Author: Martin CrawfordPublisher:
ISBN: 9781856233415
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Shrubs for Gardens, Agroforestry, and Permaculture
Author: Martin CrawfordPublisher:
ISBN: 9781856233330
Category : GARDENING
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
A range of useful shrubs for different niches, sites, and functions--in gardens and on homesteads and farms World-renowned expert Martin Crawford covers common fruit bushes like currants and gooseberries, and includes many other less-known shrubs with edible fruits, nuts, leaves, or other parts. He takes us on a journey into the world of exotic spice trees, shrubs with medicinal parts, and plants that fix nitrogen to help fertilise other plants. All these can be grown in temperate climates, diversifying our diets, enabling us to design beautiful, productive gardens, as well as showing us how we can integrate agroforestry into our smallholdings and farms to create new income streams. Despite increasingly urgent calls from scientists, the not-fit-for-purpose economic and political systems we live in cannot be relied upon to implement the carbon emission reductions needed. This is where we come into it: whether we are farmer, gardener or plant dabbler, by planting shrubby plants that sequester carbon, we can minimise our carbon footprint and ideally live a carbon-negative life. On a broadscale, perennial and woody species are the way forward to reduce carbon emissions in agriculture. Woody crops sequester carbon in their biomass, but can also be grown in systems that allow for sequestration of large amounts of carbon into the soil.
Trees for Gardens, Orchards & Permaculture
Author: Martin CrawfordPublisher:
ISBN: 9781856232166
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Are you wondering which productive trees to plant in your garden? Or are you planning a forest garden? Perhaps you are planting an orchard but want a greater diversity of useful trees than is typical? Or you'd like to know what unusual fruit trees you can use? The answers to all these questions can be found in master forest gardener Martin Crawford's new book. Crawford has researched and experimented with tree crops for twenty-five years and has selected over one hundred of the best trees producing fruits, nuts, edible leaves, and other useful products that can be grown in Europe and North America. Each of the trees or tree groups includes details of: - Origin and history - Description and uses - Varieties/cultivars - Cultivation, pests, and diseases - Related species - European and North American suppliers - Color photos with every entry. The appendices make choosing trees for your situation easy, with lists of suitable trees for specific situations, plus flowcharts to guide you. If you want to know about and make use of the large diversity of tree crops that are available in temperate and continental climates, then this book--by an internationally acknowledged expert--is both fascinating and essential reading.
Integrated Forest Gardening
Author: Wayne WeisemanPublisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603584978
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Permaculture is a movement that is coming into its own, and the concept of creating plant guilds in permaculture is at the forefront of every farmer's and gardener's practice. One of the essential practices of permaculture is to develop perennial agricultural systems that thrive over several decades without expensive and harmful inputs: perennial plant guilds, food forests, agroforestry, and mixed animal and woody species polycultures. The massive degradation of conventional agriculture and the environmental havoc it creates has never been as all pervasive in terms of scale, so it has become a global necessity to further the understanding of a comprehensive design and planning system such as permaculture that works with nature, not against it. The guild concept often used is one of a “functional relationship” between plants–beneficial groupings of plants that share functions in order to bring health and stability to a plant regime and create an abundant yield for our utilization. In other words, it is the integration of species that creates a balanced, healthy, and thriving ecosystem. But it goes beyond integration. A guild is a metaphor for all walks of life, most importantly a group of people working together to craft works of balance, beauty, and utility. This book is the first, and most comprehensive, guide about plant guilds ever written, and covers in detail both what guilds are and how to design and construct them, complete with extensive color photography and design illustrations. Included is information on: • What we can observe about natural plant guilds in the wild and the importance of observation; • Detailed research on the structure of plant guilds, and a portrait of an oak tree (a guild unto itself); • Animal interactions with plant guilds; • Steps to guild design, construction, and dynamics: from assessment to design to implementation; • Fifteen detailed plant guilds, five each from the three authors based on their unique perspectives; • Guild project management: budgets, implementation, management, and maintenance. Readers of any scale will benefit from this book, from permaculture designers and professional growers, to backyard growers new to the concept of permaculture. Books on permaculture cover this topic, but never in enough depth to be replicable in a serious way. Finally, it's here!
Creating a Forest Garden
Author: Martin CrawfordPublisher: Green Books
ISBN: 0857845535
Category : Edible forest gardens
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Forest gardening is a novel way of growing edible crops - with nature doing most of the work for you. A forest garden is modelled on young natural woodland, with a wide range of crops grown in different vertical layers. Unlike in a conventional garden, there is little need for digging, weeding or pest control. Species are chosen for their beneficial effects on each other, creating a healthy system that maintains its own fertility. Creating a Forest Garden tells you everything you need to know, whether you want to plant a small area in your back garden or develop a larger plat. It includes advice on planning, design (using permaculture principles), planting and maintenance, and a detailed directory of over 500 trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials, annuals, root crops and climbers - almost all of them edible and many very unusual. As well as more familiar plants you can grow your own chokeberries, goji berries, yams, heartnuts, bamboo shoots and buffalo currants - while creating a beautiful space that has great environmental benefits. In the light of our changing climate it is important that we find new ways of growing food sustainably, without compromising soil health, food quality or biodiversity. Forest gardening offers an exciting solution to the challenge.--COVER.
