Permaculture is a verbal marriage of “permanent” and “agriculture.” Australian Bill Mollison pioneered its development. Key features include:
use of compatible perennials;
non-invasive planting techniques;
emphasis on biodiversity;
specifically adaptable to local climate, landscape, and soil conditions;
highly productive output of edibles.
Now, picture your backyard as one incredibly lush garden, filled with edible flowers, burs… More >>
Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture
Tags: agriculture, bill mollison, climate, edible flowers, Gaia's, Garden, Guide, HomeScale, landscape, lush garden, marriage, Permaculture, soil conditions
Sad but true. As a former library worker, I can tell you there is no better praise than when a book gets ripped off.
It is annoying mine was lifted from me but it happened and I am sad; it’s a good one.
Thanks for writing it.
Rating: 5 / 5
I’ve been organic gardening for several years and I find this book contains very useful information for the gardener who wants to work with Mother Nature instead of against her. As described by the author (and others elsewhere), permaculture uses organic gardening principles to deal with big as well as little problems.
Most of his ideas are worth trying. His concept “live and let-live” may work in some areas, but not in others. I can tolerate some wildness in my gardens but want to keep natural vegetation out of some parts of my yard. Overall, there are many wonderful ideas, but not all of them may work for you.
Rating: 3 / 5
(which amazon sells but doesn’t link to here on the purchasing options, perhaps due to the different ISBN: 1603580298 – fyi. it’s got a whole new chapter, which this review does not reflect [remember, that's a different book with a different ISBN...])
I’ve read the whole book, and am rereading it now (seeing as it’s about that time of year). ‘Gaia’s Garden’ provides a wide arrange of topics and tactics regarding edible home landscaping, be they swales (methods of water absorbtion into the ground), chicken tractors, companion planting (with a few great and extended examples, much better detailed than I’ve seen in any other book yet), beneficiaries, and more. It’s been a long while since I’ve read it entirely through, but I still recall feeling, at least towards the end, that many of the points were being weakly reiterated (at least in comparison to earlier in the book), somewhat tied together, but that they didn’t really add too much to the whole of the book. Again, it’s been a while, and this second reading may provide a contrary perspective.
Nonetheless, seeing as I’ve yet to encounter another book which covers half as much, that gives great examples of such, and a number of tables of plants for various uses, then don’t forget about the good writing and lots of real world examples, and ‘Gaia’s Garden’ still receives five stars by the likes of me.
p.s. ‘Edible Forest Gardens’ is also great (at least the first volume, wading through the second more technical one now), which I purchased with Gaia’s Garden, and glad both were bought — one is primarily about tree crops, and not so much in the way of utilizing annual garden vegetables (rightfully so, as Toensmeier has put out since then another book, ‘Perennial Vegetables’ [look it up on Chelsea Green's website, there's a good 10+ minutes of video with the author going through his garden, showing off some of the diversity of his perennial veg]), whereas Hemenway’s book does cover annuals to some extent, with no less than two examples of good polycultures of them (extended throughout the season, even).
Rating: 5 / 5
I haven’t made my way through the whole book yet, but what a great start – good organization, fabulous ideas and examples, nice mix of philosophy and method, more than ample motivation and inspiration to start my own food forest!
Rating: 5 / 5
this is a amazing book for the backyard gardener viewpoint, it takes your garden and ties it total ecosystem that it is interconnected to. throughout the book there are a number of shaded highlights that explain the workings of permaculture systems, what is permaculture and practical ways of designing and putting together a garden with permaculture principles. this is a very useful practical book that will help turn your garden into a living ecosystem that interconnects to the surrounding world. It helps you make decision on the use of local native plants in your garden and also helps in the selection of other useful plants that could be grown in your region. It stresses the use periennal plants and plant guilds that grow well together. The book represent the first truly Permaculture Book written for United States growing regions and climates. This is already a popular book here in Santa Barbara Ca, where there is a great interest in learning how to use Permaculture in your own back yard and life. It helps to practically explain why a permaculture designed garden is a living natural system not just a garden. The way your garden design unfolds from using the book is truly exciting as you see that a biodiversity of plants planted for insects food and animals can exist in your own back yard.The use of water and other resources in your landscape is explain so you can see how they interconnect. Yes this book is explains all this and more so beautifully and simply.
Rating: 5 / 5