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Trying to figure out what skills you’ll need on your dream homestead? Here’s a great big list of homestead skills — more than 200 ideas! — to help you get started. 

If you have an idea that isn’t on the list, please drop a comment and I’ll add it (with credit, of course)!

Table of Contents:
— Gardening
— Cooking
— Canning and Preserving
— Animals
— Crafts
— Handiwork
— Skills
— Finance

This part of our list of homestead skills deals with anything that grows in the ground.

• Not killing a succulent or cactus (we’re starting out simple here 😉)
• Keeping a regular houseplant alive
• Keeping a more finicky houseplant alive
• Growing microgreens or sprouts indoors
• Starting an indoor herb/kitchen garden
• Planning a garden
• Using permaculture to plan a garden
• Planning an orchard
• Planning a food forest
• Growing annual plants
• Saving seeds
• Saving bulbs, roots, etc.
• Starting seeds
• Growing perennial plants
• Growing trees
• Pruning trees
• Grafting trees
• Tapping trees for sap
• How to diagnose different problems in your plants
• Overwintering a plant
• Hardening a plant
• Growing fungi
• Dealing with local pests
• Dealing with local diseases

This part of our list of homestead skills deals with getting food ready to eat. Since cooking includes hot things, sharp things, and things that can make you very sick if not handled properly (like raw meat), safety is a key aspect of these skills.

• Basic cooking skills
  • Food safety and hygiene (boring but VERY important!)
  • Knife skills and safety
  • Choosing the best fruits and vegetables at the grocery store
  • Telling when fruits and vegetables are ripe
  • Chopping fruits and vegetables
  • Safely preparing and cooking meat
  • Cooking rice, pasta, etc.
  • Preparing eggs in various ways
  • Saving scraps for soup stock
  • Making soup
  • Flipping things over, like pancakes or grilled cheese sandwiches
  • Measuring flour
  • Roasting vegetables
• Learning to identify flavors and spices, which ones go together, and what to try when your food tastes like it’s “missing something”
• Making a roux for gravy, cream sauce, etc.
• Roasting a whole bird or bone-in cut of meat
• Carving a bird or cut of meat
• Cooking your favorite restaurant dishes at home
• Kneading dough
• Making bread
• Making pie crust
• Baking a cake from scratch
• Making homemade cake icing
• Starting and maintaining a sourdough starter
• Making yogurt
• Making your own cheese
• Cooking with organ meat
• Making sausage
• Butchering an animal
• Rendering fat
• Cleaning and preparing fish
• Cooking with cast iron

This part of our list of homestead skills deals with saving food for later.

• Water bath canning
• Pressure canning
• The different times you should use water bath or pressure canning
• Freezing food to minimize freezer burn
• Curing meat
• Smoking meat
• Drying beans, etc. for storage
• Dehydrating foods
• Fermenting foods
• Pickling foods
• Using sugar to preserve fruits
• Cold storing root vegetables and similar items
• Learning how best to store your preserved foods
• Creating a food inventory

This part of our list of homestead skills deals with anything with a mind of its own (other than humans!). This includes livestock, useful insects like worms and mealworms, and pets and working animals like barn cats and livestock guardian dogs.

• Basics of animal care (feeding, housing, environment, lifespan, common health problems)
• Identifying health problems that can be remedied at home
• Administering medicine to animals
• Identifying health problems that require a veterinarian
• Keeping animals safe from predators, environmental hazards, etc.
• Animal-proofing the rest of your homestead
• Making your own animal food (much easier for herbivores!)
• Milking animals
• Harvesting eggs
• Choosing the best animal from a batch to purchase
• Introducing a new animal to the rest of your animals
• Breeding an animal
• Assisting an animal in birthing
• Raising mealworms or other insects for livestock
• Beekeeping
• Keeping fish
• Harvesting an animal
• Processing an animal

This part of our list of homestead skills deals with using your hands to make things — skills like sewing, knitting/crocheting, leatherwork, and anything involving a glue gun.

