A great, accessible guide for aspiring backyard urban/suburban "homesteaders" (or just those who are looking for more ways to be self-reliant). Espiritu has done a ton of projects in his own yard, everything from garden beds to rainwater cisterns to solar panels, and he walks you through it in an easy-to-understand way. Tons of pictures, helpful hints and tips, and lots of inspiration.

This is a great guide on homesteading! Anyone who follows Epic Gardening knows how passionate Kevin is about sharing his knowledge, and it comes across in every page. I love the QR codes that link to related videos, too. Great to have around as a reference!

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Homesteading is a concept that I've been very into lately so I was excited to read this one. It's a great guide for people just starting out, especially when space and options are limited. There's a lot here about making the most of even a small plot, choosing options that will have the greatest impact. With a blend of general advice and some clear projects it's a solid starter.

This is a very comprehensive book on homesteading. I didn't find much new information in it, but I have read many of these books over the years and am pretty experienced with the topic. Great photos throughout.

This book is everything I wanted it to be - its the whole youtube history distilled into a very readable and VERY follow-able step by step guide to creating your dream homestead. It has the trials and tribulations and the very gorgeous photographs to document it all. I really enjoyed this and it made me want to set up raised beds and buy chickens.

I love the epic gardening YouTube channel, so I was excited to pick up this book. This book is great for people looking to be more self sufficient whether it’s just starting a garden or having a full on homestead. The book is very detailed and covers everything from garden beds and compost to collecting rain and raising chickens. Highly recommended an interesting read, lots to learn.

I've been following Kevin on his YouTube channels (Epic Gardening and Epic Homesteading) for years. For the past couple of years he's been transforming a suburban house in San Diego with an uncommonly large yard into a gardening paradise. He's added chickens, solar, rain catchment, a green house, an orchard, a POND. It's extremely impressive what he's done. And every step of the way he uses it to create educational video content for his viewers. I was excited to see this book come out and even more pleased to see it dive deeper into the practical steps for implementing these systems into your own home. Now that he's done all of these things himself, he has a lot of insight as to the challenges one might face and the resources one needs to achieve these things. While he has a robust system at his home, each facet can be done individually because not everyone has so much space and so much time (doing this stuff IS Kevin's JOB). If you are interested in creating your OWN suburban homestead paradise, this is a great primer on how to go about it, or at least to let you dream about it.

Epic Homesteading isn’t meant to be read in one setting. Instead, it should be referred to while implementing the ideas it contains…and it is chock full of ideas! Everything you need to know about homesteading, or just gardening, can be found in this book. Included are detailed photos.

I think it's great. I wish it was more like his tiktoks but If you go page by page you top can have an epic garden. I need to do better this year in planting and preserving but it was my first time and I did it watching him

I always enjoy Kevin Espiritu's gardening content. I'm glad this book included Jacques and the content is amazing. Even though I follow Kevin on social media, this did not feel like it was repetitive from his online content. I felt like I learned a lot from this book and while we live in totally different areas, I can't wait to use some of these tips when it is gardening season again for me.

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.

Pros: I generally think of homesteading as being offgrid, so I was interested to read this take on it that embraces technology and can fit in a person's backyard. I thought this book was accessible to people new to homesteading and offers ideas that can be adopted by urban and suburban dwellers. This book allows readers to pick and choose elements of homesteading that work for their lives and geographic areas. I was surprised (in a good way!) that this book uses QR codes to direct readers to videos--this is the first time I've seen this and thought it was brilliant. I hope to see more how-to and reference books incorporate other media for readers who want to expand their learning. I appreciated the practical information, charts, and tips shared throughout the book.

Cons: None that I can think of. This book will be a great resource for its intended reader.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group - Cool Springs Press for the opportunity to read this book.