The first edition of Gaiais Garden sparked the imagination of Americais home gardeners, introducing permacultureis central message: Working with Nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. This extensively revised and expanded second edition broadens the reach and depth of the permaculture approach for urban and suburban growers. Many people mistakenly think that ecological gardeningowhich involves growing a wide range of edible and other useful plantsocan take place only on a large, multiacre scale. As Hemenway demonstrates, itis fun and easy to create a ibackyard ecosystemi by assembling communities of plants that can work cooperatively and perform a variety of functions, including: * Building and maintaining soil fertility and structure * Catching and conserving water in the landscape * Providing habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and animals * Growing an edible iforesti that yields seasonal fruits, nuts, and other foods This revised and updated edition also features a new chapter on urban permaculture, designed especially for people in cities and suburbs who have very limited growing space. Whatever size yard or garden you have to work with, you can apply basic permaculture principles to make it more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful. Best of all, once itis established, an ecological garden will reduce or eliminate most of the backbreaking work thatis needed to maintain the typical lawn and garden.
Gaia's Garden, Second Edition
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"Permaculture gardens are no longer a thing of the future. They are here to stay and flourish. "Gaia's Garden" is enlightening and required reading for all people who desire to make their home's landscape healthy, sustainable, and healing."--Robert Kourik, author of "Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape--Naturally"
About the Author
Toby Hemenway is the author of the first major North American book on permaculture, Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, and an adjunct assistant professor at Portland State University. He wrote the foreword for Heather C. Flores' Food Not Lawns. After obtaining a degree in biology from Tufts University, Toby worked for many years as a researcher in genetics and immunology, first in academic laboratories including Harvard and the University of Washington in Seattle, and then at Immunex, a major medical biotech company. At about the time he was growing dissatisfied with the direction biotechnology was taking, he discovered permaculture, a design approach based on ecological principles that creates sustainable landscapes, homes, and workplaces. A career change followed, and Toby and his wife spent ten years creating a rural permaculture site in southern Oregon. He was associate editor of Permaculture Activist, a journal of ecological design and sustainable culture, from 1999 to 2004. His current project is developing urban sustainability resources in Portland, Oregon, where he now lives. He teaches permaculture and consults and lectures on ecological design throughout the country. His writing has appeared in magazines such as Whole Earth Review, Natural Home, and Kitchen Gardener. He is available for workshops, lectures, and consulting in ecological design. Visit his web site at http:// www.patternliteracy.com
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Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By Hélène
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Finally a way of gardening that calls to me! It's incredible the ressources we spend on producing food the standard way. It always felt against the flow to me, planting just a couple of different plants in rows, necessiting fertilisers, weeding and when things broke apart, insecticides, pesticides, fungicides. Without talking about seeds, seedlings and other time and money investement a garden needs! So much work for a gardener! This book, amongst other things, introduce the gardener to plants seldom seen in standard garden and how to reduce the human workload while upgrading significantly the harvest. This is not your lettuce garden, it is so much more.
Permaculture redefine the way a gardener works by suggesting to him to let mother nature do a lot of that work for him. The ingredients for the recipe are simple and Gaia's Garden: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture go through them clearly and thoroughly. From soil and water management to the insect and wildlife kingdom, it suggest ways to create a garden webbed in rich collaboration. The result is a garden that is stronger by it's diversity, making it more abondant and resistant.
If you feel you've been lacking the spark in gardening, this book could redefine the way you go about it with a world of exciting possibilities.
The small minus of the book I found was mostly at the beginning, where the author preaches more the philosophy of the practice. It feels like he need to defend his stance and for me, that's not necessary. I would say the 2 lasts chapters were the best. One of them does a great recap of all the book without the aforementionned preaching and the other is about a "Pop!". When a garden suddenly gets it's groove on. There is also chapters about urban gardening in very small spaces or the opposite, forest gardening. It is a tremendous reference for the gardener of the future.
Permaculture redefine the way a gardener works by suggesting to him to let mother nature do a lot of that work for him. The ingredients for the recipe are simple and Gaia's Garden: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture go through them clearly and thoroughly. From soil and water management to the insect and wildlife kingdom, it suggest ways to create a garden webbed in rich collaboration. The result is a garden that is stronger by it's diversity, making it more abondant and resistant.
If you feel you've been lacking the spark in gardening, this book could redefine the way you go about it with a world of exciting possibilities.
