Practical Permaculture for Home Landscapes, Your Community and the Whole Earth

Description

“This permaculture primer is fresh and vibrant. Bring it on!” ―Permaculture Magazine Permaculture is more popular than ever, but it can still be a daunting concept. If you are new to permaculture and interested in learning more, Practical Permaculture offers authoritative, in-depth, and hands-on advice for a more holistic approach to sustainable living. Jessi Bloom and Dave Boehnlein, two dynamic leaders in the permaculture community, explain the basics of permaculture, share their design process, and explore various permaculture systems including soil, water, waste, energy, shelter, food and plants, and animals and wildlife. They also profile the fifty most useful plants for permaculture landscapes. Review: Inspiring and informative, beautifully written for ease of understanding - Absolutely fantastic book! It is the required textbook for my upcoming Permaculture Design Certificate program, and I'm having a hard time putting it down. It is easy to understand and filled with so much variety of information, I am so anxious to start this amazing permaculture learning journey! Review: Pragmatic permaculture guidance in a beautiful book - The book is really thoughtful, practical, and excellently produced and written. It starts with a brief introduction to permaculture that builds on historical origins but avoids being a repeat of Mollison's visionary work. Practical Permaculture gives very clear examples, bases information on science, and modernizes concepts appropriately for 2015. The framework of the book is a step by step, well thought-out- process to designing a site using permaculture principles . "Designing a site" is one of the most important permaculture activities - the book helps you learn the important characteristics of your farm/backyard/community garden, deciding your goals, and placing elements such as plants, orchards, households, coops, ponds etc so they can reinforce each other following the dynamics of nature. It teaches the use of design tools such as sectors, zones, edges, and patterns in non-nonsense, approachable style. By following this book you'll have learned a lot and taken many of the important first steps in setting up a sustainable and enjoyable system. While many other other general permaculture books may be a repeat of Mollison's "Designer's Manual", the authors here provide genuine value and insight into the process of design, considering modern tools and options, and focusing on the actionable and pragmatic aspects of implementing a permaculture project. They also bring experience applying permaculture in colder climates and can put forth relevant species and examples of techniques to the table. The quality of the book is very high - materials, design, layout, illustrations are great. Having read many (most) of available books on the topic, and as a holder of a Permaculture Design Certificate I find myself recommending and gifting this book again and again for those who are new to Permaculture, and to those that are more aware of Permaculture generally but ask "so... how do I start"? This has been a great addition to my library - even though it ends up open on my desk most of the time. I hope the authors consider embarking on additional writing projects.