EBOOK
About
"A useful and a wonderful resource whether you grow on a balcony, rooftop or in the ground." -Yolanda Burrell, owner of Pollinate Farm and Garden Supply
Once a fringe topic, permaculture is moving to the mainstream as organic gardeners discover the wisdom of a simple system that emphasizes the simple idea that by taking care of the earth, the earth takes care of you. The Vegetable Gardener's Guide to Permaculture is for home gardeners of every skill-with any size space-who want to live in harmony with nature to produce and share an abundant food supply with minimal effort. Christopher Shein highlights everything you need to know to start living off the land lightly. You'll learn how to create rich, healthy, and low-cost soil, blend a functional food garden and decorative landscape, share the bounty with others, and much more. This inspiring, easy-to-follow, information-packed, practical guide will help you transform your garden into a food forest that feeds you for years to come. Christopher Shein has been a gardener in Berkeley and Oakland, California since 1993. He has started dozens of community gardens, school gardens, market gardens, and gardens in backards in centers serving the homeless. He teaches permaculture at Merritt Community College where he helped develop the award-winning student farm. Shein also owns Wildheart Gardens, a permaculture landscape business that designs and builds sustainable gardens. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and earned his Permaculture Design Certificate at Linnaea Farm on Cortes Island, British Columbia. He lives with his wife, Dr. Runa Basu, D.O., and their daughters, Gitanjali and Bija Sol, in urban South Berkeley. What Is Permaculture?
What vegetable gardener wouldn't like to grow more food in less time and for less money? That's exactly what permaculture offers. Instead of relying on backbreaking work, fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, the permaculture gardener uses methods that build healthy soil, smother weeds, and promote plant life, while recycling waste products from the garden. Whether you are a beginner gardener just starting to grow your own food or an experienced grower who wants to increase your yields, you'll find that permaculture offers design tools and growing techniques that will help you create an abundance of food for your family and friends while saving you effort in the garden.
Formalized in the late 1970s in Australia by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, permaculture combines sustainable agriculture, landscape design, and ecology (the name is drawn from the terms permanent agriculture and permanent culture). It is an approach that encourages the home gardener to work with nature rather than against it to design a garden that thrives with minimal intervention. Although terms like hugelkultur, fruit tree guilds, and food forest may seem unfamiliar now, these are in fact simple concepts that can be implemented in any edible garden.
Permaculture has much in common with organic gardening, but it is a different approach. Natural ecosystems are the model, so plants are placed in mutually beneficial plant communities. There is an emphasis on perennial plants over annual ones, and permaculture gardeners grow many crops at the same time in the same location. There are ongoing recycling and re-use projects throughout the garden, such as water harvesting. And permaculture does not advocate plowing and digging the soil, but rather building it up over time with no-till methods.
Permaculture and Food
My mother became a vegetarian when I was twelve years old, and it was thanks to her love of vegetables that she became my first gardening mentor. I remember when we lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she tended vegetable patches beside the porch as well as in different community gardens. Those early years spent around vegetables gave me a great appreciation for their immense variety, both in the
Once a fringe topic, permaculture is moving to the mainstream as organic gardeners discover the wisdom of a simple system that emphasizes the simple idea that by taking care of the earth, the earth takes care of you. The Vegetable Gardener's Guide to Permaculture is for home gardeners of every skill-with any size space-who want to live in harmony with nature to produce and share an abundant food supply with minimal effort. Christopher Shein highlights everything you need to know to start living off the land lightly. You'll learn how to create rich, healthy, and low-cost soil, blend a functional food garden and decorative landscape, share the bounty with others, and much more. This inspiring, easy-to-follow, information-packed, practical guide will help you transform your garden into a food forest that feeds you for years to come. Christopher Shein has been a gardener in Berkeley and Oakland, California since 1993. He has started dozens of community gardens, school gardens, market gardens, and gardens in backards in centers serving the homeless. He teaches permaculture at Merritt Community College where he helped develop the award-winning student farm. Shein also owns Wildheart Gardens, a permaculture landscape business that designs and builds sustainable gardens. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and earned his Permaculture Design Certificate at Linnaea Farm on Cortes Island, British Columbia. He lives with his wife, Dr. Runa Basu, D.O., and their daughters, Gitanjali and Bija Sol, in urban South Berkeley. What Is Permaculture?
What vegetable gardener wouldn't like to grow more food in less time and for less money? That's exactly what permaculture offers. Instead of relying on backbreaking work, fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, the permaculture gardener uses methods that build healthy soil, smother weeds, and promote plant life, while recycling waste products from the garden. Whether you are a beginner gardener just starting to grow your own food or an experienced grower who wants to increase your yields, you'll find that permaculture offers design tools and growing techniques that will help you create an abundance of food for your family and friends while saving you effort in the garden.
Formalized in the late 1970s in Australia by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, permaculture combines sustainable agriculture, landscape design, and ecology (the name is drawn from the terms permanent agriculture and permanent culture). It is an approach that encourages the home gardener to work with nature rather than against it to design a garden that thrives with minimal intervention. Although terms like hugelkultur, fruit tree guilds, and food forest may seem unfamiliar now, these are in fact simple concepts that can be implemented in any edible garden.
Permaculture has much in common with organic gardening, but it is a different approach. Natural ecosystems are the model, so plants are placed in mutually beneficial plant communities. There is an emphasis on perennial plants over annual ones, and permaculture gardeners grow many crops at the same time in the same location. There are ongoing recycling and re-use projects throughout the garden, such as water harvesting. And permaculture does not advocate plowing and digging the soil, but rather building it up over time with no-till methods.
Permaculture and Food
My mother became a vegetarian when I was twelve years old, and it was thanks to her love of vegetables that she became my first gardening mentor. I remember when we lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she tended vegetable patches beside the porch as well as in different community gardens. Those early years spent around vegetables gave me a great appreciation for their immense variety, both in the