Overview Of Elliott’s Welcome To The Farm Homestead Book
Shaye Elliott has given a fresh, new guide to the backyard lifestyle. As the homesteading movement continues to gain momentum, more and more people are taking an active role in sourcing their food. Whether you’re interested in dabbling or fully immersing yourself in the DIY, back-to-basics lifestyle, Welcome to the Farm is a complete, beautifully illustrated guide to growing top-quality food right in your own backyard.
Author Shaye Elliott draws from her experience running The Elliott Homestead, guiding readers on a journey that teaches them how to harvest bountiful organic produce, milk a dairy cow (and make butter), establish a homestead orchard, preserve jams and jellies, and even raise chickens and bees. This comprehensive resource covers a wide range of topics, including:
- The benefits of home gardening
- Seed starting basics
- Building your own greenhouse
- Winter gardening essentials
- Canning, freezing, and dehydrating techniques and recipes
- Comparing caged vs. free-range chickens
- Dairy cow care and milk utilization
- Raising animals for meat
- Crafting your own cider and wine
- And so much more!
Designed to cater to both homesteaders and urban farmers, Welcome to the Farm guides readers through the initial stages of small-scale farming, helping them make the most of whatever space they have available for optimal and delicious food production.
About The Author
Introducing Shaye Elliott – a dedicated farmer, loving wife, nurturing mother, passionate blogger, and skilled home cook. Six years ago, she embarked on a blogging journey that encapsulates the many things she holds dear – her bearded partner Stuart, their growing family, and life on their thriving farm.
Nestled on five acres in North Central Washington, her land is home to beloved dairy cow Sally Belle, a large flock of laying hens, meat chickens, hogs, sheep, turkeys, and an assortment of produce cultivated in an expansive organic garden.
Her mission is to provide her family with as much homegrown food as possible, learning from the land and embracing time-honored traditions. She preserves and stocks up on food for winter, continuously striving to grow more. Our laundry hanging on the line may give the impression that they’re old-fashioned, but that’s a notion she embraces wholeheartedly. She wouldn’t trade this hardworking farm life for anything in the world.
She invites you to join her on our homesteading adventure – there’s always something happening around there! From canning peaches and washing cloth diapers to savoring delicious home-cooked meals, she hopes you’ll stick around and be part of her journey.
Book Content Structure
Shaye Elliott’s Welcome to the Farm Book is broken into 8 parts full of useful information on how to get started with homesteading. Let’s have a look at the content structure:
Part One: The home garden
Here Elliott starts with all the basic information a beginner needs to get started with homesteading. No worries if you’re a novice – this part covers all the basics. You just need to follow Elliott’s simple instructions, and you’ll be growing your own food in no time. She teaches how to select the right plants for the space available, set up a productive garden, and grow top-notch organic produce.
Part Two: Preserving the Harvest
From Canning to Dehydrating and Freezing, Elliott has put together a comprehensive guide to preserving food. In this part, she covers the equipment needed for each method, simple instructions for each technique, and delicious recipes to use up all the wonderful things you’ve grown in your garden.
Part Three: For the love of chickens
Who doesn’t love chickens? Elliott dives deep into the world of backyard chickens and shares everything a beginner needs to know. From building your own chicken coop, selecting and caring for chickens, understanding breed types, and even breeding them – she covers it all. For fun side, she also shares her interesting story of loving chickens from hating them in the beginning.
Part Four: The family dairy
Your family homestead wouldn’t be complete without a dairy cow or two. Elliott shares her experience and tips in this part of the book, including how to select a dairy cow, set up milking equipment, take care of your cow, preserve milk, and make cheese.
Part Five: Raising meat in small places
Elliott shows readers how to raise animals for meat, even in limited spaces. She covers everything from the basics of raising pigs, sheep, or goats to understanding their behavior and caring for them correctly. Filled with useful information on when, what, and how to feed your animals, as well as advice on safe butchering practices – this part will prove invaluable.
Part Six: Beginning your apiary
In this section, Elliott talks about the fascinating world of bees and beekeeping. She covers the basics of setting up a hive, taking care of your bees, harvesting honey, and even shows readers how to make their own mead. Beekeeping is a fun and rewarding hobby – and this part will get you started.
Part Seven: Homestead Orchard
Elliott guides readers through the process of setting up and caring for a homestead orchard. From selecting fruit trees, planting them correctly, maintaining their health, harvesting fruits, and even combating pests – this part covers it all. Additionally, she shares the conventional and permaculture methods of growing fruit trees, so you can choose the one that works best for you.
Part Eight: Highlights from other homesteaders
What else she left out in these seven parts? Nothing – she put together a comprehensive guide to homesteading. Still, Elliott couldn’t resist the urge to share some amazing stories from other homesteaders. In this part, you can learn about various inspiring projects that her friends have undertaken on their own homesteads and be inspired to take your homesteading journey further.
Related Books:
- Back to Basics Book Review: A Guide to Traditional Skills
- The Backyard Homestead Book Review: Produce food you need
Final Thoughts
The ultimate goal of Welcome to the Farm is to encourage and empower readers to reclaim their connection to the land and learn how to live a more self-sufficient lifestyle. Elliott promises that with her book, you will gain the confidence and knowledge necessary to get started on your own homesteading journey.
It’s always nice to get out, and with Elliott’s help, you’ll be able to make the most of any space you have available. So let’s leave the hustle and bustle of our busy lives behind and reconnect with nature – cultivating delicious homegrown food in your own backyard!
So what are you waiting for? Start reading!
