The Self-Sufficiency Garden: Feed Your Family and Save Money

by Huw Richards, Sam Cooper

Eat homegrown food all year round and save money on your weekly shop by following a simple plan for self-sufficiency.


Huw Richards and Sam Cooper have spent the past two years planning and trialling their very own self-sufficiency garden in a 10 x 12.5 m plot and now they've worked out the perfect formula. Grow six portions of nutritious veg a day per person following their month-by-month growing plan, which is realistic and flexible with cost, space, and time in mind.

- Learn about Huw's self-sufficiency ethos, goals and approaches
- Create your garden and learn how to build all the growing spaces you will need, such as hot beds and polytunnels
- Follow month-by-month planting plans with guidance on key tasks throughout the year
- Discover useful kitchen tips meal prep, storage, and preserving ideas along with base recipes so you can make the most of your crops

Follow Huw and Sam's tried-and-tested methods and save money while enjoying homegrown food all year.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Food, Cookbooks, Nature, Health, Reference

224 pages, Hardcover

First published March 7, 2024

About the author

Huw Richards is the rugby correspondent of the Financial Times.

Reviews

[Scottsdale Public Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Self-Sufficiency Garden" is a book organized as beautifully as the mathematically-maximized garden the authors built over the course of one year while writing this gardening guide. Written by a gardener and a chef, these two authors give exact instructions for methods of growing produce, with beginner level instructions even this reader will be applying to their tiny apartment balcony. (Who knew potatoes could grow in pots, or that you can plant basil at the base of a tomato plant for natural mulch?!)

Simplified construction diagrams, lists of necessary materials, and a few easy plant-centered recipes to make with your new produce make this book an excellent introduction to sustainable living, with tips for success! (Ask your local coffee shops for their used coffee grounds for nitrogen-rich compost!)

Though I usually don't read nonfiction, I read every page of this book, because it's applicable to anyone who wants to one day spend less at the grocery store!
5/5 stars! -Megan K.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many elements that I appreciate about this straight-forward self-sufficiency focused gardening resource.

My main praise for this book is the information provided about different types of raised bed options, along with suggest building dimensions and visual aids. This is surprisingly difficult to find to the level of detail provided here. I did not know about Hot Bed Gardening nor have I seen schematics like this for Polytunnel Gardening practices as well so for me, those two options were the most beneficial to my current set up.

Secondly, the chapter on proper composting methods is thorough and brings the subject into a realm that is easy for anyone to follow, even if you're not the type of person to understand (or care about) soil chemistry. Probably the most common question about compost is: "What do I put in it, and how much is too much?" - The answer is provided here.

There are additional chapters covering some standard self-sufficiency influenced recipes and information on transplanting, water practices and garden management. Overall, I consider this a great resource that I'll be referring to again in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this title in exchange for an honest review.

[Mlak · Rating 5 out of 5]

basically stardew valley irl

[RxReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a gem for those looking to dive into the world of self-sufficient gardening. While it may not suit beginners, it's a goldmine of knowledge for those ready to take their gardening skills to the next level. The kitchen section is particularly enlightening, offering practical tips on preserving harvests and scrumptious recipes to savor your homegrown bounty. With clear guidance and valuable insights, this book is a must-have for anyone eager to cultivate their own food and embrace a more sustainable lifestyle. Personally, I found it immensely helpful for my own gardening journey, and I'm confident it will be well-received by fellow gardening enthusiasts. Overall, it gets a solid 4/5 stars from me!

I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was fascinated with the subject matter and read it with ease. The problem was that although the information on starting your own garden so as to be self-sustaining and maintaining independence from high toxic produce was invaluable, a lot of people would find the garden project to be overwhelming and expensive. I wanted to do the garden, but the photos of the project looked as if you needed a large amount of land, carpentry skills and a lot of money for supplies. Once reading the book, I found the photos did not lie—- and I was disappointed.

This book is great source material for someone looking to learn the ins and outs of starting this project; but that same person would have to have huge resources of their own. This book is not for suburban and city residents. I would recommend this book for rural residents who have the land space and the initiative to follow this through.

