Paradise lot Two plant geeks, one-tenth of an acre and the making of an edible garden oasis in the city

Eric Toensmeier

Book - 2013

Tells the story of two single men who turned a backyard lot into a productive garden, with advice on setting up a permaculture, choosing suitable food plants, and designing an urban garden that functions as a natural ecosystem.

Saved in:

2nd Floor Show me where

635.091732/Toensmeier
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor 635.091732/Toensmeier Checked In
Subjects
Published
White River Junction, Vt. : Chelsea Green Pub 2013.
Language
English
Main Author
Eric Toensmeier (-)
Other Authors
Jonathan Bates, 1974- (-)
Physical Description
234 pages, 8 pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781603583992
  • Part 1. Sleep (2000-2004)
  • 1. Germination
  • 2. Starting a Seed Company and Gaining a Gardening Comrade
  • Seeds of Paradise
  • 3. Let's Get a Place
  • 4. Gardening Behind the Tofu Curtain
  • Reproducing Eden
  • 5. Sun, Shade, Soil, Slope
  • 6. A Model Ecosystem...Behind Kmart
  • 7. Guild-Build
  • Part 2. Creep (2004-2007)
  • 8. It Takes a Village to Plant a Food Forest
  • 9. Tacky Tropicalesque Takes Off
  • 10. The Edible Water Garden
  • 11. Urban Farming is My Day Job
  • Magic in the Garden
  • 12. The Greenhouse: Getting Serious
  • 13. Perennial Vegetable Spring
  • Broccolitas Forever!
  • 14. Putting Down Roots and a Parakeet Visit
  • 15. Meanwhile Back at the Farm
  • Build It and They Will Come
  • 16. A Movement Germinates
  • Part 3. Leap (2007-2009)
  • 17. Excess Success
  • 18. Turning Weeds into Eggs
  • 19. Grazing Berries
  • Secrets of Resilience
  • 20. Fruits and Nuts
  • 21. A Nourishing Nectary Neighborhood
  • Food Forest Farm Is Born
  • 22. Patterns of Nitrogen Fixation
  • 23. Groundcover Carpets
  • 24. The Garden's Impact Beyond the Fence Line
  • Part 4. Reap (2009-2012)
  • 25. Emergent Property
  • Living in Paradise
  • 26. Guiding Succession
  • Imagine Self-Renewing Abundance
  • 27. Indigenous Management Inspiration
  • 28. Next-Generation Polycultures
  • 29. Checking Back in After Eight Seasons
  • Permaculture Greenhouse Realized
  • 30. What's Still on the List?
  • Epilogue
  • Acknowledgments
  • Appendix A. Design Plan and Field Sketches
  • Appendix B. Plant Species by Layer
  • Recommended Resources
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

With their shared passion for plants and a commitment to creating as self-sustaining a garden as possible on a minuscule lot in a small New England city cursed with a terrible climate and even worse soil, Toensmeier and Bates set about converting their urban backyard into a permaculture paradise. Informed by his work on a seminal, two-volume encyclopedia devoted to the concept of forest gardening, Toensmeier transformed the infertile and debris-laden property behind the duplex he shared with Bates into a natural ecosystem teeming with edible plants. As the authors' postage-stamp-size front yard morphed into a lush, tropical showcase that astounded their Massachusetts community, the backyard incorporated all the components necessary to produce fresh fruits and vegetables year-round using cold-hardy, mostly native plants that would ideally require a minimum amount of work for a maximum output. As a memoir of a purposeful life, Toensmeier's work is engaging, honest, and natural. As a directive to other gardeners eager to establish natural ecosystems in unlikely settings, his work is instructive, illuminating, and inspirational.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this charming, true-life tale of urban regeneration and the birth of a forest garden movement, Toensmeier, famous among permaculture enthusiasts for his Perennial Vegetables and as coauthor of Edible Forest Gardens, tells the story behind the Holyoke, Mass., garden featured as a test case in the latter, which, in the course of eight years, he and Bates transformed from a bare backyard wasteland into a flourishing, edible Eden. In true permaculture fashion, the book follows not only the progression of the garden but also its influence on and relations with its creators' lives-including a surprisingly Austen-like romantic element-their neighborhood, and the larger permaculture and forest gardening community. Bates, whose nursery business, Food Forest Farm, is an offshoot of this garden, contributes philosophical and personal essays interspersed throughout the narrative. Fans of Toensmeier and Bates's work will be thrilled to read the details of their experiments with polycultures, their problems with and solutions for pests and overly aggressive plants, and their idiosyncratic plant choices. Adventurous readers with conventional gardens and lawns may be inspired to venture into the more integrated, evolutionary approach that this book so vividly and appealingly portrays. Agent: Kit Ward, Ward & Balkin Agency (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Part handbook, part memoir, this book details the evolution of a permaculture garden on an urban lot in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Having spent years describing permaculture gardens in a theoretical manner, Toensmeier (Perennial Vegetables) and his friend Bates (owner, Food Forest Farm Permaculture Nursery) put these theories into practice when they bought and moved into a duplex situated on a 1/10 acre rundown lot. Nearly a decade later, the lot is unrecognizable-a tropical paradise in the front and a wealth of more than 200 edible plants in the back. Toensmeier clearly explains the processes-needless to say, nothing changed overnight-that achieved this near-miracle. VERDICT The authors' prose pulls the reader into their lives, sparking a desire to see the result and try this kind of gardening. The appendixes are filled with useful information for readers who may be intrigued enough to create their own paradise. All readers interested in urban renewal or environmental issues will welcome this book.-Keri Youngstrand, Dickinson State Univ. Lib., ND (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

How two men turned a sterile backyard into a viable garden. "The front yard was a short, steep slope of asphalt with a tiny strip of sterile gravel and subsoil," write Toensmeier and Bates, with a "backyard that looked like a moonscape, sparely populated with tufts of crabgrass." It was the perfect place to launch their experiment: Could two men with horticultural experience and a love of nature turn a typical compact backyard into a garden full of lush plants and edible food? The authors chronicle their 10-plus years of trials and experiments, as they transformed their "moonscape" into a permaculture of "trees, shrubs, vines, and herbaceous perennials" that produced food at every level. By analyzing their soil and plotting the movement of shade and sun for a year, the authors discovered the prime locations to build a greenhouse and tool shed. They knew where to plant trees and perennials so that they could bring their site to life, and they developed a deeper kinship with the space and with each other. Along the journey, the authors present ideas like sheet mulching, which can transform a lawn into a useful garden plot capable of growing tomatoes and sweet corn in the first year. They also share their thoughts on the plants that can become noxious weeds despite their culinary uses. Toensmeier and Bates discuss both their triumphs and their defeats, as they experimented with chickens, nitrogen fixers, ground covers, numerous kinds of berry bushes and water plants. Although not a how-to guide, the authors give readers plenty of choices and ideas to think about when deciding whether to embark on this kind of gardening.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.