Welcome to Ross Mars author of How to permaculture your life

Photo Source: Ross Mars facebook profile

Ross Mars is a renowned author and practitioner of permaculture and sustainable solutions, he has shared his knowledge in books and teaching for more than thirty years, this is his last book, a new step in guiding readers to transition to a new way of being part of this world.

There are four copies of his book, How to permaculture your life up for grabs.
Check out the review our Mother tree, Burra Maluca, posted under the book summary

Ross will be stopping by on the forum over the next few days answering questions and joining in discussions.

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



For particulars about our promotions, and learn how to win, click here


The winner will be notified by email and must respond within 24 hours.

Posts in this thread won't count, but please feel free to say hi to Ross and make him feel welcome!

Welcome. Thanks for visiting our forum.

It looks like an exciting book.

Welcome! This sounds like a helpful book.

Hello everyone. I live in Western Australia, so there is often a huge time difference to where you may live. However, I will be around each day, maybe even at the same time as some of you, so please ask questions. I'll do my best to answer as much as I can. I am happy that finally my latest book has come out. It has been many years since "The Basics of Permaculture Design", and I wanted to write about things that were based on fact. So often you read about the most miraculous plants, the superfoods, dynamic accumulators and healing herbs - only to find out that most of this is myth and folklore. So I did some research about all of this and wrote only what I knew to be true. Anyway., enough about that! Hope to hear from some of you soon. Ross

Thanks for taking the time to be with us!

Welcome Ross!
I am looking forward to reading your new book, "How to Permaculture Your Life". I had the pleasure of visiting Italy a couple of times. One of my favorite sights was seeing the terraces of lemon trees.

Hi Ross & welcome to the forums,

I wanted to ask if you have any advice regarding aging and permaculture. Specifically, my mother is building an accessible home and will be caring for herself and her mother (my grandma who is 92). The lot is going to be nothing but dirt when it's handed over to her, and she is required to put in a grass lawn. She isn't going to be able to dig trenches to place stumps and branches in (she's almost 70) to be able to build mounds, but is there a way she can bring permaculture into flower beds, and "regular" landscaping? She is looking for gardening that doesn't need much care after planting, no pruning, or cutting back and will come back year after year. I'm not in the same state and I'm new to permaculture, or I would be able to help her more, she's in zone 6a (but Ohio has been getting some pretty harsh winters lately). Her house will be on just over 1/2 acre, we don't know the full layout yet, but the bulk of the yard is in the back and ends with a row of large pines at the north border. Last use that I know of was it was part of the Hoover "vacuum cleaner" families dairy farm, so the land is pretty good. I'm just wondering if you have any ways that without "intensive" permaculture incorporation, she can bring in plenty of birds for my grandma to watch, pretty flowers that can be cut and brought indoors to enjoy (and actually smell like something) and maybe a way to sneak veggies into the mix. She also believes she has a black thumb and can't grow anything...however in her current house she made a sort of permaculture mound without knowing it, and it comes back year after year. She took a stump that they didn't have ground out, and mounded dirt and a thick much over it really deep, planted into that, and viola. Any ideas, or suggestions you could give me would be much appreciated, it'll be maybe even till next year till we can even start planting, but I'm very interested in if a permanent culture is a viable option for a suburban household, and for people that may have disabilities or are elderly and cannot work the earth with the vigor of a spring chicken.

Regards,
Denise

I'm stalled in permacultur-ing my life (life of a single mom), and I'm so looking forward to reading your book! Thank you for your generosity!

So I ran the winner picker app in the forum software and we have 4 winners.

Eric Hammond
Lori Dorchak
Waldo Schafli
and
Tracy Wandling

Congratulations Eric, Lori, Waldo and Tracy!

I sent you an email, please send me your snail mail address within the next 24 hrs.
And remember to post a review of the book once you've read it: here

Yay! Thanks so much! Really looking forward to reading the book. Every little tidbit I can glean about permaculture and life is one more tool in my little tool kit.

Cheers
Tracy

Denise, re aging and permaculture. Half an acre is quite a large site to manage. Every tree needs pruning or looking after in some way, so I think your mum will struggle. Simplest, easy things mum can do is to get someone to install some raised garden beds (one or two, each 8' long and 3 to 4 ' wide, preferrably 2.5' high), fill with herbs and vegetables she would actually use, allow her to look after and handwater these. Plant a few dwarf varieties of fruit trees she would eat and underplant these with colour - either flowers or herbs or both. That is enough to keep her busy. No-one has a black thumb - everyone can learn how to grow plants. If all of this is too much then a few window boxes filled with plants, a small plucking bed near the back door (or whatever door has sunshine for things to grow). Plant a herb lawn if you have too. Good luck, Ross

Congrats to those who won my latest book. There will be a north american version by New Society Publishers and it will be called The Permaculture Transition Manual. This is due out in Sept or October. My very best wishes for your permaculture journey. Ross

Thank you for your reply Ross, your advice sounds pretty much like I was going to recommend to her. Yes her lot is way bigger than she wanted, but it was the last one in a very small new cul-de-sac in the middle of a well-established area. I appreciate you taking your time, and good luck with your new book, it sounds like a "must-read!"
Denise