and a few links to books which helped us get started.
Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre
The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!- This one is my favorite homesteading book
Keeping Chickens: All You Need to Know to Care for a Happy, Healthy Flock Right now we have 15 chickens laying between 10-12 eggs per day. My husband built this chicken coop under the deck and we have a portable one on the side of the house. Eventually, he'll add some wheels to it and place it in different parts of the yard to fertilize the ground.
The Backyard Beekeeper- An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden The beehive is in the back yard near the end of our property between our two neighbors' fences. We should be able to get lots of honey next year if we can get the bees to survive through next winter. We did have our our priest come and bless our bees after we got them. :)
Landscaping With Fruit: Strawberry ground covers, blueberry hedges, grape arbors, and 39 other luscious fruits to make your yard an edible paradise Here is one of our blackberry bushes. We also have raspberries, grapes, strawberries and blueberry bushes as natural hedges separating different parts of our yard.
Vegetable Gardening: From Planting to Picking--The Complete Guide to Creating a Bountiful Garden These are russet potato plants. We planted 12 of them in a 2' deep oval barrel measuring 3' x 4' wide. We are also growing broccoli, kale, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, many varieties of peppers, peas and onions.
Your Backyard Herb Garden: A Gardener's Guide to Growing Over 50 Herbs Plus How to Use Them in Cooking, Crafts, Companion Planting and More This rosemary plant keeps getting bigger and bigger every year. You can see some oregano on the right side of the rosemary. These 2 plants are in the front yard in our rock garden. We also have sage, basil, lemon thyme and garlic in other places around the yard.
The Backyard Orchardist: A Complete Guide to Growing Fruit Trees in the Home Garden Here is a beautiful apple tree we bought this year. We also have cherry, plum, pear and peach trees in the back yard.
Homegrown Whole Grains: Grow, Harvest, and Cook Wheat, Barley, Oats, Rice, Corn and More Last Fall my husband planted red winter wheat berries and he also threw down some scratch grains on the other side of the house for the chickens. We also planted lots of silver queen corn right down the hill from the wheat. We should be able to harvest some wheat berries sometime this summer.