About the Book
This comprehensive two-volume book constitutes an in-depth course in ecological garden design. Written in a passionate, clear, and engaging style, it integrates the vision and ecology of forest gardening with practical design, establishment, and management strategies. While we wrote Edible Forest Gardens as an integrated whole, each volume can stand alone as valuable learning tools and references.
For details on these books, see below.
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Get a PDF of the Table of Contents of both volumes here.
NOW IN ITS 4th PRINTING!
Volume 1: Ecological Vision and Theory for Temperate Climate Permaculture
Hardcover. 8 x 10. Approximately 356 pages. Numerous color and black and white photos, illustrations, and tables. Bibliography, glossary, index, plant and resource lists.
Winner: 2006 Media Award Silver Medal from the Garden Writer's Association,
named Outstanding Academic Title of both 2005 and 2006 by the American Library Association's Choice Magazine, and, along with Volume 2, nominated for an award from the Council of Botanical and Horticultural Libraries in 2006! This volume begins with an overview of the ecological and cultural context for forest gardening in modern North America. It also lays out a holistic vision that guides the study of forest ecology that follows. This ecological exploration forms the bulk of volume 1, and offers clear and specific direction for forest garden design and management. Three forest garden case studies ground the concepts discussed in the book and bring them life. Volume 1 concludes with colorful descriptions of forest gardening's "Top 100" species, and useful listings of information and organizational resources.Click below to see excerpts of Volume 1 at the Chelsea Green website.
Volume 1 Preface
Volume 1 Introduction
NOW IN ITS 4th PRINTING!
Volume 2: Ecological Design and Practice for Temperate Climate Permaculture
Hardcover. 8 x 10. Approximately 617 pages. Numerous black and white photos, illustrations, and tables. Comprehensive appendices on forest garden plants and animals, resource lists, glossary, bibliography, indices.
Nominated, along with Volume 1, for an award from the Council of Botanical and Horticultural Libraries in 2006! Volume 2 focuses all of its attention on effective design and practice. It organizes the ecological strategies from volume 1 in a way that is accessible to gardeners and designers. It offers a unique 'pattern language' for forest garden design, and provides detailed advice for how to design, prepare the site for, plant, and maintain your forest garden. Volume 2 also includes a unique Plant Species Matrix and several associated appendices which offer a wide-ranging catalog of the ecology, uses, and ecosystem functions of the best temperate-climate forest garden plants, and a few edible mushrooms, from around the world.
Click here to see Volume 2's Introduction at the Chelsea Green website.
The Two-Volume Set:
The most comprehensive treatment of forest garden design ever created.
No other book on forest gardening integrates ecology and design as thoroughly, and with such rigor, as this. The two volumes combine to give you the most up-to-date and advanced synthesis available on the subject. If you are serious about ecological gardening, ecological horticulture, permaculture design, or forest gardening—whether you are an amateur, a professional, a student, a researcher, or just a hard-core eco-freak—then the two-volume set is for you. It is an investment in intellectual capital that will pay dividends for years to come.
About the Authors
Primary author Dave Jacke has been a student of ecology and design since the 1970s, and has run his own ecological design firm—Dynamics Ecological Design—since 1984 (click here for a PDF of Dave's resume). Dave is an engaging and passionate teacher of ecological design and permaculture, and a meticulous designer. He has consulted on, designed, built, and planted landscapes, homes, farms, and communities in the many parts of the United States, as well as overseas, but mainly in the Northeast. A cofounder of Land Trust at Gap Mountain in Jaffrey, NH, he homesteaded there for a number of years. He holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Simon's Rock College (1980) and a M.A. in Landscape Design from the Conway School of Landscape Design (1984). You may reach Dave by email at:
Coauthor Eric Toensmeier has studied and practiced permaculture since 1990. He has spent much of his adult life exploring edible and useful plants of the world and their use in perennial agroecosystems. After co-authoring Edible Forest Gardens, Eric wrote Perennial Vegetables, also published by Chelsea Green. Until June 30, 2009, he managed an urban farm project for Nuestras Raices Inc. (www.nuestras-raices.org), which provides immigrants and refugees with access to plots and start-up support on a 30 acre farm. He gives courses and presentations in English, Spanish, and Botanical Latin. Eric is a graduate and former faculty member of the Institute for Social Ecology in Plainfield, VT.