• Sew in a straight line on a machine
• Sewing curves on a machine
• Making a quilt
• Hand-sewing basic stitches like whipstitch, backstitch, etc.
• Hand-sewing embroidery stitches like a French knot, chain stitch, satin stitch, etc.
• Tailoring clothing
• Using a sewing pattern
• Sewing household items like pillows and napkins
• Making clothing
• Knitting basics
• Crocheting basics
• Blocking a knitted or crocheted piece
• Designing your own craft patterns
• Carding and spinning fiber into yarn
• Felting fiber
• Mending torn items
• Darning socks
• Sewing on buttons, zippers, etc.
• Making candles
• Making soap
• Dyeing fabric or fiber
• Working with felt
• Using a glue gun safely
• Whittling or carving wood

This part of our list of homestead skills deals with the other things you might use your hands for, like woodworking/carpentry, household repairs, bricklaying, maintaining solar panels, and more. One of the most important skills on this list: knowing when you’re out of your depth and you need to call a professional!

• Beginner-level household repairs:
  • Using a drill
  • Hanging a picture
  • Hanging a shelf
  • Fixing a squeaky hinge
  • Using nails and screws
  • Using a level
  • Patching small holes in drywall
• Beginner-level woodworking:
  • Measuring things
  • Reading blueprints
  • Knowing when to use different kinds of saws
  • Cutting wood with saws
  • Using clamps
• Intermediate woodworking and household repairs:
  • Installing pieces of drywall
  • Removing and installing new baseboards
  • Removing and installing new windows/window frames
  • Designing and installing built-in shelving
  • Replacing parts of a floor
• Chopping wood by hand
• Storing chopped wood
• Building raised beds for gardening
• Building fences
• Installing a rain-catching system
• Basic electrical repairs
• Basic plumbing repairs
• Installing new electrical wiring
• Solar panel maintenance and troubleshooting
• Designing and installing an irrigation system
• Bricklaying
• Building small structures like a shed or chicken coop
• Building larger structures like a barn (you may need a permit for this, check your local laws!)
• Tool maintenance
• Car maintenance
• Farm vehicle maintenance

This part of our list of homestead skills deals with things you may need to learn, like foraging, home safety/disaster prep, and keeping your house in order.

• Foraging for wild plants
• Foraging for wild fungi
• Hunting wild animals for food (may need a permit for various aspects of this)
• Sterilizing and purifying water
• Identifying local plant species
• Identifying local wildlife species
• Differentiating harmless from dangerous wildlife
• Planning for local natural disasters (will vary by area)
• Planning for other disasters, such as war, pandemic, etc.
• Preparing for personal/family disasters, like a fire or death/ illness
• Creating a fire safety plan
• Creating other safety plans, like tornado or tsunami plans, if needed for your area
• Storing three days of supplies
• Storing one week of supplies
• Gathering and storing a month or more of supplies
• Creating a “go bag” in case you need to leave your home suddenly
• Creating a medical info binder if you or a loved one has a complex health situation
• Detailing and displaying information that emergency personnel need, such as a “File of Life” or pet rescue stickers
• Hosting guests
• Hosting overnight/multi-day guests
• Throwing parties
• Hosting seasonal celebrations
• Having dinner parties
• Getting to know your neighbors
• Cleaning your house (and how often to clean what)
• Deep cleaning your house
• Maintaining your household appliances
• Principles of interior design
• Effective thrift store shopping

This part of our list of homestead skills deals with money. It’s not as fun as the other parts, but it’s vitally important as a homesteader that you be able to sustain yourself. The last thing anyone wants is to be forced back into city living due to financial trouble!

• Drafting a budget
• Sticking to a budget
• Using sinking funds
• Getting out of bad debt
• Starting an emergency fund
• Choosing a plot of land for your homestead
• Buying land
• Buying a house (or having one built)
• Financing utilities on the homestead
• Understanding mortgages/loans and their pros and cons
• Understanding credit and when/how to use it
• Budgeting for major purchases and expenditures, like cars or weddings
• Planning for retirement (or when you’re less physically able to do the homestead work you do now)
• Planning for growing your family, if you want to have (more) children
• Identifying market trends and desires
• Selling produce
• Selling animal products
• Attending farmer’s markets, craft fairs, etc.
• Marketing and selling seeds
• Starting a cottage food business
• Selling non-food items like soap and candles
• Partnering with local grocery stores
• Partnering with local restaurants
• Breeding and selling livestock
• Basics of agritourism
• Selling digital items
• Selling physical items online

If you’ve made it this far, congrats! Hopefully you’ve found a few new ideas to add to your to-do list. If there’s something on your to-do list that isn’t on here, drop a comment and let me know!