The Ultimate Guide to Permaculture
I've been meaning to read a
beginning permaculture book or two, just to make sure I haven't missed
any of the fundamentals through my hit or miss learning approach.
But skimming through all of the information in a beginner book in
search of a few gems annoys me, so I put the task off.
Last week, though, I
learned that one of the perks of signing on with a print publisher is
that they'll send you free copies of their books to review even before
they're released. Sign me up! The Ultimate Guide to Permaculture
by Nicole Faires sounded like it might fill that (potential) gap in my
permaculture knowlege-base quite well, so I spent all weekend drifting
through the text's pretty pictures.
The
Ultimate Guide to Permaculture is geared toward beginners,
and I think it would do a fine job of opening the eyes of someone who
might have heard the word "permaculture" once or twice but who knows
little else. I can't really compare it to the big two in that
category (Hemenway's Gaia's
Garden and
Mollison's Permaculture:
A Designer's Manual)
since I only skimmed the classics a few years ago, but I suspect
Faires' book is written on a more basic level than both, is more
enjoyable to read than Mollison's book, and has more of a textbook
style than Gaia's
Garden.
(What I'm trying to say here is that The
Ultimate Guide to Permaculture is written on a sixth grade
level, which drives me nuts, but is a style that clearly is preferred
by the majority of magazine-reading Americans.)
I also have several
bones to pick with the information presented in The
Ultimate Guide to Permaculture, but upon further
reflection, I decided that my nitpicks are more about permaculture as a
movement than about this book in particular. For example, while
it sounds good to say that edges promote biodiversity and that you
should make all of your garden beds wavy-edged for that reason, my
experience has shown that straight lines are much easier to
maintain. I think that all of the disagreements I have with
permaculture ideals like this stem from the lack of hands-on experience
of many permaculture philosophers.
Which is all a long way
of saying --- I recommend you give this book to your neighbor or mother
if they look at you in confusion when you say the word
"permaculture". Nicole Faires goes out of her way to keep the
book mainstream, her goal being to launch 
permaculture beyond the
"hippies and hipsters" who she thinks often advocate permaculture in a
manner that turns off the suburban housewife and traditional farmer.
I'd recommend that my
regular readers check this book out of the library. I got two or three
good ideas from the book and thoroughly enjoyed the refresher course on
permaculture zones.
But it's not staying on
my bookshelf...which is your gain! Leave a comment on this post
today, and I'll select one lucky winner tomorrow to receive The
Ultimate Guide to Permaculture in the mail next week.
Hopefully you'll find it just the right home!
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I have really not looked beyond what I've come across on your blog for information on permaculture. An intro book would probably be a useful intro to the key themes. I agree with you that ease of maintenance must be a factor in high labor food production (focus on labor productivity and return on labor . . . ) Edges come up in forestry management as well, particularly if you are managing forest for wildlife habitat.
Thanks for the help in mystery tree identification in my recent 'name that tree' blog posts!
I've been reading your blog for well over a year now. I was wondering what books you recommend reading for preaculture. This is my first year gardening and I have 23 acres we are trying to get under control. It was timbered 10 yrs ago before we bought it and is completely over run by honeysuckle, wild grape blackberries and tons of small trees. ( you cannot walk into it at all. I refuse to use any herbicide at all so it's slow going with a small front loader and a brush cutter. Was hoping you could recommend some good books of how to layout/ prevent it from taking over again once we have it manageable. Thanks
I'm glad so many of you are interested! I won't get the random number generator to choose a winner until tomorrow morning, so folks should feel free to keep commenting.
Meanwhile, I just wanted to quickly answer Melissa's question by sending her toward this post I made about beginning homesteading/permaculture books. We're working with a property just like hers, and it's slowly starting to come around after 5.5 years of hand labor.
Hi Anna, I enjoy your blog. So far, the books I have found most helpful when trying to form plans regarding our homestead / farm project have been Joel salatin's and gene logsdon's books. Right now I am reading Carol deppe's "the resilient gardener", and I really like it, her emphasis on staple crops that can be easily stored is something that makes a lot of sense to me. Keep up the good work!
Hello Anna!
I am very interested in the book. I am new to gardening and permaculture so I think it might be right up my alley.
Thanks!