Plants for a Future
Author: Ken FernPublisher: Permanent Publications
ISBN: 9781856230117
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Book Description
Describing edible and other useful plants, both native to Britain and Europe and from temperate areas around the world, this book includes those suitable for: the ornamental garden, the lawn, shady areas, ponds, walls, hedges, agroforestry and conservation. Book jacket.
The Community Food Forest Handbook
Author: Catherine BukowskiPublisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 160358644X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Collaboration and leadership strategies for long-term success Fueled by the popularity of permaculture and agroecology, community food forests are capturing the imaginations of people in neighborhoods, towns, and cities across the United States. Along with community gardens and farmers markets, community food forests are an avenue toward creating access to nutritious food and promoting environmental sustainability where we live. Interest in installing them in public spaces is on the rise. People are the most vital component of community food forests, but while we know more than ever about how to design food forests, the ways in which to best organize and lead groups of people involved with these projects has received relatively little attention. In The Community Food Forest Handbook, Catherine Bukowski and John Munsell dive into the civic aspects of community food forests, drawing on observations, group meetings, and interviews at over 20 projects across the country and their own experience creating and managing a food forest. They combine the stories and strategies gathered during their research with concepts of community development and project management to outline steps for creating lasting public food forests that positively impact communities. Rather than rehash food forest design, which classic books such as Forest Gardening and Edible Forest Gardens address in great detail, The Community Food Forest Handbook uses systems thinking and draws on social change theory to focus on how to work with diverse groups of people when conceiving of, designing, and implementing a community food forest. To find practical ground, the authors use management phases to highlight the ebb and flow of community capitals from a project's inception to its completion. They also explore examples of positive feedbacks that are often unexpected but offer avenues for enhancing the success of a community food forest. The Community Food Forest Handbook provides readers with helpful ideas for building and sustaining momentum, working with diverse public and private stakeholders, integrating assorted civic interests and visions within one project, creating safe and attractive sites, navigating community policies, positively affecting public perception, and managing site evolution and adaptation. Its concepts and examples showcase the complexities of community food forests, highlighting the human resilience of those who learn and experience what is possible when they collaborate on a shared vision for their community.
Paradise Lot
Author: Eric ToensmeierPublisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603584005
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 1
Book Description
When Eric Toensmeier and Jonathan Bates moved into a duplex in a run-down part of Holyoke, Massachusetts, the tenth-of-an-acre lot was barren ground and bad soil, peppered with broken pieces of concrete, asphalt, and brick. The two friends got to work designing what would become not just another urban farm, but a "permaculture paradise" replete with perennial broccoli, paw paws, bananas, and moringa—all told, more than two hundred low-maintenance edible plants in an innovative food forest on a small city lot. The garden—intended to function like a natural ecosystem with the plants themselves providing most of the garden's needs for fertility, pest control, and weed suppression—also features an edible water garden, a year-round unheated greenhouse, tropical crops, urban poultry, and even silkworms. In telling the story of Paradise Lot, Toensmeier explains the principles and practices of permaculture, the choice of exotic and unusual food plants, the techniques of design and cultivation, and, of course, the adventures, mistakes, and do-overs in the process. Packed full of detailed, useful information about designing a highly productive permaculture garden, Paradise Lot is also a funny and charming story of two single guys, both plant nerds, with a wild plan: to realize the garden of their dreams and meet women to share it with. Amazingly, on both counts, they succeed.
The Holistic Orchard
Author: Michael PhillipsPublisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603584072
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 435
Book Description
Winner of the American Horticulture Society Book Award "Phillip’s first-hand knowledge anchors this innovative and highly readable book in practical wisdom that both beginner and long-time fruit growers will find invaluable."—Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia’s Garden Many people want to grow fruit on a small scale but lack the insight to be successful orchardists. As The Holistic Orchard illustrates, growing tree fruits and berries is something virtually anyone can do. A holistic grower knows that producing fruit is not about manipulating nature but more importantly, fostering nature. The Holistic Orchard demystifies the basic skills everybody should know about the orchard ecosystem, focusing on: Orchard design Soil biology Organic health management Grafting Planting Pruning Choosing the right varieties for your climate Includes a step-by-step instructional calendar to guide growers through the entire orchard year! Fruit profiles include: pome fruits (apples, pears, asian pears, quinces) stone fruits (cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums) berries (raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, gooseberries, currants, and elderberries) Phillips completely changed the conversation about healthy orcharding with his first bestselling book, The Apple Grower, and now he takes that dialogue even further by exploring: The connections between home orcharding and permaculture The importance of native pollinators Plantings with shade-tolerant berry bushes and other insectary plants Information on cover crops and biodiversity Safe, homegrown solutions to pest and disease challenges All along the way, Phillips' expertise and enthusiasm for healthy growing shines through, as does his ability to put the usual horticultural facts into an integrated ecology perspective. With The Holistic Orchard in your hand you have every reason in the world to confidently plant that very first—or next—fruit tree!
Edible Forest Gardens, Volume I
Author: Dave JackePublisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1931498792
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 398
Book Description
Edible Forest Gardens is a groundbreaking two-volume work that spells out and explores the key concepts of forest ecology and applies them to the needs of natural gardeners in temperate climates. Volume I lays out the vision of the forest garden and explains the basic ecological principles that make it work. Edible Forest Gardens offer an advanced course in ecological gardening--one that will forever change the way you look at plants and your environment.
