Customer Comments

Gaia's Garden is a fantastic guide to making gardening 'easier'- in other words, how to make your garden produce the most food for the least amount of effort. It guides you to set up natural systems that provide everything plants need on site. The amount of information in the book is astounding, and best of all, the author lives in Portland, so all of the plant lists and growing suggestions are appropriate for our growing seasons. Not that it wouldn't be helpful in other climates, but it's perfect for Portland! I am hoping that my first year efforts at permaculture lead to a great front yard farm.

I hesitated to read this book; would it be melodramatic? Another standard coming-of-age story? Finally I decided to get it from the library first and give it a try. Read on a long road trip throughout Oregon and Idaho, I am glad I did. The characters are beautifully real- not too kind or too selfish- and they dance on the fine line between "rational" and "crazy". The settings, too, are so distinct that they can be smelled and tasted, but without long descriptions that distract from the storyline. The story stuck with me and I had to buy a copy for repeat reading.