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The Permaculture Market Garden: A visual guide to a profitable whole-systems farm business
The illustrated guide to profitable, vibrant and sustainable permaculture-based market gardening Permaculture tends to be very much in the domain of home gardeners and property owners. But what if we could take it all a step further, and merge the fields of permaculture and market gardening? In The Permaculture Market Garden , author Zach Loeks brings together his passion for sustainable permaculture food production systems and beautiful, vibrant illustrations to provide a highly visual guide to the smooth integration of permaculture into the market garden, in ways that are scalable to specific situations. Profiling crops and ecosystem-based techniques, Loeks demonstrates a profitable, sustainable and approachable model for the future of market gardening. Along the way, Loeks introduces his own system of PermaBeds, season extension techniques, intensive and rotational interplanting, in-depth discussions on soil health, and more, bringing activities, designs and prospects of farming to life through illustrations, so the reader can be immersed within the world of permaculture farming. Playful, informative and curious, inspiring and beautiful and packed with accessible practical information, The Permaculture Market Garden will inspire both the seasoned market gardener as well as anyone aspiring to start a business. Zach Loeks is a market gardener, farm consultant and educator living in the Ottawa Valley. Winner of two regional awards for sustainability and innovation in agriculture, he shares his expertise in farming, design and business through a successful series of on-farm workshops, conferences and schools, as well as a successful year-round CSA.
- GenresGardeningNonfiction
288 pages, Paperback
Published January 27, 2017
26 people are currently reading
187 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 13, 2019
Some useful concepts in here, but it's wrapped up in a lot of the author's self-imposed jargon. He circles back on concepts and the book is poorly organized. I was hoping to see some more numbers or something to back up his approach, but he just dove into it with an ideological bent. Nothing wrong with that, but I always hope for more. It's a "This is what I am doing and here's how you can do it" book.
May 26, 2019
If it weren't for the typos...
Seriously, the typos are awful! I thought Andrew Mefford's latest book had a lot, but this is really excessive. They make the book hard to read. New Society Press, you can do better! I can't help but wonder if the people who I'd imagine Loeks would, I'd imagine, have been asked to read the book before it was turned in to the publisher actually read the book. SOOO many typos. Even on the drawings!
This is an important book to read, way up there with Mark Shepard's amazing "Regenerative Agriculture." There are a lot of take-away ideas about sustainability.
Some other issues I had with the book. It doesn't really cover anything about marketing. It starts out with information about ecology and a far-too-in-depth explanation of soil science (I've had a bit of ecology and soil science in school, and these sections were LONG and boring). When Loeks starts to talk about his idea of planting beds in sets of three, there's a drawing that explains the concept in a way that's easier to understand, but on my Kindle, it seems like it's a page or two after the description. I was surprised at how much his farm relies on tractors. I was shocked when he said that he puts all crop debris- even diseased plants that he pulls - into the paths. Usually one wants to move diseased plants from the garden - or at least to a hot compost pile so the inoculum doesn't spread. After this stuff "composts" he puts it onto the bedtop to help build the soil. Guess what? There's a glossary at the end of the book. I found it when I got to the end. I found a familiar term and did a search for it and found that the glossary was the only place in the book where the term was used! The index includes links to the pages, but there was a term that I looked for in the screens before and after the spot the index took me to and couldn't find it. One more thing - I'm not a visual learner, and I found that there were way too many drawings, and that they contributed to an excessive amount of repetition of information.
All in all, I was disappointed that the publisher of a book that I'd paid so much for had not spent the money to have someone proofread the manuscript. The typos weren't just distracting -- sometimes they made it hard to understand the text!
Seriously, the typos are awful! I thought Andrew Mefford's latest book had a lot, but this is really excessive. They make the book hard to read. New Society Press, you can do better! I can't help but wonder if the people who I'd imagine Loeks would, I'd imagine, have been asked to read the book before it was turned in to the publisher actually read the book. SOOO many typos. Even on the drawings!
This is an important book to read, way up there with Mark Shepard's amazing "Regenerative Agriculture." There are a lot of take-away ideas about sustainability.
Some other issues I had with the book. It doesn't really cover anything about marketing. It starts out with information about ecology and a far-too-in-depth explanation of soil science (I've had a bit of ecology and soil science in school, and these sections were LONG and boring). When Loeks starts to talk about his idea of planting beds in sets of three, there's a drawing that explains the concept in a way that's easier to understand, but on my Kindle, it seems like it's a page or two after the description. I was surprised at how much his farm relies on tractors. I was shocked when he said that he puts all crop debris- even diseased plants that he pulls - into the paths. Usually one wants to move diseased plants from the garden - or at least to a hot compost pile so the inoculum doesn't spread. After this stuff "composts" he puts it onto the bedtop to help build the soil. Guess what? There's a glossary at the end of the book. I found it when I got to the end. I found a familiar term and did a search for it and found that the glossary was the only place in the book where the term was used! The index includes links to the pages, but there was a term that I looked for in the screens before and after the spot the index took me to and couldn't find it. One more thing - I'm not a visual learner, and I found that there were way too many drawings, and that they contributed to an excessive amount of repetition of information.
All in all, I was disappointed that the publisher of a book that I'd paid so much for had not spent the money to have someone proofread the manuscript. The typos weren't just distracting -- sometimes they made it hard to understand the text!
July 13, 2018
3.5 stars
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews