6 Top Homesteading Blogs You'll Want to Read

Today we let the family take a break from sharing our more personal aspects and get back into sharing what we love to do here on the homestead. As you know, we aren't old hands at this off grid homesteading life. We started with a small, quarter-acre urban homestead with a kitchen and grazing garden, a flock of six hens and a growing need to remove ourselves from consumerism. We had learned a little, in relative terms, about how to start on a path to self-sustainability, but knew that wasn't enough. How-To articles and books are great, but to really get ourselves vested in the next step, we needed an education that was both personal and practical. That's when we started following homesteading blogs.

In the beginning, we would read everything, from life on the prairie to how it's done in England. We picked up some great perspectives, but soon realized our biggest bang for the buck came from homesteading blogs that were written about our situation. We have four kids, plus a unique environment that has a shortened growing season with long winters. Things are a little different here in New Hampshire than Florida. We started to key in on those as our primary sources while still following the ones that made us smile and nod our head.

To that extent, we built a solid library of resources of approachable and quality-laden homesteading blogs from across the country and all over the world. We could pull what we needed and enjoy the straight forward honesty of people who were like us. Our goal was to become off the grid homesteaders, and learning from those who are doing the same was the best way to keep our spirits charged.

Homesteading Blogs

One of our top go-to homesteading blogs is Jessica Lane's The 104 Homestead. She writes a cold-weather homesteading blog out of Main and provides some sound perspective on homesteading as a print with small children. Not only does she garden, but also raises Nigerian Dwarfs, ducks and chickens. Jessica's mission is "to teach new and traditional methods of homesteading that can be implanted on any homestead... tailor-fitted for every home from a city apartment to a farm on the prairie."

Another favorite of ours is written by Victoria over at A Modern Homestead, a gorgeously laid out site with a wide-variety of homesteading articles to satisfy anyone from a dreamer a doer, covering topics from canning to knitting and everything in between. Victoria and her family run a homestead spread in Texas for less that $30,000 a year.

Frugal Homesteading Blogs

Liz at Frugalwoods writes a balance of daily family life and tips, and has one of the great frugal homesteading blogs. Like us, she and her family moved from an urban environment to set up in the wilds of New England, a 66-acre spread in central Vermont.

The Frugal Farmer is one of the no frills, straight to the chase frugal homesteading blogs that really put things in perspective. The advice, tips and tricks Rick and Laurie provide are dead on, with a large selection of resources such as books and articles to help support their position.

Life on the Homestead

Dan runs the collective homesteading blog known as New Life on a Homestead Blog, providing positive articles and videos on how others can do more for themselves. The varied and educated writers in the blog's bullpen provide multiple perspectives to give more bang for our reading buck. 

With articles ranging from permaculture to home remedies, recipes to how to effectively clip chicken's wings, each article is written in easy-to-read language that helps you understand the topic at hand. In short, the blog lets you walk away with the confidence to do what you now know how to do.

Self-Sufficiency Blogs

Lastly, homesteading blogs bring out the desire to make one's own way in the world, and the last category, self-sufficiency blogs, does this with style and panache. Who hasn't taken a look at their energy bill or grocery bill and thought, 'There must be a better way?" These blogs provide practical steps and advice and doing the most you can for yourself, with the goal of completely going off grid and taking on life in your own terms.

Vickie writes the Making Our Sustainable Life Blog about her and her husband Rays' retirement adventures in self-sustainability. She covers topics ranging from preserving food to soap making, all from her homestead spread outside the Sacramento Valley. One thing she is heavy into are blog hops and links, a collective of similar-yet-unique sites that share a common list and pass it around to share ideas, article suggestions and thrown wisdom. It is something we will be looking in to soon.

We hope these homesteading blogs will provide you with a new perspective on your chosen life, and would love to hear from you with your top picks! Who's frugal homesteading blogs or life ion the homestead blogs do you follow and adore? Let us know by joining the conversation below.