggs) to stay fed through hard times.
intermediate
Seed to Seed
Suzanne Ashworth, Kent Whealy · 2002
How to save seed from 160 vegetables. Without seed saving, a garden depends on next year's store shelf.
intermediate
Teaming with Microbes
Jeff Lowenfels · 2010
Explains the soil food web and how to build healthy soil without synthetic inputs.
intermediate
The Resilient Farm and Homestead
Ben Falk · 2013
Ben Falk's detailed account of designing a resilient Vermont homestead, from water systems to food forests.
advanced