Book+-+Gaia's+Garden,+A+Guide+to+Home-Scale+Permaculture

=Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture= =Description= //"Now, picture your backyard as one incredibly lush garden, filled with edible flowers, bursting with fruit and berries, and carpeted with scented herbs and tangy salad greens. The visual impact is of Monet's palette, a wash of color, texture, and hue. But this is no still life. The flowers nurture endangered pollinators. Bright-featured songbirds feed on abundant berries and gather twigs for their nests.// //The plants themselves are grouped in natural communities, where each species plays a role in building soil, deterring pests, storing nutrients, and luring beneficial insects. And finally, you--good ol' homo sapiens--are an integral part of the scene. Your garden tools are resting against a nearby tree, and have a slight patina of rust, because this garden requires so little maintenance. You recline into a hammock to admire your work. You have created a garden paradise.//  //This is no dream, but rather an ecological garden, which takes the principles of permaculture and applies them on a home-scale. There is nothing technical, intrusive, secretive, or expensive about this form of gardening. All that is required is some botanical knowledge (which is in this book) and a mindset that defines a backyard paradise as something other than a carpet of grass fed by MiracleGro. Permaculture is a verbal marriage of "permanent" and "agriculture." Australian Bill Mollison pioneered its development. "// (from Amazon [|Ed.2001]) //"////Many people mistakenly 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. As Hemenway demonstrates, it's fun and easy to create a "backyard ecosystem" by assembling communities of plants that can work cooperatively and perform a variety of functions.// //The first edition of Gaia's Garden, sparked the imagination of America's home gardeners, introducing permaculture's 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.// //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 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.//" (from Amazon [|Ed.2009] **Keywords :** animals aphids apple attract backyard bamboo beans beneficial insects berries birds Botanical Name bugs build soil chickens comfrey Common Name Botanical compost cover crops create cycles cz cz decomposers deep dense diversity ecological design ecological garden ecosystem edge edible elements feed feet fertility flowers food forest forest garden fruit trees functions garden beds grass graywater greens ground grow guild habitat hackberries harvest heat herbs humus inches insectary insectary plants keyhole beds landscape layer leaf leaves manure mature microbes microclimates moisture Name Botanical Name nature nature’s niches nitrogen fixers nitrogen-fixing nutrients offer organic matter pattern perennial permaculture pests pile plant communities pollinators polyculture pond rain roots sector seeds shade sheet mulch shrubs space species swale techniques there’s thrive tion urban varieties vegetables walnut weeds wetland wild wildlife yard zone (from [|Googlebooks]) =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." (from [|Chelsea]) =Content= Edition 1 :
 * By Toby Hemenway and John Todd** - 328 (240) pages - 2009 (2001) **Back To Books** [[image:http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eSAkSNgX7xg/TVL2rmTx0VI/AAAAAAAAA7w/hwVXH8SdKnU/s1600/Gaia%2527s+Garden%252C+Second+Edition+A+Guide+to+Home-Scale+Permaculture.jpg width="240" height="300" align="right"]][[image:http://i1140.photobucket.com/albums/n564/zuikis77/eec7c8f4.jpg width="129" height="150" align="right"]] download for free from ?? ([|preview] or [|Scribd])
 * 1) use of compatible perennials;
 * 2) non-invasive planting techniques;
 * 3) emphasis on biodiversity;
 * 4) specifically adaptable to local climate, landscape, and soil conditions;
 * 5) highly productive output of edibles.

Edition 2 also include : 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.
 * 1) Building and maintaining soil fertility and structure
 * 2) Catching and conserving water in the landscape
 * 3) Providing habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and animals
 * 4) Growing an edible "forest" that yields seasonal fruits, nuts, and other foods

Table of Content

 * PART ONE - The Garden as Ecosystem
 * CHAPTER ONE - Introducing the Ecological Garden
 * Gardens that Really Work with Nature
 * Why Is Gardening So Much Work?
 * Beyond—Way Beyond—Natural Gardening
 * The Natives versus Exotics Debate
 * Making the Desert Bloom, Sustainably
 * How to Use This Book
 * CHAPTER TWO - A Gardener’s Ecology
 * Three Ecological Principles
 * A Mature Garden
 * A Few of Nature’s Tricks for Gardeners
 * CHAPTER THREE - Designing the Ecological Garden
 * Natural Patterns in the Garden
 * The Ecological Design Process
 * PART TWO - The Pieces of the Ecological Garden
 * CHAPTER FOUR - Bringing the Soil to Life
 * Soil Life: The First Recyclers
 * Building Soil Life
 * Sharing the Wealth of the Soil
 * CHAPTER FIVE - Catching, Conserving, and Using Water
 * The Fivefold Path to Water Wisdom
 * Conserving Water with Catchment
 * Water Brings the Garden to Life
 * CHAPTER 6 - Plants for Many Uses
 * The Many Roles of a Tree
 * Multipurpose Plants
 * The Roles of Plants in the Ecological Theater
 * Annuals and Perennials
 * Microclimates for the Garden
 * Nurses, Scaffolds, and Chaperones
 * Summary: Blending the Many Functions of Plants
 * CHAPTER 7 - Bringing in the Bees, Birds, and Other Helpful Animals
 * More Good Bugs than Bad
 * Attracting Beneficial Insects
 * The Gardener’s Feathered Friends
 * Other Backyard Helpers
 * PART THREE - Assembling the Ecological Garden
 * CHAPTER 8 - Creating Communities for the Garden
 * Interplanting and Beyond
 * Guilding the Garden
 * CHAPTER 9 - Designing Garden Guilds
 * An Intimate Way of Guild-Building
 * Guilds for Bookworms
 * Function-Stacking in Guilds
 * Creating a Superguild
 * Guilds Aren’t Perfect
 * CHAPTER 10 - Growing a Food Forest
 * Experimenting with Forest Gardens
 * The Seven-Story Garden
 * How the Food Forest Evolves
 * CHAPTER 11 - Permaculture Gardening in the City
 * The Edge of the City
 * Small Space, Big City
 * Expanding Gardens in Time
 * Finding Your Urban Garden
 * Urban Animals: Domestic, Wild, and Feral
 * Form, Function, and City Permaculture
 * CHAPTER 12 - Pop Goes the Garden
 * Choosing the Right Pieces
 * The Garden Gets Popping
 * Assembling the Garden Revisited
 * APPENDIX - A Sampling of Useful Plants

=External Links=
 * [|The Many Roles of a Tree - excerpt from Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture]
 * [|14 Principles of Permaculture by Toby Hemenway]
 * [|Designing a Forest Garden: The Seven-Story Garden]
 * [|An Apple-Centered Guild, An Excerpt from Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture]