Synopses & Reviews
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. 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, including:
- Building and maintaining soil fertility and structure
- Catching and conserving water in the landscape
- Providing habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and animals
- Growing an edible "forest" that yields seasonal fruits, nuts, and other foods
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.
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"There is so much wisdom in Gaia's Garden that I would need a dozen columns to do it justice...a bold, wonderful, nature-embracing and completely sensible vision of the future." Justin Siskin, Los Angeles Daily News
Review
"Takes the native plants and organic gardening movement to the next level." Joel M. Lerner, The Washington Post
Review
"Practical science for making your yard produce food and beauty." Rose O'Donnell, The Seattle Times
Review
"A gardener's blueprint for ecological abundance from the ground up." Steve Spreckel, Acres USA
Review
"Become a sustainable producer of resources instead of a wasteful consumer. This wonderful book shows you how by helping you create and enhance beautiful backyard ecosystems within the garden. Put this book into action, and you'll begin to live an example that positively shifts your own community and beyond. Best of all, doing so with this book is simple, juicy, and fun." Brad Lancaster, author of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond and HarvestingRainwater.com
Review
"This is a book you will use and re-use, and enjoy having around for a long time." Peter Bane, The Permaculture Activist
Synopsis
"Gaia's Garden will be recorded in history as a milestone for gardeners and landscapers. . . An amazing achievement."--Paul Stamets
The classic book about ecological gardening--whatever size your garden--with over 250,000 copies sold
"A great book "--Men's Journal
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.
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--even for the beginner--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
This revised and updated edition also features a 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.
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. 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. His current project is developing urban sustainability resources in Portland, Oregon, where he now lives.