It’s spring. Well not officially, but with the time change and the (fairly) beautiful weather here in Colorado, I am feeling the primavera, and in its honor, I would like to share the best gardening book of last year.

Permaculture is one of my favorite gardening philosophies, and though it is an incredibly simple and understandable series of concepts–revolving around mimicking the way that plants grow in nature, paying attention to the landscape around you for clues on how to best implement growing techniques, and creating relationships with plants and animals that are mutually beneficial–many people think that permaculture is very complex or that it works okay for farmers but isn’t applicable to backyard gardeners. “Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture”  will quickly disabuse you of that notion.  Author Toby Hemenway, a professor at Portland State University in Oregon, provides an easy to read and informative  understanding of permaculture principles and how to apply them to building and maintaining a sustainable permaculture practice in your home yard. With both beginner and advanced practices and plenty of pictures and diagrams, this book has enough information for novices and master gardeners alike. I highly recommend “Gaia’s Garden” as a must read before you plant your garden this spring and go– to guide for all the seasons to come.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 5:49 pm and is filed under j.a. howard. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.