Welcome Patrick Whitefield, author of The Earth Care Manual

This week Patrick Whitefield will be joining us to answer questions and join in discussions about all aspects of permaculture.



There are up to four copies of his book The Earth Care Manual up for grabs.

The book is available to buy on amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, Chelsea Green or direct from the publisher, Permanent Publications

There is a staff review available here.

From now through til Friday, any posts in this forum, ie the permaculture forum, could be selected to win.

To win, you must use a name that follows our naming policy and you must have your email set up in Paul's daily-ish email..

The winner will be notified by email and must respond within 24 hours with their snail mail address.

Patrick's website is patrickwhitefield.co.uk.

Here's the first part of a video of Patrick talking about climate change and land use.




Posts in this thread won't count towards the promotion, but please feel free to say hi to Patrick and make him feel at home!

I have had this on my radar for a while. Is this information useful to people in hotter climates?

Hello Peter,

The book is very much directed at temperate climates. The best tropical climate book is probably still Bill Mollison's Permaculture, a Designer's Manual. But permaculture has moved on a lot since he wrote it, especially in terms of design methods, and my book has much which isn't in Bill's.

Best, Patrick

In the review it was noted that your book was excellent for temperate climates, whereas the Big Black Book is for tropical climates. Assuming you agree with this differentiation, how would you define temperate climate as distinct from tropical climate? Living in the Gulf Coast of the US I assume I am in the tropics, but we still get snow on occasion.

Thanks for being on the forum.

Well well well. I tried to get a copy of the Aranya's permaculture design book and didn't win
Now, (believing in fate or karma) I might decide it was so I could win this one. I really need more information that applies to temperate climates so this sounds like an important addition to my growing library. If I don't win it, I will buy it anyway. This is an awesome way for us to more intelligently select the books that are best suited to our needs; as I have bought others that were featured here as well. Having said that, I mentioned in my previous attempt that I am always looking for more in depth information to experiment with here in Southern Ontario. Perhaps someday (soon), Paul, you'll take a trip across the border and see what the Great White Northerners are up to. I would love to show off what we've done so far.

I am reading Edible Forest Gardens. How does the "Earth Care Manual" compare?
btw I'm new to this forum so I'll try to find the answers in old forum posts, but forgive me if I ask questions already asked.
Thank you

Hello Randy,

It's pretty difficult to pin down just what we mean by temperate. The Gulf coast probably is further south than I had in my sights when I wrote the book. On the other hand there's a fair bit in there which isn't climate dependent and it's very different in approach to Bill's book.

Hello Maria,

I'm a great admirer of Edible Forest Gardens. Volume one is to my mind a pretty complete exposition of the science on which permaculture is based. Volume two concentrates on forest gardens, aka food forests, which is not at all the same thing as permaculture. It's a part of permaculture but not the whole thing. My book attempts to cast the net much wider and includes all aspects of permaculture, with quite an emphasis on designing your own place.

Best wishes, Patrick

Good luck, Laura!

Would love to win this book! am semi new to implementation of permaculture...... Have loved the Idea of it for years. I live in Washington state, west side, and I think this would really help with plant selection.

Eivind Bjoerkavaag,
Your post was moved to a new topic.

Thank you. I'd love to read your book. I'm very new to permaculture and am enjoying everything I'm learning and implementing.

Welcome... I saw the video, and all 6! And the tree ID... Great knowledge...

I will not stop writing this week though I am in a real subtropical climate, frost free. I even think I would love the book!
For being new in this climate, I can add my two pence for Randy's question

how would you define temperate climate as distinct from tropical climate?

- First, a joke but not that much, you become fed up with reading about happy claims for plants not being frost tender!
... and you want the information about how hot resistant a plant is... if you ever find it.
You can also find it difficult to learn about the rain patterns that plants prefer, winter or summer rain. And the watering can be different.

- And seriously, I finally guessed what is the main difference: how high is the sun in the sky, and how much closer is the sun to you!
And it burns. So you want to shade ABOVE your plants. Even tomatoes have sun burns. The same temperature is different in Canada and in Mexico !!

- Then about humus "evaporating" into air, well, loosing carbon, I think it goes faster in tropical soils. So again, covering from above with trees is even more important.

- You have to inquire about new plants. You learn that some annuals are NOT annual at all!
(better if you learn before your neighbor asks you why on earth you dug out some of your plants this autumn!)

- So you will not learn about many great plants in temperate books. You will not learn WHEN to sow and plant for your place. I sow now what most people sow in spring... Well, all this is my actual experience.

Howdy, This sounds like a very useful book. Im sure there are some ideas I could put into effect. Thanks for what you all do.

Stjepan Golemac,
Your post was moved to a new topic.

