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Plants For a Future: Edible & Useful Plants for a Healthier World by Ken Fern

posted 3 years ago

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Source: Amazon

Author - Ken Fern
Publisher - Permanent Publications

Summary
Permanent Publications says, "The way we currently produce our food is damaging both to ourselves and our planet: we need to create gardens, woodlands and farms which are in harmony with nature. Though all natural ecosystems provide excellent examples to follow, Plants For a Future specifically focuses on edible species, suggesting a wide variety of easily grown perennials and self-seeding annuals which produce delicious and healthy food."

About the Author
Permanent Publications says, "Ken Fern has always been a plant enthusiast. Over the years he has experimented with, and compiled information on, a huge number of useful, unusual plants. With an increasing concern for the state of agriculture and the health of our planet, Ken decided to ‘downshift’ from his job as a bus driver for London Transport in the early 1990s and move to Cornwall to establish the pioneering charity, Plants For A Future."

Where to get it?
Permanent Publications
amazon us
amazon uk
Amazon.ca

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COMMENTS:

Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 8380

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

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posted 3 years ago

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I give this book 9 out of 10 acorns

♡ Warning! this book can seriously change your garden! ♡

I blame Ken for inspiring me to try a whole range of unusual edibles, as I bought this book about 20 years ago. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in extending their knowledge of edible perennials in the temperate world.

As well as an overview of their own journey into unusual edibles - "why don't carrots grow on trees", the book has useful tips on growing a vast range of perennial edible plants. It also covers non edible uses to a certain extent. The book is organised by growing area, so - ponds, lawns, forests etc. so whatever your growing style, you can work out how to incorporate more useful plants into your plot. Ken also has a chapter on crops that might take more development, or that he has not had personal experience of growing.
As I said above, the plants are mainly temperate plants, Britain is a relatively cool maritime climate, although being based in Cornwall, UK Ken gets rather milder winters than most here, but generally adequate rainfall. If you live in desert or arctic, there will still be some things to grow, but probably fewer.

Another website the ferns website.

Ken and Addy Fern are not so involved in the Plants for a Future (pfaf) website (who concentrate on the plants database originally created by Ken) as they are more interested in the land project at the field in Cornwall, although Ken is updating his own version of the plants database at the link above. Their land in Cornwall is full of interesting edibles planted over 30 years: see my blog post

from my visit there in 2018.

(edited to add first line and extend information)

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

What a stench! Central nervous system shutting down. Save yourself tiny ad!

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