The Weekend Homesteader Review
This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure here.
The Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve-Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency by Anna Hess is an inexpensive guide to get you started with homesteading. Loaded with color photos, this book would make a good “coffee table” book, conversation starter or idea brewer.
How the Weekend Homesteader is Organized
The Weekend Homesteader is organized by month, starting with April and wrapping back around to March. (Alternate months are suggested for those living in Australia.)
Each month includes four “projects’ – one for each weekend – presenting you with activities that would be appropriate for that time of year. For instance, April projects include:
- Find room to homestead
- Survey your site
- Plan you summer garden
- Kill mulch
Many of the activities could be completed in an afternoon or weekend. Others will require an ongoing time investment.
For instance, you can roast a chicken in one afternoon (November), but Building a chicken coop or tractor and raising chickens (August-September) will be an ongoing task.
Things I Like About the Weekend Homesteader
Anna is obviously passionate about what she does, and is not afraid to share her mistakes. The photos and charts get you thinking and provide handy references.
Here’s an excerpt from the Chicken Coop or Tractor Section:
And here’s another examples from the Survey Your Site section:
Would you like to save this?
We'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
The print is large and easy to read, the overall quality of the photos and book is very good.
One of most functional parts of the book was where she discussed diversifying your income, and broke down the real hourly wages that are likely to be earned from various common “homestead” options, such as selling eggs, selling honey, running a CSA, selling grapes and an online microbusiness.
When you run the numbers, according to her calculations (and I think she’s spot on with this) – standard homestead activities for profit typically net a very low hourly wage.
You can save yourself a fair amount of money doing things for yourself, but most of us would be unable to pay the bills with only “standard” homestead income.
This is a critical concept to understand for those who dream about “living the simple life” – it doesn’t pay very well (monetarily).
Set realistic goals, make steady progress, try new things – that’s what the book is about.
Things I Didn’t Like About the Weekend Homesteader
I was rather surprised to find out that the “Weekend Homesteader” book was written by a full time homesteader.
I was even more surprised when I read, “When you live on a farm, there is an endless array of chores and projects right at your fingertips, and it’s tough to stop until you keel over from exhaustion. If my husband hadn’t held firm by requiring weekends off and regular quitting times each day, I’m pretty sure I would have burnt out by now.” Maybe another title would have been better?
In the canning section, she recommends boiling your canning lids – big no-no. If you want to can safely, check out the Ball Blue Book. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a freezer with everything stacked in cylinders of deli tubs like she showed, either. I don’t think this is realistic for most people.
As a northern gardener, many of the garden activities were not timed correctly for my location. I don’t do anything in the garden in January and February – because it’s frozen solid. Up here they don’t generally recommend most tree planting in fall, either.
Her primary suggested crops don’t really match too well with mine, either. I don’t know anyone personally who would grow okra as one of their main crops, and most of my gardening friends grow cucumbers, which she seems to have problems with. Just a different climate and different preferences.
Overall, this was a good book to get ideas brewing and help set project timelines for more southern gardeners.
Check out other book reviews and suggestions from our library, such as:
I need to learn about everything. never have grown anything nor raised anything
i need to know everything there is to know about homesteading!!!
I’m recently retired and have several acres available. I’d like to grow grapes, blueberries, raspberries, apples and peaches. I’d like to expand my garden and grow more types of veggies plus sunflowers for the seeds. I freeze now but have minimal space so would like to do canning. Need to learn more about optimal harvest times for herbs, etc. Need better garden planning skills. I’d like to have a couple chickens for eggs and wonder if I need to have a rooster. Also interested in non-toxic cleaning and like the recipes for make it yourself food, medicines and cleaning products. Thanks.
Would make a nice addition to my library.
Would like to more about tinctures.
I would like to know more about raising animals.
We’ve had chickens for almost a year now and I’ve found there is more and more to learn! I’d also like to learn about building a cold frame and saving seed and making mulch and putting by food and just becoming more self sufficient!
I’m working on raising chickens for eggs and doing quite well at it getting lots of eggs chicken and duck i would like to raise some meat chickens in the spring what breed do you recomend?
I would like to learn more about gardening with regards to starting plants from seeds, transplanting and harvesting of seeds. I usually have a garden every year, but my seedlings never seem to make it and I end up buying plants from a local nursery.
we eat tonns of dairy products and i would really enjoy trying to make some butter, cheese, cream myself…. also canning would be interesting… and we would love to have chicken… well there are a lot of things i would like to learn..
I am so looking forward to being able to have our own land and build a house on it. I’m loving my chickens. Hopefully I will have my first garden next spring. I’m sure I will need help with that and how to keep the girls out of it. LOL
Working on making a burn barrel & got a couple of water barrels I am going to use to collect rain as soon as I figure out how to set them up. I already have a couple gardens but I could do more with them.
I have always wanted to raise chickens! Building a chicken coop sounds exciting! 🙂
I would love to get better at gardening, and have a few chickens. Always looking for ways to plant a lot in a small space.
I would love to learn more projects and things to do in the winter… i really start to miss the garden, and being out with nature when its frozen solid.
If I don’t win, can I borrow this from the library? I love reading homesteading books
I would like to learn more about raising animals and doing more “homesteading” with a very small property.
I think the diversifying income bit is the one that really has me interested.
so much I want to learn, have to pick just one?
Sherlei – pick as many as you like! Always looking for more ideas. 🙂
I would like to learn more about the gardening… what helps and what hurts to plant together…
I have some chickens already but need to learn more about them. I’m wanting to make my own laundry detergent. And this spring I need to find a place/way to grow a few things we need such as potatoes & veggies.