permaculture

[Pat Meadows <pat@meadows.pair.com>]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 06:39:56 -0400, you wrote:

>A friend of mine--a young woman of 26 who has grown up here in  
>Connecticut farming conventionally (mostly fruit: apples, peaches,  
>plums, berries)--is planning on going into business for herself  
>designing edible landscapes. She knows nothing about permaculture,  
>doesn't even have experience growing organically, and I would love to  
>get her a book that could shape her future (and all of ours!) for  
>Good. This book needs to be approachable and readable, not too  
>technical; she's a smart woman but not an "intellectual," so to  
>speak, and anything too dense is going to go unread, I think.  
>Ideally, the book would be stealth permaculture--less theory than  
>practicality, but eye-opening when taken as a whole. (Incidentally,  
>she's also done some masonry work and plans to incorporate stonework  
>into her projects.) I was thinking about Gaia's Garden... would love  
>other suggestions and ideas. Her birthday's coming up, and it's the  
>perfect time to get her something good...
>

I suggest:

Designing And Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally  by Robert Kourik
and Rosalind Creasy.

The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping: Home Landscaping with Food-Bearing
Plants and Resource-Saving Techniques  by Rosalind Creasy.

Creasy's other books - The Edible ________ Garden (a whole series of them)
- are light on how-to information, but have gorgeous photographs that may
be useful as inspiration.

Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener's Guide to
Over 100 Delicious and Easy to Grow Edibles  by Eric Toensmeier (This is a
really useful book, I recommend it highly.)

Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden by Lee Reich.

Pat
-- northern Pennsylvania
"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of
supply and demand. It is the privilege of human beings to
live under the laws of justice and mercy." - Wendell Berry