Customer Reviews

Edible Forest Gardens (2 volume set)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a graduate of a Permaculture Design Course, organic farm worker and someone generally interested in virtually all aspect of sustainable ag, I found this book incredible. Now, I've only read the first one (about to start on volume number 2), but the quality of information in the first volume in outstanding. Volume 1 is concerned with the theory behind forest gardening, but with a keen eye towards using that information in the second volume (which includes detailed information on actually creating a forest garden). David Jacke does a great job of covering everything from invasive plants to forest succession to what a guild is and how to build one to underground microbes and why we should care about them. Full of informative figures, graphs and sidebars, this book does an excellent job of filling a niche that has been otherwise missed by many permaculture and sustainable ag books - what to do in the more temperate, rainy parts of the world. I'd recommend this book over Patrick Whitfield's great book if you live in the U.S. because it suggests a variety of plants native to the U.S. and has a larger number of useful species for people who live in the U.S. and are dealing with colder temperatures than those seen in Britain. Overall, I'd recommend this book to anyone with the slightest interest in creating an edible landscape on a piece of property.

If you are a home gardener who has ever stopped to wonder whether permaculture was useful to you, you need to read these books. If you are an intermediate to advanced permaculturist, you will revel in these books. If you want to understand how a single individual with a garden can make the world a better place, you need to read these books.

Jacke and Toensmeier lay out an incredible vision in Volume I for the potential that permaculture holds for gardeners in the northern US. And they lead the reader through an eye-opening education in the scientific theory which supports that vision. In Volume II, they walk the reader through the process of creating their own unique vision for the reader's own permaculture design. Then they lay out, step by step, how to progress from vision to reality.

Along the way, they range from the theoretical to the highly practical, from how many miles of fungal strands are in a teaspoon of soil from the forest floor, to exactly how to plant a tree so that it not only survives but thrives. And they do it in a voice which is both learned and whimsical, enthusiastic and serious -- and downright fun.

I'm buying a second set of these books. I need to keep one set with me as I build my garden; I learn new things every time I turn the page, knowledge I need on a "how to" level. But I need a second set, so that I can lend it to my friends who would get tremendous insight from reading these books...my order for my second set is going in today!

Full disclosure: I am a very pleased client of Dave Jacke's design practice.

I bought the books to understand the practical aspects of building a forest garden on my 2 acre land. I started reading the vol 2 because that seemed to contain the practical advice. However, soon after, I became convinced that vol 1 can not be ignored. Now I have read vol 1 and am truly in awe of the authors' clarity of thinking and organizing the vast amounts of material and data. The theory is clear and up-to-date with vast recent scientific knowledge- a rare combination indeed.

My only advice to a beginning reader would be to read the last part (conclusion) of vol 1 before and in between the various chapters in order to maintain motivation and interest in the overly theoretical- but necessarily so- parts of vol 1. That chapter really ties the theory together with your reasons of going into such details as are presented.I found in that chapter my "aha" moment.

Thanks to the authors for these wonderful and helpful books. Are worth their weight in gold- or rich moist forest humus!

These books are college grade and leave nothing to guess. A complete education and reference set in one package. If you want to get into permaculture this 2 book set is your education shopping list.

The first volume assumes you are a traditional gardener/farmer, or completely new to seeing plants for what they are, and gives every bit of information to bring you up to speed. Another book I had bought only gave some projects to do and I no longer think that author knew enough to write a book. The knowledge from volume 1 is critical to making the right choices and understanding why.

The second volume is twice as thick as the first and is dedicated to applying your new knowledge to actual projects. It gives so much well organized information that your brain will be in extacy.

Together, these books store a small library of information. Several sections and indexes hold entire books worth of data on their own. Just one of the plant matrices holds important facts on over 600 species so you can find the specific member of a plant family that suits your needs.

I am just awestruck at the amount of information I have received in this 2 volume set. I need no other books relating to horticulture.

Must have!

Amazon is offering a pretty great package deal with these books, and I would gladly get another to share with friends. If you have these two books, some land, and a little money for plants, you are ALL SET. This is the book to end all further shopping of permaculture books. Its very deep and textbook like at times, but the vast amount of insight and resources are alone worth the money. Just the resources are worth it. Ive found so many good companies through this book, its just crazy.

