Creating a Forest Garden

384 pages

Published Aug. 9, 2010 by Green Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-900322-62-1

(1 review)

The long-awaited definitive book on forest gardening. Martin takes you step by step through the process of designing, implementing and maintaining a forest garden. Trees, shrubs, perennials, short-lived plants and fungi can all be integrated into one system and this book tells you how to do it. Includes descriptions of many uncommon edible plants suitable for temperate climates. If you want one book on forest gardening then this is the one to get! "A seminal piece of work on truly sustainable gardening, written with great spirit and soul" - Alys Fowler.

1 edition

Malte reviewed Creating a Forest Garden by Martin Crawford

Review of 'Creating a Forest Garden' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This is currently the best, most hands-on manual for creating a forest garden. Other books are either too theoretical for people just starting out, have been superseeded or just lack all the beautiful and informative colour pictures that this one sports. Martin Crawford possibly maintains the most interesting, mature forest garden in the temperate climate zone, having been working on it for over 20 years, so his many experiences and experiments are all summarized here. His style is pretty relaxed, not all too principled (which gives one room to prioritize, which is much more important!) and in general does not put of the beginner with a thousand variables every time you want to make even the tiniest change. Example: Instead of treating footsteps in the garden as a "small catastrophe", as some permaculturalists have anxiously called it, Crawford plans his ground layer with dense mats of plants tolerating more or …

This is currently the best, most hands-on manual for creating a forest garden. Other books are either too theoretical for people just starting out, have been superseeded or just lack all the beautiful and informative colour pictures that this one sports. Martin Crawford possibly maintains the most interesting, mature forest garden in the temperate climate zone, having been working on it for over 20 years, so his many experiences and experiments are all summarized here. His style is pretty relaxed, not all too principled (which gives one room to prioritize, which is much more important!) and in general does not put of the beginner with a thousand variables every time you want to make even the tiniest change. Example: Instead of treating footsteps in the garden as a "small catastrophe", as some permaculturalists have anxiously called it, Crawford plans his ground layer with dense mats of plants tolerating more or less foot traffic, not wanting to create actual paths, but just changing his walking patterns every now and then, stepping on horse mint, strawberry or whatever. Conclusion: After reading just the first couple of chapters, I think most people will want to actually begin creating a forest garden, instead of feeling completely overwhelmed and put down by the complexity of it. Get it, study some and then let's blow some edible life into this desert.