Mini-Farming

A People's Ecology: Explorations in Sustainable Living presents a tapestry of perspectives on food and the interplay of health, cultural ecology, and environment, which are the fabric and foundation of all sustainable living. It offers personal stories, documented information, traditional understandings, and speculations on future directions. Each contribution calls on us to reclaim our human heritage of "caring for our home fires" -- a metaphor that can inspire the revitalization of our connections to the earth, all living things, and each other. The writers examine the underlying ecology of sustainable living rooted in the historical traditions, environmental practices, and sense of place of peoples of the Southwest; and they describe the impact that disruption of this way of life continues to have on health, well-being, and communal identity. Drawing on an Indigenous paradigm of "healthy environment, healthy culture, healthy people, " this book explores possibilities of applying the principles of sustainable living in both traditional and non-traditional communities.

Gregory Cajete is an author and educator from Santa Clara Pueblo. He has earned degrees from New Mexico Highlands University and the University of New Mexico, where he serves as director for the Native American Studies program.

Are you excited about permaculture but unclear how to put it into practice for yourself? In this unique, full colour guide, experienced permaculture teacher Aranya leads you through the design process from beginning to end, using clear explanations, flowcharts and diagrams. It is based on course worksheets which have been designed, refined and tested on students over time. Linking theory to practice, he places the ethics, principles, philosophies, tools and techniques directly into the context of the process itself. While written for anyone with a basic grasp of permaculture, this book also has plenty to offer the more experienced designer.

This guide covers: Systems and patterns ~ Working as part of a design team ~ Land and non-land based design ~ Design frameworks ~ Site surveying and map making ~ Interviewing clients ~ Working with large client groups ~ Identifying functions ~ Choosing systems and elements ~ Placement and integration ~ Creating a design proposal ~ Project management ~ Presenting your ideas to clients ~ and much more. A great reference for anyone who has done, or is thinking of doing, any kind of permaculture course. - from the cover

Once a fringe topic, permaculture is moving to the mainstream as gardeners who are ready to take their organic gardening to the next level are discovering the wisdom of a simple system that emphasizes the idea that by taking care of the earth, the earth takes care of you.

The Vegetable Gardener's Guide to Permaculture teaches gardeners of every skill, with any size space, how to live in harmony with both nature and neighbors to produce and share an abundant food supply with minimal effort. Permaculture teacher Christopher Shein highlights everything you need to know to start living off the land lightly, including how to create rich, healthy, and low-cost soil, blend a functional food garden and decorative landscape, share the bounty with others, and much more.

The first edition of Gaia's Garden sparked the imagination of America’s home gardeners, introducing permaculture’s central message: Working with Nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. This extensively revised and expanded second edition broadens the reach and depth of the permaculture approach for urban and suburban growers.

Many people mistakenly think that ecological gardening—which involves growing a wide range of edible and other useful plants—can take place only on a large, multiacre scale. As Hemenway demonstrates, it’s fun and easy to create a “backyard ecosystem” by assembling communities of plants that can work cooperatively and perform a variety of 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 yields seasonal fruits, nuts, and other foods This revised and updated edition also features a new chapter on urban permaculture, designed especially for people in cities and suburbs who have very limited growing space. Whatever size yard or garden you have to work with, you can apply basic permaculture principles to make it more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful. Best of all, once it’s established, an ecological garden will reduce or eliminate most of the backbreaking work that’s needed to maintain the typical lawn and garden.

With a revolutionary new "Climate Battery" design for near-net-zero heating and cooling.

By the turn of the nineteenth century, thousands of acres of glass houses surrounded large American cities, becoming a commonplace symbol of the market garden and nursery trades. But the possibilities of the indoor garden to transform our homes and our lives remain largely unrealized.

In this groundbreaking book, Jerome Osentowski, one of North America's most accomplished permaculture designers, presents a wholly new approach to a very old horticultural subject. In The Forest Garden Greenhouse, he shows how bringing the forest garden indoors is not only possible, but doable on unlikely terrain and in cold climates, using near-net-zero technology. Different from other books on greenhouse design and management, this book advocates for an indoor agriculture using permaculture design concepts--integration, multi-functions, perennials, and polycultures--that take season extension into new and important territory.

The Resilient Farm and Homestead is a manual for developing durable, beautiful, and highly functional human habitat systems fit to handle an age of rapid transition.

Ben Falk is a land designer and site developer whose permaculture-research farm has drawn national attention. The site is a terraced paradise on a hillside in Vermont that would otherwise be overlooked by conventional farmers as unworthy farmland. Falk's wide array of fruit trees, rice paddies (relatively unheard of in the Northeast), ducks, nuts, and earth-inspired buildings is a hopeful image for the future of regenerative agriculture and modern homesteading.

The book covers nearly every strategy Falk and his team have been testing at the Whole Systems Research Farm over the past decade, as well as experiments from other sites Falk has designed through his off-farm consulting business. The book includes detailed information on earthworks; gravity-fed water systems; species composition; the site-design process; site management; fuelwood hedge production and processing; human health and nutrient-dense production strategies; rapid topsoil formation and remineralization; agroforestry/silvopasture/grazing; ecosystem services, especially regarding flood mitigation; fertility management; human labor and social-systems aspects; tools/equipment/appropriate technology; and much more, complete with gorgeous photography and detailed design drawings.

The handbook for permaculture design, by the folks from the Permaculture Institute whose goal is to "teach the practical design of sustainable soil, water, plant, and legal and economic systems to students worldwide."

Detailed discussion and drawings of how contours and landscaping designs affect microclimates; water use, conservation, and catchments; earthworks; and design strategies. Included are sections for each of the world's major climate types.

Describes the creation of a sustainable food system through a detailed case study of the successful year-round organic market garden at Pennsylvania's Three Sisters Farm. Both visionary and practical, this fully illustrated book overflows with a wealth of information on the application of permaculture principles.

The Sustainable Vegetable Garden presents the basic principles of this gardening classic in concise, easy-to-understand terms accessible to even a beginning backyard gardener. You'll learn to view your garden as its own mini-ecosystem and to foster the soil's life-giving cycles of nourishment and replenishment. By implementing these Biointensive techniques and working in concert with these natural cycles, you'll soon produce yields up to four times greater than those obtainable with conventional methods, in a fraction of the growing area. And more importantly, you'll be preserving and enriching for future generations one of our most precious resources: the soil itself. Sustainable gardening is an essential environmental for the new millennium, and this book helps you contribute to that solution - in your own backyard! - from the back cover