permaculture

[Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>]

*Earth User's Guide to Permaculture: 2nd Edition*
*by Rosemary Morrow and Rob Allsop
* 2006. 264pp., $29

US      Canada  Elsewhere
$31.90  $33.35  $34.80

        

        

Completely revised and expanded, this popular primer tells how to design 
a garden of any size from balcony bench to country acreage. With 
chapters on seed saving, Pc at work, integrated pest management, water 
usage, and design for disaster. The author's experience with women and 
communities in crisis (Cambodia, Albania, Afghanistan, and Vietnam) 
ensures a practical approach.


*Teaming with Microbes:
*A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
by Jeff Lowenfels & Wayne Lewis, fwd by  Elaine Ingham
$25, 2006, 196pp
US      Canada  Elsewhere
$27.50  $28.75  $31.00

        

        

This book is a welcome clarification of the hard science behind organic 
methods of gardening. Anyone who reads "Teaming with Microbes" will 
understand why soil is best understood from a biological rather than a 
chemical perspective: It's alive! But, because biology is inherently 
more compex than chemistry, it is often hard to grasp its everyday 
implications. Teaming's authors have cracked that nut with simple 
language and entertaining examples.

"Teaming with microbes" is extremely important for our times. It can 
lead the way to a much broader movement to sustainable gardening 
practices by winning over those who have been turned off by earlier 
organic 'mumbo-jumbo.' Yes, it is easy to understand, but it will not 
turn off those readers who bring a sophisticated scientific skepticism 
to their reading. It will inspire them.
Review by John Gardner, "Urban Worms Organics"


*Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden & Your Neighborhood 
into a Community
* by Heather Colburn Flores
2006, $25, 330pp.
US      Canada  Elsewhere
$27.50  $28.75  $31.00

        

        

For activist readers who believe activism is a political pursuit, [this 
book] offers a different viewpoint, maintaining that growing food where 
you live is a key method of becoming a food activist in the community. 
Chapters advocate planting home and community gardens with an eye to 
drawing important connections between the politics of a home or 
community garden and the wider politics of usage, consumption, and 
sustainability. Another rarity: chapters promote small, easy changes in 
lifestyles to achieve a transition between personal choice and political 
activism at the community level, providing keys to change any reader can 
use. - Diane C. Donovan, California Bookwatch

*

Natural Remodeling for the Not-So-Green House:
Bringing Your Home Into Harmony with Nature
by Carol Venolia & Kelly Lerner
$25, 2006, 280pp
US      Canada  Elsewhere
$27.50  $28.75  $31.00

        

        


*You don't have to build from scratch to live in a house that's good for 
you and the earth. This unique guide teaches the basics of ecological 
renovation, planning your project, choosing materials, and making your 
home more energy efficient. It presents simple ideas you can do right 
away to more advanced moves you can make after careful planning. You'll 
have the tools you need to create a beautiful green haven that's 
uniquely your own.

Carol Venolia specializes in the field of eco-healthy building. Her 
first book, Healing Environments, has enjoyed international success, and 
her home designs have been featured in The Natural House Catalog, Earth 
to Spirit, The Healthy House and Environ magazine. Carol currently 
writes the "Design for Life" column for Natural Home & Garden magazine.

Kelly Lerner is an award-winning architect and innovator in the fields 
of sustainable development, straw-bale construction, and earthen 
plasters. She spearheaded an internationally recognized project 
responsible for building more than 600 passive-solar-heated straw-bale 
houses in China. Her designs have been featured in Landscape 
Architecture Magazine, Metropolis Magazine, The Straw Bale House, 
Serious Straw Bale, The New Straw Bale House, and Green by Design


*Building with Awareness: The Construction of a Hybrid Home
DVD & Guidebook
**by Ted Owens
*$42, 2006,152pp + DVD
US      Canada  Elsewhere
$46.20  $48.30  $50.40

        

        

The award winning DVD video, Building With Awareness: The Construction 
of a Hybrid Home, now has a full-color book companion. Follow the 
construction of one straw bale solar house, from start to finish. Learn 
where to place windows for passive heating and cooling, how rubble 
trench foundations can save on the cost of concrete, post-and-beam 
framing for straw bale walls, how to notch and stack straw bales, how to 
build interior thermal mass walls, how to generate electricity from the 
sun, how to make and apply earth plasters, and much more.


*The Oil Depletion Protocol
By Richard Heinberg
$19, * 2006, 194 pp
US      Canada  Elsewhere
$21.50  $22.50  $25.00

        

        

A plan to buffer the shock of Peak OIl and reduce the threat of war and 
civil chaos.





