Gaia's Garden: A Home Scale Guide to Permaculture - Toby Hemenway
Book Summary: The first edition of Gai's Garden captured the imagination of American home gardeners by introducing the main message of permaculture: Working with nature, not against it, results in more beautiful, richer and more forgiving gardens.
Many people mistakenly believe that organic gardening, which involves the cultivation of a wide variety of edible and other useful plants, can only be carried out on a large, multi-acre scale. As Hemenway shows, creating a home ecosystem is easy and fun by gathering plant communities that can cooperate and perform various functions, including: Building and maintaining soil fertility and structure, Catching and conserving water in the landscape, Providing habitat for beneficial insects, birds and animals, Growing an edible forest that produces seasonal fruits, nuts and other foods.
Regardless of the size of the yard or garden you have to work with, you can apply the basic principles of permaculture to make it more diverse, more natural, productive and more beautiful. Most importantly, once you set up an ecological garden, you will reduce or eliminate most of the cumbersome work required to maintain a typical lawn and garden.
