Volume One: Vision and Theory
Introduction: an Invitation to Adventure
What is an edible forest garden?
Gardening like the forest vs
gardening in the forest
Where can you grow a forest garden?
The Garden of Eden: it sounds great, but is it practical?
Part One: Vision
1: The Forest and the Trees
The primeval forest: a remembrance
Gardening the forest
Forest remnants
Feature article 1: natives and exotics
Definitions and questions
Box1.1: shifting the burden to the intervenor
Suburban ecology
Lessons learned
2: Visions of Paradise
Study of the household: ecology defined
Tales of mimicry
The advantages of forest mimicry
Box 2.1: the principle of functional interconnection
The limits of forest mimics
Spanning the gamut: images of forest gardens
Goals of forest gardening
Revision - the Garden of Eden?
Case study 1: Charlie's garden
Part Two: Ecology
3: The Five Elements of Forest Architecture
Vegetation layers
Soil horizons
Feature article 2: with all these layers, what do I grow in the shade?
Vegetation density
Patterning
Box 3.1: the principles of relative location
Diversity
Summary
Case study 2: Robert's garden
4: Social Structure: Niches, Relationships, and Communities
Species, species niches, and species relationships
Box 4.1: niche analysis: everybody does it
Box 4.2: the principle of multiple funtions
Box 4.3: the principle of stress and harmony
Box 4.4: the competitive exclusion principle
Box 4.5: the cropping principle
Multispecies interactions: frameworks of social structure
Box 4.6: the principle of redundancy
Social structure design: anchors and strategies
Feature article 3: natives and exotics, opportunists and invasives
Box 4.7: the polyculture partitioning principle
Box 4.8: ecological analogs
Chapter summary
5: Structures of the Underground Economy
The anatomy of self-renewing fertility
Box 5.1: the concept of limiting factors
Feature article 4: parent materials: the soil's nutritional constitution
Plant
roots: engines of the
underground economy
Box 5.2: specific replant disease
The soil food web
Dabbling in the underground economy
6: Succession: four perspectives on vegetation dynamics
Classical linear succession and climax
Box 6.1: The principle of allocation
Progressive succession to shifting-mosaic steady state
Patch dynamics: out of line and out of balance
A unified oldfield theory: successional causes
Box 6.2: the law of vegetation dynamics
Box 6.3: the law of dynamic tolerance
Feature article 5: "invasive plants" and the unified oldfield theory
Succession design: using the four models
Summary: the simultaneity of the four models
Case study 3: E.F.Schumacher forest garden
Conclusion: Elements, Dynamics, and Desired Conditions
Appendices
Appendix one: forest gardening's "top 100" species
Appendix two: plant hardiness zone maps
Appendix three: publications and organisations
Glossary
Bibliography
Index