[Megan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great guide not only for growing food but on how to eat said food. Can't wait to start implementing these methods and ideas in my growing space.

[Gay Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This self-sufficiency gardening book to assist you in providing food for your family, does just that... with no bells and whistles. It may not have glossy pages, but the book is filled with photos, tables, graphs, simple directions and language to help you succeed with your gardening and to save money. Readers will learn to set up their garden, what spaces, tools and other helpful information, as soon as you open the book. I especially like the handy-dandy index that helps you immediately get to the topic for which you are interested. Readers are taken through the year by month and what activities you'll be preforming, what is being grown, with tips on trouble shooting problems. Readers will find this text extremely helpful and informative.

[Janel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a California backyard garden and grow veggies year-round. If you are just starting a garden, it may be overwhelming to begin with a garden of their size, but the book offers some good basic how-tos that will be helpful to a gardener. For someone interested in expanding their garden and working their way to becoming self-sufficient, this book offers some good ideas on how to start.

This book covers creating the garden, what to grow, and tasks throughout the year. It also offers a few basic recipes and garden-growing skills.

I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent resource for succession planting in a small space as well as actually using and preserving what you grow so that nothing goes to waste. Readers will need to adjust planting schedules and crops sown for their particular zone.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wealth of information well laid out and easily accessible. Definitely something I will refer back to. Unusually for me I found the recipe and what to do with the produce section interesting. I particularly appreciated that they explained all terms that some books take for granted.

[Rebecca Ng · Rating 5 out of 5]

By a permaculturalist and a chef, this is both the bible on how to start a veggie garden AND the foundational cooking techniques explained in informative and accessible ways. My only complaint is it's US-centric, so month by month guide on what to plant when must be adapted for other parts of the world (I'm in Australia).

[Brandy Paulson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for laying out a big self sufficient garden space with many wonderful and straight forward instructions on how to create it. My only critique is that it was not as flexible as I had hoped. Basically the lay out from month to month relies on you making the poly tunnels, hot beds, etc.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wish I could rate this book higher.
I’m not an inexperienced gardener, but I was excited at the prospect of maximizing yields in small spaces. And the growing season in the UK isn’t too terribly off from mine. However, the book is a bit prescriptive to Huw’s garden and circumstances. I have a small, urban backyard on the north side of my house, and a plot in the community garden across the street. Even when combined their space is much smaller than an allotment.
I was hoping there would be some level of guidance in scaling a garden for what space you have, instead of flexing his own yields.

That all being said, the planting/care schedules are useful as a reference in one place, and I’m eager to try out a few of the recipes come spring/summer.

[Suzanne Bhargava · Rating 5 out of 5]

practical and detailed

This was a practical and detailed book, and I’m looking forward to trying out the succession plans next year. Shame it wasn’t published for Christmas - I would have liked to have got started this year!

[Sarah Muller · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think the book is based in Europe, so nothing is in our measurements. That’s a little frustrating. I wish the pictures were all labeled and I was hoping for more recipes. It just scratches the surface of being a self-sufficient gardener and if you’re already doing it, you’ve only learned a couple things .

[growingwithbeccalynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe this is a great book for beginners and how Huw breaks down each seasons by month, what can be started and be done in between.

Simple methods that are applicable to any garden.

Also great breakdown how to start and manage compost which is fabulous because it can be tricky to do. It’s not about just throwing in a pile.

[Sparrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic no-nonsense resource book for those wanting to take their self-sufficiency or gardening to the next level, but struggling to get an idea of what that might look like. I've definitely been inspired by it, and am off to order some seeds for Spring...

[Micah Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very practical and straightforward. Extensive tips for gardening, preserving, fermentation and anything you need to know about growing food in your garden.

It's written by people in the UK, so the planting guides may not be applicable everywhere.

[Bridgette · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Well-written and easy to read
*Informative and very educational
*Heavily researched with easy to follow examples
*Highly recommend

[David Ronan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 ⭐️
I don't know how else to rate this or the other one I recently read so I'm going to copy and paste this review. It's going to be helpful when I need it.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

The Self-Sufficiency Garden is a concise and useful guide to increasing food security by gardening by Huw Richards and Sam Cooper. Released 14th May 2024 by Penguin Random House on their DK imprint, it's 224 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.The links in the ebook format are honestly absolute gold and make the book a joy to use.

