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. Volume I lays out the vision of the forest garden and explains the basic ecological principles that make it work. In Volume II, Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier move on to practical considerations: concrete ways to design, establish, and maintain your own forest garden. 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.
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.
What is an edible forest garden?
An edible forest garden is a perennial polyculture of multipurpose plants. Most plants regrow every year without replanting: perennials. Many species grow together: a polyculture. Each plant contributes to the success of the whole by fulfilling many functions: multipurpose. 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. Edible forest gardens provide more than just a variety of foods. The seven F's apply here: food, fuel, fiber, fodder, fertilizer, and "farmaceuticals," as well as fun. A beautiful, lush environment can be a conscious focus of your garden design, or a side benefit you enjoy
Editorial Reviews
Review
HortIdeas-
We reviewed the first volume of this two-volume set in September 2005 HortIdeas--in fact, we were so impressed by it that we devoted that month's Book Reviews section entirely to it. Until Mycelium Running--another amazingly important and well-done book--appeared, we were considering doing the same this month for the second volume of Edible Forest Gardens, which is much thicker (by more than 270 pages!) than the first volume. The shorter length of this review certainly does not reflect the relative importance of the volumes--we recommend that anyone interested in experimenting with temperate-zone "gardening in the image of the forest" should study both.
Although Volume 2 ostensibly emphasizes "practical" information building on the "theoretical" ideas in Volume 1, it is clear that both volumes are essentially theoretical. That's because (as we discussed in our review of Volume 1) nobody has yet convincingly shown the viability of forest gardening (relying heavily on perennial crops) in temperate areas as a sustainable alternative to conventional gardening (based mainly on annual crops). Jacke and Toensmeier are, admirably, attempting to disseminate ideas gathered from a variety of source that might enable such viability. Ultimately, at this stage development of temperate-zone forest gardening techniques, virtually all approaches are experimental and in need of validation. We simply do not currently know their limitations.
Understanding that knowledge on "nest practices" for temperate-zone forest gardening needs to be established experimentally can be exciting for those willing and able to adopt the scientific attitude: no matter how they turn out, the results of an experiment, performed appropriately (meaning especially that adequate control treatments are provided), are never "bad." In other words, we think that would-be temperate-zone forest gardeners who are sincerely interested in helping to establish this novel form of agriculture should proceed by trying to test some of Jacke and Toensmeier's numerous design, site preparation, species choice and establishment, and management guidelines. We view Volume 2 of Edible Forest Gardens not as a recipe book for what works but rather as a compendium of possibilities for what could work--an invitation par excellence to experimentation instead of complacency. Right on!
Plants and Gardens News--Patricia Jonas, Brooklyn Botanic Garden-
But even if you grow enough organic food to feed yourself, are you doing what's best for the ecosystem? "Many drawbacks of modern agriculture persist in organic farming and gardening," Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier write in Edible Forest Gardens, because they do not "mimic the structure of natural systems, only selected functions." Even Quail Hill Farm members are still harvesting mostly annual crops grown in plowed fields. Jacke and Toensmeier offer a radical vision for stepping out of the conceptual continuum of conventional agriculture and organic farming. They point to the productivity of temperate forests--which is twice that of agricultural land in terms of net calories--and take that as their design model. Building on Robert Hart's classic book, Forest Gardening, and incorporating permaculture practice, Jacke and Toensmeier propose a garden where many species of edible perennial plants are grown together in a design that mimics forest structure and function.
Edible Forest Gardens is an ambitious two-volume work whose influence should extend well beyond ecologists and permaculturists and, in the best of all outcomes, reach into the mainstream. Volume one lays out the "Ecological Vision and Theory for Temperate Climate Permaculture," and it also includes a very useful analysis of existing forest gardens (one only 50 by 90 feet) and a tantalizing 30-page appendix of "top 100" species. As of this writing, volume two, which focuses on practical design and maintenance considerations, is just being released, but on the evidence of volume one, I have no doubt the set will be an indispensable reference for gardeners and farmers for decades.
