Foreward by David Holmgren
Part I: Attitudes
Chapter 1: Garden Farming: ecological crisis, historical antecedents. The novelty of land regeneration and the advantages of small scale.
Chapter 2: Who am I to farm? Aspirations, the agrarian dream of the suburbs and reclaiming our lost village heritage.
Chapter 3: Gardening the Planet: the wisdom of ecosystems.
Chapter 4: Permaculture Principles: creating abundance by nature's logic.
Chapter 5: Learning the Language of Design
Sidebar A: Measuring with the Body
Sidebar B: Design Checklist
Sidebar C: Permaculture Zones and their elements
Chapter 6: A Garden Farming Pattern Language: archetypes of a healthy world.
Part II: Elements
Case Study A: Renaissance Farm, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
Chapter 7: Land: Scales & Strategies; access, quality, location; the centrality of home
Sidebar: Food Groups in Diet
Chapter 8: Labor - Can You Lend a Helping Hand? Household size, recruitment, generational ties, seasonality, transient help and responding to the cycles of nature; cooperation and the rewards of labor.
Sidebar: The Garden Farming Year
Chapter 9: Running on Sunshine: Sun, shade, and the use of climates and microclimates; the placement of buildings, design for solar gain.
Sidebar: Hedge species
Chapter 10: Water From Another Time: Collection, storage, conservation, use and reuse; swales and ponds, marshes, greywater; tanks; aquaculture.
Sidebar A: Desert Dishwashing
Sidebar B: Aquaculture species
Case Study B: Jerome’s Organics, Basalt, Colorado, USA
Chapter 11: Soil - The Real Dirt: durable carbon, the basis of life; minerals, soil biota, nutrient cycling, waste = food; moisture and mulch, practices, compost and no-digging; roots, biomass, fungi and bacteria; balance beyond NPK: aerobic and anaerobic; worms, manure, and night soil.
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Chapter 12: Plants, Crops and Seeds: Crop origins, rotations, plant families and diversity, propagation, seed saving, plant architecture and cooperation; polycultures; rampancy, weeds, pulse and cover crops; useful species; succession and roles.
Sidebar A: Foods that Feed Humanity
Sidebar B: Crop Origins
Sidebar C: 4th World Pharmacy
Chapter 13: Setting Plant Priorities: key foods for limited space, staples beyond grain; must-have fruits; oil, alcohol, fuel, fencing, and medicine.
Case Study C: Old 99 Farm, Dundas, Ontario, Canada
Chapter 14: Animals for the Garden Farm: their functions and niches; accelerating fertility; feeding and rotations, breeds, housing, forage, space requirements.
Chapter 15: Living with Wildlife: trophic levels and predation; insects and ecosystem services; integrated pest management; native species.
Chapter 16: Trees and Shrubs, Orchards, Woodlands and Forest Gardens: Using vertical space; coppice, the art of cut-and-come-again; harnessing the power of perennials; shrubs for nitrogen, fodder, and mulch; fuelwood
Chapter 17: Productive Trees and Where to Plant Them: living fences, hedgerows, boundary woodlands and alley cropping; pasture and fodder trees; orchards; fungal companions.
Chapter 18: Structures, Energy and Technology: the working farm; fencing, barns, workshop, the drying yard, woodshed, outdoor kitchens, animal pens, convivial tools and implements; greenhouses and cloches.
Part III: Outcomes
Case Study D: Radical Roots Farm, Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA
Chapter 19: Diet and Food: harvest, storage, processing; nutrition, slow food, facilities and practices.
Chapter 20: Culture and Community: celebration, food and work; closing nutrient loops; life stages and community, potlatch, neighbors and strangers.
Chapter 21: Markets and Outreach: what you do well; where the money is; cash or barter? self-reliance, real surplus; keeping it at home, walking it to town; shifting enterprise.
Chapter 22: Making the Change: self-evaluation, where to start, how to manage; future scenarios; hodge-podge growth; the possibilities of a new commonwealth.
Appendix 1: Metric Conversion Table
Appendix 2: Bee Forage Species
Appendix 3: Nitrogen-Fixing Species & Biomass Producers
Endnotes
Index
About the Author
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