The following is a list of books that we find useful and believe that you will too. We have sorted them roughly into descending order of how useful we believe them to be. The links to Amazon are affiliate links, meaning that if you follow the link and make a purchase we will get a small commission at no extra cost to you. However, we are not asking you to buy them. We borrowed most from the library before we came to own them.
Practical Self-Sufficiency
I probably consider this my favourite self-sufficiency guide. I love the John Seymour ones too, but this has the advantage of being more modern and incorporates the many eco-inovations developed since Seymour was writing. Dick and James tried their hands at just about everything a smallholder could dream of at Newhouse Farm, and in this book they offer step-by-step instructions of how you can do the same. It covers energy production, crop growing, keeping livestock, storing and preserving a harvest, woodwork, metalwork and so much more. There is so much information in this book that it doesn’t seem possible. It isn’t just aimed at smallholders, as they say in the book: you can grow herbs and tomatoes on any windowsill. The feel of the book is that they are showing you all of the things that they have done, and they’d like to encourage you to try what you can given your situation. This really is the book to get if you have an interest in self-sufficiency.
Click to View Practical Self-Sufficiency on Amazon.co.uk
Preserves (River Cottage Handbook No. 2)
As with all of the books in this series, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall writes the introduction to this book, but the actual subject matter itself is written by the relevant expert from the River Cottage series. In this case Pam ‘the jam’ Corbin. Corbin was for many years the owner of the jam manufacturers Thursday Cottage, and is still heavily involved in the company. She has also appeared in several episodes of River Cottage, as well as running the preserve courses offered by River Cottage.
I first encountered this book when I borrowed it from the library a few years ago. However, within a minute or so of flicking through it I knew I had to get my own copy. This book covers such a range of preserving techniques including, pickling, bottling, making jams, jellies, chutneys and sweet pickles to name but a few. Most of the recipes use ingredients that are commonly grown in UK gardens/allotments or foraged from hedgerows, i.e. things that you would actually have the desire to preserve before reading the book. Detailed instructions are provided, often giving an overview of the method followed by a table giving the specifics by your main ingredient of choice.
The main thing I like about this book is that I find it so inspiring. I often browse it like a catalogue of recipes to try. On pretty much every page I think ‘I’ll have to try that next year when we have a surplus of those’, or ‘I’ll add that ingredient to the shopping list and give that a try soon’. Offered on these pages is the opportunity to experience your own little piece of River Cottage. Even if you haven’t got the space to grow on the River Cottage scale, using inexpensive ingredients and standard kitchen equipment, you can still enjoy, for example the sweet, spicy aroma of making your own chutneys, and of course the delicious consequences a few weeks later when those ingredients are no longer in season.
This book goes way beyond the classic homemade preserves such as apple and blackberry jam, and there are so many intriguing recipes in here that would make great gifts to friends, or even interesting talking points to serve at a dinner party, or of course just to store for one’s own use. I think the reviews on Amazon give an indication to the quality of this book. At the time of writing this review there are 229 reviews on Amazon, averaging 4.8 stars.
Click to View Preserves (River Cottage Handbook No. 2) on Amazon.co.uk
Back Garden Seed Saving
I am keen to save my own seeds where it is realistic to do so. No one could consider themselves self-sufficient if they were purchasing seeds every year. Nor does it fit with the smallholder mindset to buy seeds when money can be saved by doing a little extra work up front. So as part of my ambition to try to experience a little of each area of what is required to be a smallholder, I knew I had to try to save some of my own seeds, and that I would need a trustworthy source of information to tell me how to be successful at it. This book fits the bill. There are a few pages on just about every type of vegetable that you could wish to grow (even my beloved pea beans get a mention!), detailing how to go about keeping the seeds true to type and how to collect the seeds. For each it also lists several varieties you may wish to consider trying and why.
Moreover, there is some fascinating information in here that I love to read from time to time, that is almost enough to make me recommend the book for this aspect alone. There is some information on the history of seed saving and supply in Britain. It explains how the shift in focus of desirable traits as supermarkets replaced greengrocers resulted in many old varieties not being grown on a commercial scale any more. How EU seed laws made the sale of many seed varieties to gardeners unviable, and how the rise of seed exchange groups managed to provide a vehicle to prevent many old varieties from extinction. It outlines the reasons for saving one’s own seed, and the importance of doing so in the context of the diverse range of genes contained within the old varieties, their traits which although not commercially viable now, may be of extreme importance in the future. It also highlights the vulnerability of seed banks in times of austerity or war, and why widespread small scale back garden saving is desirable.
Click to View Back Garden Seed Saving on Amazon.co.uk
River Cottage Veg Everyday!
This is one of my favourite recipe books of all time. I’m a huge fan of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I’ve watched the first three series of River Cottage countless times. Those early series will always be my favourites, following his downshifting experience as he tries his hand at being a smallholder for the first time. Some of the food he cooks is great, but for me its the experience he shares and the ingredients he uses (which he largely produces or forages himself), which make me regard these series so highly.
However, by the time Hugh wrote this book, many more series had passed, and he was exploring new territory. He set himself the challenge of going vegetarian for six months. But for the most part he still sticks to his ethos of using locally sourced seasonal produce. There are some amazing recipes in here. My wife and I write a meal plan fortnightly to help us economise on ingredients and plan the best way to use leftovers. We normally start with a shortlist of meals we’d like to include, and there’s usually at least one from this book in there. But this is one of those books, when I open it to get a list of ingredients for the meal plan, I’ll glance at another page, and say “oh, look at that, shall we have that this fortnight too?” And before we know it, we’re living off recipes from this book for a fortnight. But that really isn’t a bad thing, because there are some amazing recipes in here.
I love the fact that Hugh uses so many ingredients that you wouldn’t necessarily see in the supermarket, but that are garden/allotment favourites. This book is certainly one for the grow your own enthusiast. But don’t let that put you off if you don’t grow your own; most of the time when he uses less common ingredients he suggests other ingredients you could use instead. My personal favourite recipes in here are the mushroom stoup (a cross between a stew and a soup), hot squash pitta pockets (this is a favourite with the kids) and stuffed squashes (winter squash stuffed with leeks, cheese and a sprig of thyme). I also like to choose a recipe by ingredient, for example when I had a bumper crop of tomatoes, I looked in the index and found pasta with raw tomato. When we had an abundance of chard, I looked in the index and we had chickpea, chard and porcini soup.
Click to view River Cottage Veg Every Day! on Amazon.co.uk
Winemaking Month by Month
This is my go-to book for winemaking. The book begins with practical information on how to make wine, an explanation of the required equipment, and scientific information on the fermentation process, and the roles of various enzymes etc that can be added. The remainder of the book consists of a chapter for each month of the year, with recipes for wines to make with seasonal produce that month. Starting in January with root vegetable wines, moving through the more barren months of February and March using store cupboard ingredients such as dried or tinned fruits. Then the fun starts with spring when we get an excuse to go foraging with dandelion, coltsfoot and gorse wines on the menu. The summer and autumn months are packed with all the fruit wines one would expect, as well as some more unexpected ones too.
In the introduction Leverett says “no aspect of self sufficiency has quite as many advantages as making your own wine”. He justifies this by saying that it requires so little space that it could be done in a flat, the money saved in making rather than buying wine is quite considerable and that one gets a great sense of achievement from making a good wine. Unfortunately this book appears to be out of print. I got my book second hand. At the time of writing this review it is available used on Amazon for a penny plus the cost of postage. If you’re interested in winemaking, I’d really recommend you get a copy.