Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre

Written by Brett L. Markham

Narrated by Christopher Solimene

Mini Farming describes a holistic approach to small-area farming that will show you how to produce eighty-five percent of an average family's food on just a quarter acre—and earn $10,000 in cash annually while spending less than half the time that an ordinary job would require.



Even if you have never been a farmer or a gardener, this book covers everything you need to know to get started: buying and saving seeds, starting seedlings, establishing raised beds, soil fertility practices, composting, dealing with pest and disease problems, crop rotation, farm planning, and much more. Because self-sufficiency is the objective, subjects such as raising backyard chickens and home canning are also covered along with numerous methods for keeping costs down and production high.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Aug 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781541477209

Reviews for Mini Farming

[Jade Stobbe · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Best audiobook on mini-farming with a good amount of detail.

[Allison · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book chock full of all the information I was hoping to find and then some! Absolutely well worth the time if you're new to the idea of producing your own food at home and even for the seasoned gardener. For example, I had no idea that traditional row gardening was so inefficient compared to square foot intensive gardening. I can't wait to get started on building my raised beds and preparing them for next season. I also appreciated that the author is from my own home state of NH which was great because he talked about some ways to grow during winter and make the most of the non gardening season. Other sources I've read about growing your own food seem to always be written by people who live in southern CA where the weather seems to be consistent temperature and sun year round, definitely not the case in NH where we have several feet of snow and ice on the ground for months and temperatures in the teens and single digits. Anyway, I learned a ton from this book and feel like it really helped motivate me to start small with what I have available now and scale up next season.

The most helpful chapters I found were on soil amendments, composting, dealing with crop pests and diseases, crop rotation, when and how to start seeds, canning, saving seeds, and raised bed size and shape.

The only thing I can say I really didn't like about this book was the narration was really robotic and down right odd. I almost stopped listening after the first chapter because I found it so distracting but I'm glad I stuck it out because the information was good and worth suffering through the narrator's bizarre reading voice.

[Joshua Wheeler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great intro to gardening for the new gardener with some good information to the experience gardener or beginning mini farmer that makes it a worthwhile read or listen. The numbers and price are a bit out dated, but current prices only support the principles and points made here in to a greater extent.

[Katelyn Aschenmeier · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The content was good, but the narrator was painful to listen to. There was absolutely no reasonable rhythm, strange pauses, and senseless emphasis on random words.

[someoldlady · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I knew about most of the stuff covered in the book, but it's nice to have it condensed and all in one place. My only complaint is the audiobook narrator. Why is he mimicking a text to speech app? It was really distracting.

[Justin Walsh-Peterson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed the information in this book. However I found the narration to be a little difficult go listen to. Very robotic in voice in my opinion

[bobholt-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Borrowed this from the local library (Markham is a local farmer/author). It was so well researched and written that I went to the local bookstore and picked up a copy of his expanded _Mini Farming Bible_, which includes this book, _Maximizing Your Mini Farm_ and other writings.

[amelia_smith-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I found this book much less satisfying than others of its type (Backyard Homestead and The New Self-Sufficient Gardener are better). The chapters were basically an outline of what should be covered, but the coverage of various topics, from compost to accounting, often left a lot to be desired. The thing which sets this book apart from others is its focus on the economics of mini-farming. The back cover says that this book: "will show you how to produce 85 percent of an average family's food on just one-quarter acre -- and earn $10,000 in cash annually." It failed to deliver on that promise. The author leaves a lot out when calculating the average family's food consumption, and the section on making money boiled down to, "Yes, you can do it! Look at these numbers." I don't get the sense that the author has done this himself, or that he has much business sense.

This book has a lot of big pictures which mostly take up space, to make the book seem longer. There are also some interesting and useful charts, and I did find the author's economic calculations interesting and fun to read, but I don't think they're particularly useful.

[2wondery_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Covering materials found in many other gardening books. The value lies in chapters 15, 16 & 17 - raising chickens. Some very pertinant advice, especially on homemade equipment for housing the birds and processing the meat. Chicken tractor, killing cone and plucker.