It's interesting to see how many of you are concerned about plant selection. In fact there's remarkably little about plant selection in my book. For me permaculture is not so much about the things themselves - plants, animals, structures etc - but the connections between them. It's about how you put things together in a functional, harmonious design.

Of course climate plays a part in that too. Xisca points out how important shade becomes in a tropical climate, for example, and how it becomes a whole different ball game. Here in the north shade is usually something to avoid!

Greetings from the colonies ( Canada), Patrick!

My interest peaked when you uttered this phrase:

'My book attempts to cast the net much wider and includes all aspects of permaculture, with quite an emphasis on designing your own place. "

Reason:
I am in the thick of promoting a permaculture design focus to an owner of a 50 acre estate ( pristine forest, wetlands, farm and fields + offsite forest management )
The goal is to have visiting experts teach students in Sustainability Studies.
Many of these experts reside everywhere on the planet so student and teacher lodging is factored in.
Most teachers/trainers appearing in Canada appear to originate in Australia.

I am enjoying the permie site and will also visit yours. Any other sites and texts would help us all on our learning curve.

Do you know of any projects that are "partnering" to create " ecoventures" with students? I think this project would like to do that to share findings and have mutual visits.

welcome Patrick.Let me say that for us here in the Pacific NW,your books have,up until the release of Martin Crawfords,have been some of the few geared toward our bioregion.Namely due to the similarities between England and here. The most valuable part of The Earth Care Manual,as far as new info goes I believe ,is your discussion and drawing on page 198 and 199 on perennial vegetables.This often talked about topic has little out there as far as management goes.Management practices are as important as the plants themselves when dealing with new plant info.'coppicing'perennials is something I have explored for years and I appriciate that you also have actually tried it and that real life experience shows!Talk is cheap in permaculture but you book reveals experience.

Welcome, Patrick! I very much enjoyed the videos linked in this thread. I look forward to checking out your book -- I had heard of it, but didn't realize what a great resource it seems to be. Thank you for joining us here!

Can I just remind everyone who might be hoping to win a copy of Patrick's book that -

To win, you must use a name that follows our naming policy and you must have your email set up in Paul's daily-ish email..

The winner will be notified by email and must respond within 24 hours with their snail mail address.

PLEASE check that you've done those things! I almost cry every time Paul posts up the names of the winners only to read that one was chosen but they weren't on his email list so won't be getting their book.

if my messages start like this... does it mean I'm on the list ?

This is paul wheaton's daily-ish email that is usually about permaculture and making a better world through learning good things rather than being angry at bad guys. To learn more about this email (and possibly helping with devious plots on world domination) visit http://www.richsoil.com/email.jsp

and yes that my real name!
please can I win a book?

haven't read this book but last winter I read How to Make a forest Garden and Permaculture in a Nutshell..love your writing..thanks for coming on and sharing with us

Laura Jean Wilde wrote:if my messages start like this... does it mean I'm on the list ?

This is paul wheaton's daily-ish email that is usually about permaculture and making a better world through learning good things rather than being angry at bad guys. To learn more about this email (and possibly helping with devious plots on world domination) visit http://www.richsoil.com/email.jsp

If you get emails that start like that, then yes, you're on Paul's dailyish email list!

If you don't click the following link and sign up before Paul does this week's draw - http://www.richsoil.com/email.jsp

Don't forget that there are four books on offer. Two go to the authors of the best posts of ten randomly selected by Paul's bit of software. And then there are two to go to whoever recommended permies to those authors, so long as they are subscribed to Paul's daily email. So get in touch with whoever brought you here and get them signed up too!

(drum roll goes here)

I ran the random picker app .... and out of ten entries, I have selected the two winner! And ....

...

Neither of them are listed in the daily-ish email, so they are both disqualified.

Damn.

Rather than there being zero winners this week, I have decided to run the random picker AGAIN!

Hmmmmm .... lots of good posts .... okay, I picked the two best posts out of the ten presented to me. And BOTH are on the daily-ish email!

Congratulations to

J D Horn

M Troyka

I have sent them both an email asking for their snail mail address and the email address of the person that referred them to permies.com. If the referrers are in the daily-ish email list, they get books too!

Yay! And I wasn't even trying this time.

Unfortunately my referrer was google, and I don't know anyone else who might be eligible to pass it to .

Patrick Whitefield wrote:It's interesting to see how many of you are concerned about plant selection. In fact there's remarkably little about plant selection in my book. For me permaculture is not so much about the things themselves - plants, animals, structures etc - but the connections between them. It's about how you put things together in a functional, harmonious design.

Yes... but you must know what you are connecting in your design!

So yes, I understand the point of view for a book, that must be as universal as possible.
But the problem to put permaculture into practice, is to know the elements one is working with.

Connections?
OK, plant selection means "witch plants can I connect to my place".
I would love to connect buckwheat to my finca,
but sorghum is surely more adapted.