Edible Forest Gardens is a groundbreaking two-Volume work that spells out and explores the key concepts of Forest ecology and applies them to the needs of natural gardeners in temperate climates.
A beautiful, lush environment can be a conscious focus of your garden design, or a side benefit you enjoy.
The seven F\'s apply here: food, fuel, fiber, fodder, fertilizer, and "farmaceuticals," as well as fun.
Edible Forest gardens provide more than just a variety of foods.
In other words, a Forest garden is an Edible ecosystem, a consciously designed community of mutually beneficial plants and animals intended for human food production.
Each plant contributes to the success of the whole by fulfilling many functions: multipurpose.
Many species grow together: a polyculture.
Most plants regrow every year without replanting: perennials.
What is an Edible Forest garden? An Edible Forest garden is a perennial polyculture of multipurpose plants.
Taken together, the two volumes of Edible Forest Gardens offer an advanced course in ecological gardening-one that will forever change the way you look at plants and your environment.
Along the way they present case studies and examples, as well as tables, illustrations, and a uniquely valuable "plant matrix" that lists hundreds of the best Edible and useful species.
In Volume II, Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier move on to practical considerations: concrete ways to design, establish, and maintain your own Forest garden.
Volume I lays out the vision of the Forest garden and explains the basic ecological principles that make it work.
Edible Forest Gardens is a groundbreaking two-Volume work that spells out and explores the key concepts of Forest ecology and applies them to the needs of natural gardeners in temperate climates
