Book Review: Gaia's Garden

I have been meaning to write a review for Gaia's Garden for ages!

As the sun dips lower and the days grow colder, I begin to imagine what next year's garden will be like, what we will grow, and where it will all go. I tend to read a lot of gardening magazines and books each winter, just to keep my gardening pulse strong and keep me going until the garden awakes from its winter slumber.

There is one book that I keep going back to: Gaia's Garden - A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture (Chelsea Green, 2001). I originally picked this one up a the library, and Chealsea Green was kind enough to send me a copy to review here!

If I am bored and have nothing new or recent to read, I usually pick this book up and read it cover to cover. There is so much useful information that stokes the fire of my perpetual gardening spirit that I am never disappointed.

Hemenway weaves an informational and elaborate book together, just as mother nature weaves a web of interconnected pieces.

My favorite parts of the book are as follows:

Chapter 3: Designing the Ecological Garden
This whole chapter is dedicated to showing you how to get more in less space, planning, planning, planning, using your microclimates to their fullest potential, keyhole beds, and interesting plant spacing techniques. I love this chapter, and it has changed the way I garden.

Chapter 5: Catching, Conserving, and Using Water
This chapter is about more than just rain barrels or capturing water for future use in typical fashion. Hemenway goes into detail about capturing water in the soil and channeling it to where it is needed most, especially by use of swales and berms to capture and sink water. I really wish we had room for the gray water pond he describes so eloquently in this chapter!

Page 100: The oak tree's interconnectedness illustration
The highlight of this book for me is the interconnected web Hemenway weaves by describing all of the microclimates that an oak tree creates, and how different they are from one another. This description is so beautiful and moving I catch myself thinking about it when I see an oak tree sometimes; it is very memorable.

While these are my favorite parts of the book, I much enjoyed the book as a whole - it is a dream to own and read it over and over again. From the examples in the book, we have and been introduced to the idea of permaculture and it permeates the planning process Chris and I undertake to make our garden more "ours". On a more physical note, it has led us to sheet mulch over 1500 ft² of lawn as we slowly incorporating permaculture ideas into the mulched areas with fruit tree guilds.

I simply adore this book and encourage anyone who is trying to connect the dots of sustainability in their landscape/yard/land to pick it up; you will not be disappointed.

Grade: A+

Update: Chelsea Green is releasing a revised and updated Gaia's Garden, Second Edition on March 29, 2009 (my birthday, ahem). Pre-order yours here.

Edited 2/8/09