Getting Started In Permaculture: 50 Practical Projects to Build and Design Productive Gardens

by Ross Mars

Permaculture experts Ross and Jenny Mars outline the steps to transform your garden into a productive living system. Modeled upon the development of Candlelight Farm, and illustrated with photographs, this guide encourages the reader to make positive steps towards reconciling human impact with nature – following the permaculture ideal.
Permaculture is based on the ethics of caring for people and our planet. It is about growing your own healthy food, being resourceful and environmentally responsible. Permaculture concepts and ideas can be applied successfully from small suburban units to large farming properties.
Getting Started in Permaculture delivers step-by-step knowledge for a variety of useful projects including: making herb fertilizers, compost, organic sprays for pest control, and much, much more. It also includes how to recycle your soft drink bottles, waste paper, and tires in a number of useful projects such as ponds, fruit fly traps, retailing walls, and solar stills.
As part of Permanent Publications Simple Living Series, this practical and accessible guide for gardeners of all skill levels serves as an ideal introduction to the world of permaculture.

Genres: Gardening, Nature, Nonfiction

102 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 30, 1992

Reviews

[Andrea M · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has great ideas for kids. My son wanted to make the pond described in the book. It's a half-baked idea. There is so much to making ponds beyond just the liner. I saw some interesting things to do with old tires -- but not really a book I would refer to often.

[Kitap · Rating 2 out of 5]

This seems like a book for kids, or rather a book for permaculture educators of kids. As another reviewer aptly put it, most of the ideas in here are half-baked (at best). This is like the outline for a book that never really got fleshed out. And the fact that it's written in Ozzie makes it even less worthwhile for a reader of 'Merican. Tyres?

[Cat Randle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book for ideas but I get the sense you need to have a grounding in permaculture to make the best use of the book. As a tool to help a classroom teacher its great. It has good ideas but it is patchy in sharing the information. Or in other words it wasn't the book I was looking for. Good as a teaching tool though.

[Des McCartney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like how they refer to weeds as pioneers! This book has plans for a pvc pipe geodesic dome. Worth a look. D.j.

[Kristen McGeorge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not terribly in-depth, but great if you're project-minded!

[Jessica Loomis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent basic introduction to permaculture if you're looking for mostly DIY ideas. Quick and easy read, although I would recommend further reading for more in-depth explanations of the holistic premise and historical background for permaculture. Also, the instructions were sometimes a bit lacking, especially if you're a newbie gardener. For example, the section on germinating seeds says nothing about lighting: grow lamp? florescent lamp? Nothing.

Still, I give 3 stars, because it's got 50 projects from recycling and using plastic bottles as mini-cloches to birdfeeders and practical instructions on measuring out a mandala garden or building a geodesic dome. So kudos for all of that information.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book really lacking. While it had some great practical ideas (building an herb spiral or water garden with old tires), and one cool not-so-practical idea (building a solar still from plastic bottles), most of the ideas were so common sense or commonly used that they didn't really add any value (using plastic bottles as cloches, or cutting a plastic jug to make a scoop).

I guess my problem with the book is that most of it is centered more on repurposing than on permaculture. I understand that reducing usage of resources by repurposing items is an important part of permaculture, but it is only one tiny part. I was expecting a wider array of projects, and more projects that were like the herb spiral, water garden, and cold frame ideas.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many (over 50 according to the cover) different projects you could do to encourage your permaculture garden. Some are simple, like converting milk jugs into scoops and some are more complicated, like making paper. The authors want you to reuse, so many of these projects could be free or cheap. However, the book is written by Australians and the metric systems references can be confusing. I don't blame them for this confusion, I blame the US and our inability to make the transition the rest of the world has. We put a man on the moon....

[Fernleaf · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had some good ideas and projects listed, but others were less great. The first few projects include uses for reusing tires. While I applaud the idea of reuse and recycling there have been some concerns recently about the chemicals produced and leached into the soils as the tires degrade and I would want a little more info before I planted food in beds made from used tires.

The tree-planting advice is rife with 'too-nice' syndrome.

[Jessica]

This is on its way back to the library. They have some good ideas for DIY home projects for recycled materials, but a lot of them include tires which isn't so environmentally friendly, otherwise, I'd be using them for tomatoes every year. I expected more

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

what I liked here was a discussion of getting into the principles of permaculture [before] starting your permaculture garden, that is, how to apply permaculture to other aspects of your life.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I great 'beginners' book. Good place to start.

[Bailey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of ideas to reuse "trash" like plastic bottles and old tires for garden projects. Very feasible, but I worry about growing my food in old tires and plastic.