NEW: Self Sufficient Backyard review

What a Self Sufficient Backyard Actually Looks Like

Most people picture "self-sufficiency" as something that requires acres of land, a barn, and a decade of homesteading experience. In reality, the core idea behind a self sufficient backyard is much smaller and more practical: take the property you already have, and systematically replace the things you currently pay for — food, water, power, refrigeration — with systems you manage yourself.

That's the premise behind the Self-Sufficient Backyard program, built from 40 years of firsthand off grid living homestead experience. The creators lived for decades without a wire connecting their home to the power grid, and the program is essentially a record of what they built, tested, and refined during that time — distilled into step-by-step projects a regular homeowner can copy.

If you've been researching backyard homestead DIY projects and keep running into vague advice or half-finished YouTube tutorials, this is worth a closer look. You can check out the full Self-Sufficient Backyard program here to see exactly what's included before deciding if it fits your property.

You Need Less Land Than You Think

One of the more surprising claims in the program is the actual land requirement for food self-sufficiency: roughly 1,020 square feet per person. That's less than 10% of a quarter-acre lot. The full plan is built around a quarter acre supporting a family of four — with enough surplus to sell goods and generate income year-round — but it's designed to scale down for smaller yards or fewer people just as easily.

That single reframe changes the whole conversation. You're not being asked to buy land or move somewhere rural. You're being asked to rethink how the land you already have is being used.

A Year-Round Self-Sustaining Greenhouse

Growing season is usually the first wall people hit when they try to grow their own food seriously. The program tackles this with detailed plans for a year-round self-sustaining greenhouse, positioned on the south side of the house to maximize passive solar gain.

The design covers the details that actually matter for a cold-climate build: how to collect and retain heat overnight, what materials and glazing angles work best for your region, and how to ventilate properly so the greenhouse doesn't overheat in summer or stall out in winter. There's also a clever add-on — vents that connect the greenhouse to the house itself, so warm air moves between the two depending on the season.

The most interesting upgrade, though, is geothermal. Ten feet underground, soil temperature holds steady around 55°F no matter the season or location. By circulating greenhouse air through underground loop pipes with a small fan, you can pull that stable temperature up into the growing space — for the cost of running a fan, not a furnace. Using a cold frame version of this setup in Saskatchewan, the creators grew lettuce with two feet of snow still on the ground outside.

Water and Power: The Two Systems Most People Skip

Food gets most of the attention in self-sufficiency content, but water and electricity are where most backyard projects quietly fail. The program treats both as full sections rather than afterthoughts.

On the water side, it walks through building an inexpensive rainwater collection system — the same approach the creators use to avoid paying for irrigation water entirely, with filtration steps included for making collected water drinkable.

On power, there's a full breakdown of an off grid hybrid electricity system: which batteries to use for storage, what type of charge controller and cabling to run, and how to size an inverter so the whole setup is reliable rather than a constant troubleshooting project. This is the same system that's kept the creators' home running for four decades without a grid connection. It's also worth noting the program mentions the option to stay grid-connected and sell excess power back to the utility, if going fully off-grid isn't the goal.

Know Your Soil Before You Plant Anything

Not every backyard starts with great soil, and the program includes a simple diagnostic anyone can run at home: the mason jar test. Fill a jar halfway with soil from your yard, top it off with water, shake it, and let it settle. The layers that separate out — sand, silt, and clay — tell you what you're working with. Ideal garden soil (loam) settles into roughly 40% sand, 40% silt, and 20% clay. If your jar looks different, the program includes the steps for amending it, so you're not guessing at fertilizer or wasting a season on the wrong soil type.

It's a small detail, but it reflects the overall approach: practical, testable steps rather than generic advice to "improve your soil."

Food Preservation Without Refrigeration

Growing food solves half the problem — keeping it edible through the year solves the other half. The program devotes real depth to food preservation without refrigeration, covering eggs, vegetables, root crops, fruit, and meat. These are the same methods the creators relied on out of necessity while living in remote Saskatchewan, far from regular grocery access, where preserving what they produced wasn't optional.

For anyone building toward genuine self-sufficiency rather than just a backyard garden, this section matters as much as the growing methods themselves — there's little point producing food you can't store through the off-season.

If the greenhouse, power, and preservation pieces sound like the gap in your own plans, this is a good point to look at the program directly rather than trying to piece the same information together from scattered sources.

Water Independence, Covered in Depth

Beyond basic rainwater collection, the program goes further into securing an independent water source for the property long-term — an area a lot of backyard homesteading content glosses over, even though water access is arguably the most limiting factor on any piece of land, large or small.

Who This Program Actually Fits

This isn't positioned as a survivalist bunker guide, and it isn't aimed only at people with rural acreage. It's built for:

• Homeowners who want to cut recurring costs on food, water, and electricity
• Anyone interested in off grid living homestead systems, even partially
• Gardeners who want a more structured, year-round approach instead of a seasonal hobby
• People who want backyard homestead DIY projects that are documented in detail, not summarized in a five-minute video

It's less useful if you're looking for a purely ornamental garden plan or have no interest in hands-on building — the projects assume you're willing to put in the work described.

Final Thoughts

The appeal of a self sufficient backyard isn't really about going "off-grid" as a lifestyle statement. It's about reducing dependence on systems you don't control — the grid, the grocery store, the water utility — one project at a time, using space you already own. The Self-Sufficient Backyard program lays out a specific, tested path for doing that, built on four decades of the creators actually living it rather than theorizing about it.

If you've been looking for a structured way to start, you can explore the full Self-Sufficient Backyard program here and see which of the 100+ projects fit your own property first.