In times of increasing food insecurity, supply line and distribution chain disruptions and distrust/boredom with the incredibly limited selections available to most people who don't have ready access to local farmers markerts, coupled with the psychological and health benefits of being in contact with growing plants and having more control over our food as well as the sense of accomplishment that comes from being more self sufficient, it's easy to see why more people are making a conscious choice to garden.

This is a good basic guide which includes all the necessary info to arm beginner (and non-beginner) gardeners with what they need to plan, plant, grow, harvest, and succeed with vegetable gardening (with basic info which also applies to other parts of horticulture and flower gardening). It's arranged in digestible parts, with a logical progression: planning & basic terminology, planning & creating different gardens with season extenders and other aids, planting and growing crops arranged by the calendar year (with monthly tasks and categories), recipes for using and preserving the harvests, and a general broad-range skills and troubleshooting chapter (lots of good info here). The author/publisher have also included a links and resources lists for further reading.

The book is well photographed, and includes many clear color photos of gardens and the recipes. It's helpful to see what fermenting vegetables can/should look like, especially for readers who are new to canning/preserving.

Four and a half stars. Full of information. This would be a superlative choice for public and school library acquisition, home use, allotments/gardening groups, smallholders (with or without urban locations), and similar. Tutorial and recipe lists have measurements given in imperial (American) units with metric units in parentheses (yay!).

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[Megan Bowden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am an avid gardener, and 2024 has been year seven for me.

As I have come to discover, each year has its own set of challenges, and unfortunately, this year I got hit with a lot of them all at once. My garden basically became a free-for-all for squirrels, mice, rabbits, and deer alike, even with proper fencing. I also faced epic amounts of bug pests: Japanese beetles, squash bugs, cucumber beetles, and potato beetles, none of which were deterred as they had been previously by organic solutions. On top of that, the wood in all my beds is starting to rot.

And so it felt like a good time to start over. Re-educate myself. Enter in Huw's book.

Since there are so many aspects of gardening that are not working for me, I decided I needed a new plan for 2025, and having followed Huw on Tiktok, I purchased his book because my ultimate goal is full self-sustainability and I knew I needed a revamp of my layout. In that aspect, this book has a lot of really great information. It focuses mostly on your first year of gardening, how to set it up to best maximize space, time, and effort, and then walks you through month by month of how to build your beds, plant your seeds, transplant your plants, and keep them fed, watered, and thriving. I took lots of notes while reading that will come in handy when tearing my garden out and starting from scratch.

What I felt was lacking in this book was namely pest control. I know a lot of gardeners claim that keeping your soil and plants healthy keeps pests out, but that has not been my experience and I felt frustrated by a lack of help on that end. I also think that a summarized checklist could have been really helpful in the back of the book so that you could use it as a guide to follow throughout the seasons rather than having to take your own notes. Finally, I felt like the recipes part of this book was a little lackluster. They were all very basic and didn't add anything to my repatoire.

While I really liked Huw's book and haven't seen anything quite like it before, I struggle to figure out who it is written for. I think his set up is pretty intense for first year gardeners, and they would likely feel overwhelmed by it. But unless long-term gardeners are looking to rip up their layout and start again, it could be difficult to implement much of what he suggests.

[Kitten Kisser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically, this is a book for beginners. Fine. No issues there. Not much for those of us with a lot of experience (I am a nearly 2 decades Eco farm woman). Also, the grower is in the UK. But for the most part, the growing conditions are pretty similar to my own in USDA Zone 6. A huge problem I see with this book is the massive expense should the newbie try to follow this book. His plot is beautifully done. It's something most of us dream of doing but cannot afford. That's a mark against it without a doubt. Second, it's pretty rigid. The author gives plenty of detail on how he specifically does things that work for him. When growing anything, one needs a heck of a lot of flexibility. This is an epic fail.