Highly endorsed...this book will give you the tools you need to rebuild the Garden of Eden in your own backyard.

I'll start by saying that even though this is a great 2-volume set, it scared me away from actually creating a forest garden for years. The first volume gives an extremely detailed and comprehensive overview of the theory behind forest gardening. If you start reading this book and think that you actually need to understand all this stuff in order go and plant a forest garden, you'll probably throw in the towel and never do it. There are a million details covered, and understanding it all to me seems like a daunting task.

I also found it for the most part very boring and even redundant. Based on some of the other reviews, other people seem to disagree with this. But to me in terms of excitement this book is just a shade above a technical manual (except the first section on "Vision," which I found very interesting)

And the thing is, you don't need to know everything in this book to start a forest garden. If you actually want to know what you need to know about making a forest garden, I highly recommend Martin Crawford's Creating a Forest Garden: Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops. When I read that book, I realized that I already basically knew what I needed to know in order to actually get started and put plants in the ground. Before I read Crawford's book I felt almost hopelessly lost. I had only been reading Edible Forest Gardens, which makes creating a forest garden seem like a superhuman task. Martin Crawford's book puts it on a more human level. In the end, there really aren't that many really key points to consider in making a forest garden. And the rest is mostly practical common sense. (I'm oversimplifying here. . . there's a thousand different nuances to the theory, but in the end most of these nuances don't directly affect what you're going to put in the ground. They are intellectual candy).

OK. I've blasted the book enough. On to the praise.

I'm very glad to have this 2-volume set. The appendices of volume 1 and 2 are extremely valuable to anyone wanting to create a forest garden, and I personally think that it's worth the purchase price of these books just to get the appendices. The appendices to volume 2 contain all sorts of data about plant species you may want to put in your forest garden (though I've learned that if you really want to make certain about any particular stat, verify it with other sources if you can. . . it's not uncommon to get different data if you look at another source). That being said, it is by far the best compilation of data of its kind. It's an absolutely wonderful resource, and I'm sure it took a tremendous amount of tedious labor to create (I believe Eric Toensmeier is the one to thank there). I have yet to find a species I've been interested in planting in my forest garden that has not been in the appendices.

Also I absolutely love the appendix to volume 1, which is what the authors call the "Top 100" species for forest gardening. If you are new to forest gardening, you will love this. It goes into detail about all of these cool species you can plant, and it's useful later on as well since you can look to this list to find species which for the most part "play well" in the forest garden.

I do also enjoy browsing through the body of Volume 2 (the "practice" volume, as opposed the the "theory" of volume 1) to find material on specific topics of interest, but I would not recommend to anyone that they read it straight through. There's lots of interesting things to consider. It's more of a browsing book than a sit-down-and-read book (at least for me. . . I'm sure there are some out there who would disagree). It's almost like a reference manual, but not exactly.

There's a quote of Peter Bane that's on the back of the book which I find particularly apt in describing it. "This book will define the intellectual territory of it subject for at least a generation." If I knew how to italicize the word "intellectual" I would. I agree with this quote. It's a very important book on this subject, but it's very heady and is not really practical as a "how-to" kind of book, at least not for mere mortals like me. It's a great reference, and belongs on the shelf of any really serious forest gardener, but if you are looking for something that will tell you the basics of forest gardening and get you up and running and putting plants in the ground, this is not the book for you.

These books are the authoritative resource for designing and planting an edible forest garden. There is so much information! These books will completely change the way you think about gardening and landscaping. I was lucky enough to take a workshop with Dave Jacke and these texts have helped me build on what I learned there. Worth every penny.

These books are very thorough. They take you through all the processes you need to get your garden started, and they provide many perennial garden design methods. There are plenty of charts and graphs in each book which help tremendously with making complete sense of the material.

The second volume is about double the size of Volume One. My only real issue with this set is that Volume One is in color and Volume Two is black and white. Is this a big deal? Not really. Though, if I had the option of paying ten dollars to swap out Volume Two in black and white for a color version, I would.

It's really amazing how much information the authors have compiled on the subject matter they cover. Which, by the way, has to to with creating forest gardens, but with so much more as well, and in incredible depth.

These two books can provide one with material to study for a long time and be a reference source forever.

Continues the work of Bill Mollison (of Australian and permaculture fame) with a focus more on temperate conditions. Excellent resource materials...