Farming books and online resources

Tim and I have researched a variety of farming topics:

• permaculture
• sustainable living
• do-it-yourself
• livestock
• gardening
• homesteading
• food preservation

We've checked out hundreds of books from the library, surfed lots of websites, watched many videos, and browsed dozens of magazines and catalogs, most of which we have returned, recycled, and never visited again.  But a few are gems to which we return over and over.

Here are some top picks:

Online
"Don't reinvent the wheel," Tim says.  "Go to Permies.com.  Lots of different authors write about a lot of different subjects."

• Permies: a big crowd of permaculture goofballs

Books

• Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks, Dave Holderread
• Four-Season Harvest, Eliot Coleman
• Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, Gail Damerow
• Personal Milkers: A Guide to Nigerian Dwarf Goat Keeping, Patricia G. Stewart
• Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast, Hank Shaw
• Sepp Holzer's Permaculture, Sepp Holzer
• Greenhorns: The Next Generation of American Farmers, Zoe Ida Bradbury
• Guinea Fowl, Van Hoesen-Stromberg
• Gardening with Guineas, Jeannette S. Ferguson
• Gaia's Garden: Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, Toby Hemenway
• Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners, Suzanne Ashworth 
• The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times, Carol Deppe
• Minnesota Bounty: The Farmer's Market Cookbook, Beth Dooley
• Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables, Mike Bubel
• Preserving the Summer's Bounty: A Quick and Easy Guide to Freezing, Canning, Preserving, and Drying What You Grow, Rodale Food Center, Susan McClure
• The Accessible Pet, Equine, and Livestock Herbal: Choosing Abundant Wellness for Your Creatures, Katherine A Drovdahl, MH
• Recipes from the Root Cellar: 270 Fresh Ways to Enjoy Winter Vegetables, Andrea Chesman
• Preserve It! Brown, Lynda
• Pickled Pantry, Andrea Chesman
• Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us About Health and Healing, Daphne Miller, MD

Catalogs

• Seed Savers Exchange (my favorite seed company, open-pollinated, heirloom, lots of organic, in Iowa)
• Territorial Seed Company
• Field and Forest Mushrooms
• Richters Herbs (lots of interesting and unusual herbs)
• Hoegger Supply (goat supplies, herb dewormer, home dairy, etc- excellent)
• Murray McMurray Hatchery (Iowa)
• Stromberg's Chicks and Gamebirds Unlimited (Pine River, MN)