Recommended Books

Edible Forest Gardens (Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier): One of Bill Mollison’s prime directives is to reforest the earth. Jacke and Toensmeier show us how to not only plant trees to stabilize and revivify soils, but they help us select and successfully raise trees that yield an abundance of food, medicine and utility.

Gaia’s Garden (Toby Hemenway): This is the ultimate Permaculture gardening book for small landholders, especially suburban and urban dwellers. Another must read for all those interested in obtaining high yields in a small space.

Gardening for the Future of the Earth (Howard-Yana Shapiro and John Harrison): A survey of Permaculture, biointensive gardening, biodynamics and the natural way of farming of Masanobu Fukuoka, the author of One Straw Revolution, the book that started many of us back in the 1970’s on the road to earth repair and farming.

Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally (Robert Kourik): A mainstay on the Permaculture bookshelf. Kourik defines and delineates the art of edible landscaping, paying close attention to not only stacking functions in space, but also through time.

Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development (John Lyle): For a comprehensive and well-wrought picture of the interconnections that make a sustainable land base, Lyle gives us the essentials to build a balanced and zero waste environment that works.

Tree Crops (J. Russel Smith): Read it, and you will get a peak at where the idea and practice of a perennial culture comes from in the modern era. Smith was far ahead of his time in realizing the need for a massive overhaul of the agricultural system by putting our fields in tree crops.

The One Straw Revolution (Masanobu Fukuoka): Along with Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual this is the book that put it all on the map. Going way beyond agriculture, One Straw Revolution sits us down and reveals the nature of nature and what it means to be human.

Culture and Horticulture (Wolf-Dieter Stohrl): A fantastic beginner’s manual on all things Biodynamic. Gives us the theoretical and practical means to put this profound system on the ground.

How to Grow More Vegetables (John Jeavons): Raised beds, close planting, charts galore, five foot by twenty foot beds, biointensive. We have adopted so many of these practices into our gardening vocabulary that they have become commonplace. This book instigated this revolution.

Shelter (Lloyd Kahn): The first how-to natural building manual that came out during the hayday of back-to-the landers in the 1960’s. At the time this oversized tome appeared it cost $6.00. You will find the original on many bookshelves to this day. Not an easy book to misplace, or to be gotten rid of.

Ferment and Human Nutrition (Bill Mollison): Mollison’s universal survey of the way cultures prepare and preserve countless kinds of foods. A must read for those practicing the fine art of healthful and life giving cuisine.

Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture (Rosemarry Morrow): An excellent, basic introduction to the Permaculture system. The perfect hands-on manual for the beginning practitioner.

Toolbox for Sustainable City Living (Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew): Published by the Rhizome Collective, an educational and activist organization based in Austin, Texas, this book is an intensive manual for urban dwellers in the art of all things Permaculture.

This book, penned by Bill Mollison, arrived after the Designer’s Manual, a condensed version for beginners. Along with the Designer’s Manual and the Mollison book about ferment and human nutrition this completes a set of his most important titles.