Sustainability in the Garden and Beyond
I'm finding more and more people who are changing their relationship to nature not just in the garden but in their lives generally, and here are just a few. Send me more links and stories that you know of.
Profiles in Homesteading
- See what Rob and Mia in suburban Wisconsin are doing - everything from growing food to changing their community.
- The Purple People of Takoma Park, Maryland have almost achieved total food self-sufficiency.
- Visit the Dervaes family at the Path to Freedom site to learn about what they call their family-oriented, viable urban homesteading project on their ordinary suburban lot in Pasadena, California.
- D.C. food writer Ed Bruske tells his story in The Making of an Urban Farmer.
Resources
- Sustainable Sites Initiative is a joint effort of the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, U.S. Botanic Garden and the American Society of Landscape Architects to produce standards for LEED ratings in the area of landscaping. Their draft report is out for comment, and the results look terrific.
Rob in Wisconsin sent me these recommendations, with his comments:
- Natural Step, a model for sustainable villages that started in Sweden and is credited with putting the country on track to quit the imported oil habit by 2020.
- Fukoaka Masunoba’s One Straw Revolution . It's about taking the “work” out of gardening. More poetry and philosophy than how to.
- Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden Mind-blowing.
- Bill Mollison's Intro to Permaculture, Permaculture a Designer’s Manual. Tropical focus, but helps to change thinking about gardening as a battle with nature to partnership with nature. More ideas on integrated systems in gardening than I have ever seen.
- David Holmgren Permaculture - a philosophy book.
- David Jacke’s Edible Forest Gardens Vol 1,2 - Vol 1 is fantastic though wordy. Vol 2 in insanely detailed and I still haven’t finished it, but the best appendixes and plant lists are in Vol 2.
- Sara Stein Noah’s Garden - Restoring nature and ecology by gardening.
- Ruth Stout’s No Work Gardening - Crazy old bat that is a joy to read. Proves that gardening can be simple and that we need to talk to the generation that came before us before they take their knowledge to the grave.
Dr. Amen recommends these books:
- How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons
- Staying Healthy with the Seasons
by Elson Haas - Designing your Edible Landscape Naturally
by Kourik and Creasy - How to Store your Garden Produce
by Piers Warren