Epic Homesteading is an accessible and well written guide to increasing self sufficiency in the backyard where-we-are-now written and curated by Kevin Espiritu. Due out 9th Jan 2024 from Quarto on their Cool Springs Press imprint, it's 224 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.
The author is experienced and well-versed with different gardening sites and their challenges and offers readers creative solutions to limits in space and budget which affect nearly all of us. He has a positive and upbeat style of writing with a lot of encouragement and a you-can-do-it motivational style.
Food scarcity, rising costs, quality & selection, supply line disruption, and resource security are ever-present issues, and they're not likely to get better anytime soon. Decades ago, self-sufficiency was mostly the purview of the very rural areas as well as some isolationist "doomsday" fringe philosophies. That has happily changed, and now there are creative solutions to improve outcomes even for suburban micro-homesteaders who wish to increase their garden efficiency and self-sufficiency in their own daily lives.
The book has a logical layout, information is arranged thematically in chapters: site selection, outdoor food growing, indoor food growing, orchard, composting (a solid and useful chapter), energy systems, water conservation, mini-livestock, and food preservation & storage.
It's well photographed throughout, in color. Tutorials are explained clearly and simply, in understandable language which can be understood by laypeople. Each tutorial includes tools and supplies in a sidebar bullet list, followed by step by step instructions. The photographs are clear and understandable. This -is- a guide from Epic Gardening, and as such, the supplies pictured and used in the tutorials are their brand name products. It's not heavy handed, but it is present. Readers can (and should) use their own available supplies.
Four stars. Well written and usable. It would be a good choice for the urban gardener, homesteader, self-sufficiency interested folks, as well as public or school library acquisition.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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