The small minus of the book I found was mostly at the beginning, where the author preaches more the philosophy of the practice. It feels like he need to defend his stance and for me, that's not necessary. I would say the 2 lasts chapters were the best. One of them does a great recap of all the book without the aforementionned preaching and the other is about a "Pop!". When a garden suddenly gets it's groove on. There is also chapters about urban gardening in very small spaces or the opposite, forest gardening. It is a tremendous reference for the gardener of the future.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm not a gardener. Yet. I have a small, inner city backyard that has run to weeds, with a few wild raspberry bushes in it, and I haven't known where to start to get it under control.
I got this book, and have been reading it like a novel for the past couple of days. It's strange to say that about a permaculture/gardening theory and how-to book, but seriously, I can't put it down! I'm so inspired by it. Not only that, but there are some really practical ideas for getting started, ideas that even a beginner like me can figure out. For instance, instead of doing the back-breaking weeding I kept thinking I had to do in order to get my backyard in order (and which we did some of last year, only to find the weeds growing back as fast as we could get rid of them), Hemenway suggests sheet mulching. Not to mention some rethinking about what "weeds" are, and what their role is in your garden ecosystem.
And I like the fact that the book really explains permaculture and the principles behind it, and how plants and trees and bugs and animals and people interact with each other. It starts from the very beginning, for beginners like me, but I think that even experienced gardeners will love this book because of all the examples and ideas Hemenway seeds through all of his writing.
If you need not only an introduction, but a thorough understanding of permaculture, this is your book.
I got this book, and have been reading it like a novel for the past couple of days. It's strange to say that about a permaculture/gardening theory and how-to book, but seriously, I can't put it down! I'm so inspired by it. Not only that, but there are some really practical ideas for getting started, ideas that even a beginner like me can figure out. For instance, instead of doing the back-breaking weeding I kept thinking I had to do in order to get my backyard in order (and which we did some of last year, only to find the weeds growing back as fast as we could get rid of them), Hemenway suggests sheet mulching. Not to mention some rethinking about what "weeds" are, and what their role is in your garden ecosystem.
And I like the fact that the book really explains permaculture and the principles behind it, and how plants and trees and bugs and animals and people interact with each other. It starts from the very beginning, for beginners like me, but I think that even experienced gardeners will love this book because of all the examples and ideas Hemenway seeds through all of his writing.
If you need not only an introduction, but a thorough understanding of permaculture, this is your book.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By Zuni Too
Format:Paperback
Taking gardening and land stewardship to a whole new level, this book truly presents an entirely new paradigm for sustainable living.
The book picks up where bio-intensive gardening leaves off. If you're curious about permaculture, urban forests and sustainable life-styles, this is your chance to reach into the future, starting on a small urban or suburban property.
Hemenway gives deeper meaning to working with nature by exploring how She can help remedy the banes of residential lots: poor soil, bad drainage, and dependency on purchased water, chemicals and landscape materials. I wish I had discovered the book a long time ago. Read it, live it! Gaia's Garden: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture
The book picks up where bio-intensive gardening leaves off. If you're curious about permaculture, urban forests and sustainable life-styles, this is your chance to reach into the future, starting on a small urban or suburban property.
Hemenway gives deeper meaning to working with nature by exploring how She can help remedy the banes of residential lots: poor soil, bad drainage, and dependency on purchased water, chemicals and landscape materials. I wish I had discovered the book a long time ago. Read it, live it! Gaia's Garden: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture
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4.6 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well researched and written book
Hemenway knows of what he writes. He's experimented in his own gardens, toured widely and stays focused on home horticulturalists. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Carolyn Langdon
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Permaculture book I own
I really like this book. Very straightforward, practical, really worth its price. There are many ideas in this book I will certainly apply to my land.
Published 5 months ago by antoine graveline
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible book!
This book is packed full of user friendly information about permaculture and I LOVE everything about it. Couldn't put it down! Highly recommended.
Published 9 months ago by Sherri
5.0 out of 5 stars
Every home should have this on their bookshelf
This book is simply incredible. It makes seemingly hard concepts extremely easy to implement. For the health and happiness of us and our ecosystems, everyone should own or borrow a... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Brittany
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book
Just what I needed to rethink my gardening. Combine this with Mycellium Running by Paul Stamets and it will change your gardening forever.
Published on Jun 8 2010 by C. Hammer
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