The author grows a lot of food in a small area. Because of this, he cannot do proper crop rotation. His solution? Soil health. No crop rotation. That's all fine and good, but soil health alone isn't good enough. Obviously it's getting him by, but eventually it will bite him in the butt. To truly grow sustainably one needs both soil health and crop rotation.

What about garden pests? He recommends picking them off by hand. This works if you only have a teensy infestation. He poo poos insect netting stating eggs can be laid through the netting. Two solutions. Don't let the netting touch the plants. Even better, use the lightest weight of row cover; not insect netting. Don't forget the hoops. Or, if you can't afford it, don't grow the crop that is particularity troublesome until you are ready to take it on properly.

Frankly, this is not a book I would buy. It's not terrible. A lot of work went into it. But there are so many books available that I personally feel are much better. Newbies need to start slow with minimum expense. Experienced growers need fresh ideas & inspiration.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the kind of book you read and it leaves you thinking "Yeah! I can be a gardener!" but buyer beware: I think the authors underplay the amount of work involved in this and just how much time and effort setting the garden up will take.

That's not to say the book is of little value. It has some great permaculture concepts and talks about year-round rotational planting. If you're wanting a homestead-style garden and you live in a climate similar to Wales, he's got everything laid out for you.

I found the chapter on composting useful, though my compost bin is miles away from producing anything useful. According to Huw, I probably have too much "brown" material (carbon-rich) slowing things down.

This is a really good resource if you're engineer-minded and enjoy having measurements calculated out for you. If I were healthier and more able, I think I'd give it a try but on a smaller scale. Because this is very much a garden for 2-4 people to maintain.

Huw's garden is aesthetically pleasing, and I enjoyed all the shots of it and of the greenery growing inside it. I don't know how he filled so many beds with soil (seriously, I've spend hundreds of dollars on bags of soil for potted gardening and I'm perpetually behind on getting things transplanted because I never have enough damned dirt).

Then we get to the kitchen section, which is Sam's. Here, he discusses the main flavors and how to make the best use of your garden yield. There are tips on how to cook just about everything, from blanching tomatoes to canning peas. And there are traditional recipes for things like condiments and curries, pizza and pies.

Overall, it's a good resource for the ambitious farmer, even if you don't have a lot of space.

[Jessica Hembree · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has some great elements to it. It includes a garden plan that can be followed fairly easily. It breaks down the year into manageable chunks of what should be done for each month. It includes info on sowing, amending, caring for the plants and more. It also gives some great recipes for using those things that are being grown. I wouldn’t recommend it to a first time gardener or anything, better for someone with a bit of experience. Also, if you live outside of the area in the book, you’d have to adjust for your climate and location. I’d also be adjusting to better fit my families eating habits. I think this book is still a great resource and pretty helpful.

[Michelle Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a lot of color photos, layout templates, a full year’s schedule, and some base recipes to boot this practical how-to guide is a winner among gardening books. The authors also go into detail on gardening space, harvesting, and practical advice on storing your produce. There’s a lot in here for the serious gardener.

I enjoyed this one and would recommend.


Thank you to DK and NetGalley for the PDF

[Alyssa Downer-Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed "The Self-Sufficiency Garden" by Huw Richards and Sam Cooper. The comprehensive guide provides invaluable insights into sustainable gardening practices, and I'm excited to apply its principles to my future homestead. Richards and Cooper's expertise and passion for self-sufficiency shine through, making this book both informative and inspiring.

*** I received this book as an Arc via NetGalley for my review

[Zoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been watching Huw on YouTube for a while, and I think this book is a good compliment to that. It shows what you should be doing every month in the garden to get a productive garden. I like the format since that's the part that I have the most trouble with. There's also tips of what to do with the food, which was nice. Over all a good read.

Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great review of how to grow a garden for the purpose of feeding people. a review of lots of the basics - although I feel like there are not enough details in each section - i suppose the book would be very long if they had been included but for me this made this not as helpful of a reference. A good overview but not perhaps if you want more detail.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, great for beginners, and lots of nitty-gritty info, but I found Huw Richards' other title "The Permaculture Garden" more useful.

Note: this book is northern-hemisphere-centric, so don't forget to convert the months (ie January=July) and compass points (ie north=south) if you live in the Southern hemisphere.