Five Best Introduction Permaculture Resources

Well, it's not quite that simple... 

I am an extreme newbie in regard to Permaculture.  I can probably explain the 30 second version of Permaculture to someone in about five minutes and kind of know what a swale is, but that is the extent of my knowledge.  As I endeavor to learn more, I thought I would it would be helpful to ask the eminently knowledgeable folk here at Permies. 

Also, knowing that there will be newbies coming here long after I learn, I thought it might be helpful to compile a list of resources. 

I'd like to ask your top 5 resources so I can edit this thread and include for posterity.  I have a few different categories; you can submit 5 for each category or lump all 5 together.   If I've left out a category (Top 5 Permaculture Folk Songs?) please let me know!  I'll try to compile the list together once a week or so for the foreseeable future.

Top 5 Permaculture Resources:

Top 5 Books
Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway <4 votes>
Earth Care Manual by Patrick Whitefield <1 vote>
Earth User's Guide by Rosemary Morrow <1 vote>
One Straw Revolution by Masunobu Fukuoka <1 vote>
Plants for a Future <1 vote>
Edible Forest Garden 1 & 2 <1 vote>
The Designer's Manual <1 vote>
Introduction to Permaculture <1 vote>

Top 5 Websites
www.pfaf.org <1 vote>
www.permaculturedesignsolutions.com <1 vote>
www.permaculutre.org.au <1 vote>
www.transitionnetwork.org <1 vote>
www.swompenglish.wordpress.com <1 vote>

Top 5 Free Online Videos

Top 5 DVDs
Introduction to Permaculture (Geoff Lawton) <1 vote>
How to Build a Forest Garden (Geoff Lawton) <1 vote>
Synergistic Gardening (Emilia Hazelip) <1 vote>
Greening the Desert (Geoff Lawton) <1 vote>
How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Earth, but not Civilization (Toby Hemenway) <1 vote>

Top 5 Courses/Programs/Instructors

Space reserved for possible future content.

Someone should respond so I will.

First of all, let me say that I am not an expert. I never took a PDC.  I've been growing plants this way for about 12 years, but I've got a lot to learn.

Any way,..
Books- The David whatever partner of Bill Mollison in Permaculture concept book I read. It was great. I also liked the Food FOrest book by the English guy-Chapman? Gaia's Garden of course. 

Websites: In addition to this site, we have a local site- Portland Permaculture, Home ORchard Society, Cloudforest Cafe, Yahoo compost tea users group, Discount Permaculture-Farmer Scrub.

Youtube is a great source for videos.

There are a lot of local people in Portland, OR who I converse with, but that's mostly it.
John S
PDX OR

hey,

good idea.

wel i enjoy gaia's garden (toby hemenway) a lot, to me that is the most nuts-and-bolts type of book that is written about permaculture apart from the mollison/holmgren books. Gaia's garden really is about the plants, comes with charts and suggestions an gives plenty examples to get you going with applying permaculture principles in the garden. its the only book i know of going deeper into the art of guilding the garden and gives examples of different guilds. It only about gardens though, no architecture, social permaculture or renewable energy recources in this book

For temperate climates, specially western-europe, the earth care manual from patrick whitefield is a good read (as well as his book about forest gardening and his book about reaing the lanscape)

i think rosemary morrow's earth users guide is a really good one as well and come third for me

i loved fukuoka's one straw revolution , and though people who are just beginning will get frustrated because it doesnt get less nut-and-bolty than that, and unless you live in japan and plan to grow rice, barley and oranges will suply no practical knowledge.
but on a filosophical way it is really great.

hmm so what to place on no 5... there is so much to read...
i guess it has to be the plants for a future book. the most extensive reasearch done for edible plants, created a big database as well...

so:
books
1 gaia's garden
2 earth care manual
3 earth users guide
4 one straw revolution
5 plants for a future
(6 seed savers handbook)

movies
1 introduction to permaculture - geoff lawton
2 how to build a forest garden - geoff lawton
3 synergistic gardening - emilia hazelip
4 greening the desert - geoff lawton
5 how permaculture can save humanity and the earth, but not civilization - toby hemenway

(this last one isnt a nuts and bolts one, but really interesting)

websites:
www.pfaf.org - extensive edible plants database
www.permaculturedesignsolutions.com - articles and explanations
www.permaculture.org.au
www.transitionnetwork.org
and then there are various blogs like ours:
www.swompenglish.wordpress.com

For courses it is mainly which area you are in that determins which is best for you to follow.

Out here in the netherlands there are several places that offer pdc courses, but they are dutch, in england i think patrick whitefields courses are of great value, but also graham burnetts, specially if you live in a city.

Books :


#1 : definitely "Edible Forest Garden" vol  1&2
#2 : "The Designer's Manual"
#3 : "Introduction to permaculture"

After it depends on what you want to do.

I'm in agreement with the lists above..I totally love Gaia's Garden by  Toby Hemenway..but also any books or phamplets by Bill Mollison are great..you could go online and view the gardens of Sepp Holtzer, they will inspire you..I have an order in to the library to get Edible forest Gardens by Dave Jacke, I'm sure they would be a good read but haven't read them yet..Love Fukoka's books and articles..I suggest just typing in the subjects you are interested in and going and reading the pages that pop up on a cold winter's day..nothing gets your spring blood going like reading about gardening on the internet..

Thanks for the responses everyone!  I will try to update this topic once a week or so as new responses are added.

For the moment, I haven't had any resources other than Gaia's Garden recommended more than once, so I will let the Top 5 books spill over to 10 until we have more "votes".  

John S, not sure about the authors or titles of all of the books you were referring to, so they're not in at the moment.  If you provide them later I'll of course add them into the list.  Any particular YouTube videos you'd recommend?  Thanks!

Joop, thanks so much for the incredibly detailed information and for using the format I requested.  You rock!

Permaguy, thanks for the book suggestions!

Brenda, So far I'll just list Gaia's Garden from you and let me know what you think of the other books.