*Botany in a Day - The Patterns Method of Plant Identification
Thomas J. Elpel's Herbal Field Guide to Plant Families *5th Edition, 
2004, 221pp., $25

US      Canada  Elsewhere
$27.50  $28.75  $31.00

        

        

Botany in a Day is changing the way people learn about plants! Tom's 
book has gained a nationwide audience almost exclusively by 
word-of-mouth. It is now used as a text and recommended by herbal and 
wilderness schools across North America. Instead of presenting 
individual plants, Botany in a Day unveils the patterns of 
identification and uses among related plants, giving readers simple 
tools to rapidly unlock the mysteries of the new species they encounter 
throughout the continent.

Too often people try to learn plants one-at-a-time, without rhyme or 
reason. Now you can cut years off the process of learning about plants 
and their uses. Tom's book helps you beyond the piece-meal approach to 
botany and herbalism towards a more "whole" approach. Within 1 1/2 hours 
you can understand the big-picture of botany and herbalism. Learn how 
related plants have similar features for identification. Discover how 
they often have similar properties and similar uses.


Mycelium Running
by Paul Stamets   2005, 352pp.,$35    
US 	Canada 	Elsewhere
$38.50  $40.25  $42.00

        

        

More mushrooms, less pollution! Yes, you heard right: growing more 
mushrooms may be the best thing we can do to save the environment. 
Microscopic cells called "mycelium"---the fruit of which are mushrooms 
---recycle carbon, nitrogen, and other essential elements as they break 
down plant and animal debris in the creation of rich new soil. What 
fungi expert Paul Stamets has discovered is that mycelium also breaks 
down hydrocarbons ---the base structure in many pollutants. So, for 
instance, when soil contaminated with diesel oil is inoculated with 
strains of oyster mushroom mycelia, the soil loses its toxicity in just 
eight weeks. In MYCELIUM RUNNING, Stamets discusses this revolutionary 
trend in mushroom cultivation and provides tips for choosing the 
appropriate species of fungi for various environmental purposes.


*Forager's Harvest:
*A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants*
by Samuel Thayer
*2005, $23, 368pp
US      Canada  Elsewhere
$25.50  $26.50  $29.00

        

        

A fine, rich guide to wild foods of North America warmly written by a 
master forager: uses, botany, habitat. Provides detailed instructions 
and personal experiences of harvesting 332 delicious plants, including 
butternut, wild rice, ostrich fern, hog peanut, cattail, and more.






*The** **Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved:*

US      Canada  Elsewhere
$22.00  $23.00  $26.00

        

        

*******Inside America's Underground Food Movement*

* by Sandor Ellix Katz
*2006, $20, 390pp

"This is the story of the consumer revolution against globally 
industrialized agriculture and corporate domination of food production, 
processing, and distribution systems. Katz (Wild Fermentation: The 
Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods) asserts that there 
are alternatives to the dead, unhealthy, homogenized food commodities 
this system provides. He visited farmers' markets, food cooperatives, 
and communities in search of local initiatives that restore traditional 
food production and distribution methods and revive local economies. 
Katz found a broad movement of people and organizations involved in 
preserving native varieties, practicing humane and sustainable treatment 
of land and animals, supporting local producers and marketers, and using 
food to improve health. Of particular note is the rapidly growing 'slow 
food' movement, which rejects standardized fare and focuses instead on 
cuisine that has served ethnic and cultural preferences in the past. 
Each chapter cites references for further reading and organizations 
involved in keeping the programs active. This work is sure to enlighten 
readers and motivate many to join the revolution. Recommended."- Irwin 
Weintraub for Library Journal, December 2006


The New* Creating an Oasis with Greywater:
Choosing, Building** &** **Using Greywater Systems **(5th edition)
* **by Art Ludwig     **2006, $21, 144 pp.

US      Canada  Elsewhere
$17.50  $18.50  $21.00

        

        

Thoroughly revised primer detailing 20 systems that work and how they 
might fail; parts, design diagrams, operating and maintenance tips. 
Clear, logical, easy-to-read. The definitive guide.




*Now Available in DVD
The Global Gardener
with Bill Mollison*
120 minutes, VHS or DVD, 1991. $30.00
US / Canada     Elsewhere
$34.00  $38.00

        

 	 
DVD $34 	DVD $38

        

In 4 half-hour segments, Bill travels the globe viewing Permaculture 
application in the tropics, arid deserts, cool temperate climates, and 
cities. Acclaimed by millions! Excellent for introducing Permaculture to 
the media-opiated masses. Buy a copy for yourself and another for your 
local public library!!




--
Keith Johnson
"Be fruitful and mulch apply."
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 5516, Bloomington, IN 47408
(812) 335-0383
http://www.permacultureactivist.net
Switch to Solar Power the Easy Way
http://www.jointhesolution.com/KeithJ-SunPower
http://www.PowUr.com/KeithJ-SunPower
Blog: http://kjpermaculture.blogspot.com/
also Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting
http://www.permacultureactivist.net/design/Designconsult.html
also Association for Regenerative Culture
also APPLE-Bloomington (Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy) It's a 
small world after oil.
http://www.relocalize.net/groups/applebloomington
also Bloomington Permaculture Guild