Permaculture for Beginners: The Ultimate Guide to Natural Farming and Sustainable Living

by Nicole Faires

Overview

Take your garden to the next level—organic, native, and natural!

Permaculture is an important but often misunderstood method of growing food and building homes in a manner that works with nature, rather than against it, to create beautiful, healthy, and useful gardens. Blending ecology, organic agriculture, green home design, appropriate technology, and biology can be confusing and overwhelming, but Permaculture for Beginners simplifies this vast field for practical application. This is a hands-on guide, taking the beginner through each step of the design process, so that anyone can apply permaculture principles to their own life. While the principles are simple, the in-depth topics cover every aspect of permaculture, including:

• Building green homes and passive solar design 
• Growing edible plant communities and forest gardens 
• Using no-till and natural farming methods 
• Creating microclimates for extended growing seasons 
• Raising livestock with ecological foraging techniques 
• Transforming urban backyards into food-abundant oases

This is a commonsense approach to sustainable living that creates a self-sufficient and low-effort home for the people that live there, whether in the city or the country. Permaculture for Beginners isn’t a philosophy book, or a dissertation on theory. It is a step-by-step, complete guide to every aspect of permaculture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510769625
Publisher:	Skyhorse
Publication date:	03/01/2022
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	823,505
File size:	48 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Nicole Faires is an adventurer, self-proclaimed eccentric, wife, and mother of three girls. She grew up in a semi-nomadic homeschooling family and spent her early years in rural Montana on a hobby farm where she raised chickens, grew her own food, learned to crochet, read out-of-print books by Masanobu Fukuoka, and dreamed of the Amish. She is the author of The Ultimate Guide to Homesteading and continues to seek new adventures and local food with her family in beautiful British Columbia, where she lives as a champion of renaissance sustainable lifestyles.
 

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Part 1 What is Permaculture? 1

A Brief History Of Permaculture 3

Permaculture Ethics and Principles 5

Values Of Permaculture 8

Sustamability 9

Getting Started 11

The Zones 19

Climate and Microclimates 27

Putting It All Together 34

Natural Cycles 38

Part 2 Energy 41

Passive Energy 43

Photovoltaics 47

Hydro 49

Wind 51

Part 3 Water 55

Water Sources 57

Swales 58

Diversion 59

Tanks 61

Dam 63

Ponds 65

Irrigation 71

Water Purification 73

Part 4 Homes and Shelter 75

House Design 77

Building Materials 84

Building With Dirt 88

Other Dirt Building Methods 91

Sustainable Living Habits 93

Compost 94

Graywater 99

Low-Energy Refrigeration 101

Part 5 Gardens 103

Soil 105

Mimicking Forests 111

Putting The Plants Together 115

Design 135

Growing 137

Part 6 Cooking and Preserving 143

Low-Energy Cooking 145

Preserving Whole Foods 148

Freezing 151

Drying 151

No-Energy Storage 156

Fermentation 158

Sugar 163

Part 7 The Zones 167

Zone 1: Design 169

Rabbits 174

Pigeons and Quail 177

Bees 178

Zone 2: Orchard 184

Ducks 190

Chickens 192

Geese 198

Pigs 200

Goats 203

Sheep 210

Cattle 212

Zone 3: Barn 217

Grain 219

Cash Crops 227

Zone 4: Pasture Management 231

Woodlot 234

Zone 5: The Wilds 236

Part 8 Community 237

Like-Minded People 239

Village Design 242

Business 243

Community Resources 247

Part 9 Plants 251

Alphabetical Plant Guide 253

Soil-Improving Plants 301

Other Uses 305

Bibliography 309

Index 315