Pages: | 328 pages |
Book Art: | Color photos throughout illustrations throughout |
Size: | 8 x 10 inch |
Publisher: | Chelsea Green Publishing |
Pub. Date: | April 30, 2009 |
ISBN: | 9781603580298 |
Gaia’s Garden
A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition
Paperback
$29.95
“A book that will be absolutely necessary in the world ahead.”—Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy and Hope, Human and Wild
The revised and updated edition of the classic guide to ecological gardening for home gardeners to achieve more beautiful, abundant and forgiving gardens of any size
Featuring new guidance on urban permaculture for people with limited growing space
Many people think that ecological gardening—which involves growing a wide range of edible and other useful plants—can take place only on a large, multiacre scale. But it’s fun and easy even for beginners to create a backyard ecosystem 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 a rewilded and biodiverse habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and animals
• Growing an edible “forest” that yields seasonal fruits, nuts, and other foods
Best of all, once it’s established, an ecological garden will reduce or eliminate most of the backbreaking work that’s needed to maintain the typical lawn and garden.
Gaia’s Garden has sparked the imagination of home gardeners the world over by introducing a simple message: working with nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. You can apply basic permaculture principles to make it more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful no matter what size garden or yard you have.
“An amazing achievement showing how we can and must live in harmony with nature!”—Paul Stamets, author of Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World
Reviews & Praise
—Brad Lancaster, author of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond
"Toby's fun, well-grounded, and engaging book is fast becoming a classic, and deservedly so. Practical yet visionary, broad-ranging yet focused on the basics one needs to know, this is a great place to start on the permaculture path. The new edition builds solidly on the success of the first. Congratulations!"
—Dave Jacke, co-author of the two-volume Edible Forest Gardens
"The world didn't come with an operating manual, so it's a good thing that some wise people have from time to time written them. Gaia's Garden is one of the more important, a book that will be absolutely necessary in the world ahead."
—Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy and Hope, Human and Wild
"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
"Gaia's Garden is simply the best permaculture book ever written, and is in the running for best gardening book ever written. No one should be without it."
—Sharon Astyk, author of Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front
"Toby Hemenway's Gaia's Garden will be recorded in history as a milestone for gardeners and landscapers--a fusion of the practical and the visionary--using the natural intelligence of Earth's symbiotic communities to strengthen and sustain ecosystems in which humans are a partner, not a competitor. An amazing achievement showing how we can and must live in harmony with nature!"
—Paul Stamets, author of Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World