"When people have food gardens," the authors write, "they usually are tucked out of sight and out of view of the neighbors. They rely on external inputs of energy, nutrients, insect and disease controls, and water and are based primarily on annual plants. For some reason, growing food is considered unsightly, unseemly, possibly antisocial, and in some towns and cities, illegal! The tremendous infrastructure we have built in our cities and towns reflects a culture and horticulture of separation and isolation." The consequences of such attitudes about growing food have been disastrous, and each of us can contribute to the repair effort. Jacke and Toensmeier say that the principles of forest gardening can be applied even in a tiny urban yard or on a rooftop. Containers of edible perennials and annuals on a rooftop are not most farmers' idea of agriculture, but I grow nearly 20 percent of the authors' top 100 species and intend to look for ways to take this small start much further.
And what about chocolate and oranges? Clearly there are foods that cannot be grown in a temperate forest. "We do not expect forest gardening to replace regular gardening or the foods we know and love," the authors admit. "Just how far we can take forest gardening in supplying food for ourselves is not yet determined." Finding the answer may be the most optimistic work gardeners and farmers can do.
"These will be the benchmark works in the field for many years. The level of scholarship and meticulous footnoting is unsurpassed by anything I've seen in permaculture literature."--Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia's Garden
"A tree de force! A must-have set of books for anyone serious about polyculture, integrated organic garden and landscape design, permaculture in the temperate zones and, of course, food forests. The charts of condensed information alone are worth the price of admission. The best book on these topics in years Keep these books within arm's reach at all times!"--Robert Kourick, author of Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally
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From the Publisher
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"...this book will define the intellectual territory of its subject for at least a generation...Dave Jacke has knit an indigenous practice at once ancient and renascent with the mainstream of scientific exploration. He has given us legitimacy – and by us I mean all the ecological agricultural explorers of the epoch – and a cogency that will now be impossible to denigrate or diminish...An excellent and essential reference, brilliantly conceived and passionately written, Edible Forest Gardens should be on every permaculturist's reading list for the year ahead."
--Peter Bane Publisher, The Permaculture Activist magazine
"...But the book I will be keeping by me for the seasons ahead... is Edible Forest Gardens by Dave Jacke with Eric Toensmeier. In its way this book--the first of two volumes--is a sequel to the wonderful Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture (1929) by J. Russell Smith.... Edible Forest Gardens offers a vision of the garden that reaches well beneath its aesthetic surface and into its ecological depths. It reminds us that whatever gardens are an oasis from, they can never be an oasis from the natural world or our own underlying economic needs."
--Verlyn Klinkenborg The New York Times Book Review June 5, 2005
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About the Author
Dave Jacke has been a student of ecology and design since the 1970s, and has run his own ecological design firm—Dynamics Ecological Design Associates—since 1984. Dave is an engaging and passionate teacher of ecological design and permaculture, and a meticulous designer. He has consulted on, designed, built, and planted landscapes, homes, farms, and communities in the many parts of the United States, as well as overseas, but mainly in the Northeast. A cofounder of Land Trust at Gap Mountain in Jaffrey, NH, he homesteaded there for a number of years. He holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Simon's Rock College (1980) and a M.A. in Landscape Design from the Conway School of Landscape Design (1984). You can learn more about his work at edibleforestgardens.com. He lives in Keene, New Hampshire.
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Product details
Hardcover: 1068 pages
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing; VOLUME 2 edition (November 15, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1890132608
ISBN-13: 978-1890132606
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avid reader
5.0 out of 5 starsLots of valuable informationJuly 1, 2014
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Although this is an expensive set, there is so much valuable information in these 2 books for those interested in permaculture and forest gardening in the temperate climates of North America, it is well worth the price. The authors have scientific information to back their recommendations and to give credence to the longterm benefit and viability of the vision of permaculture and forest gardening…it is no longer just a wonderful vision but actually in the realm of reality. I loved the second volume with all the tables of plants arranged by their functions. There was so much information presented in a way that you can design a plan for your forest that will work really well together and will have a really great chance to thrive. If your plan includes plants that fix nitrogen and that accumulate nutrients such as calcium and potassium you will not need to add fertilizers. If you plan to have plants that support bees with nectar and pollen, you will have no problem pollinating your crops. If you make sure you have plants and habitats that attract predatory wasps and other beneficials , you will not need to worry about pests as much. I don't agree with everything in this book…such using glycophosphate. I think some of the soil preparation techniques that are recommended are too labour intensive…there must be a better way but overall there is really a lot of useful information
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Jalar
5.0 out of 5 starsTotally worth itFebruary 17, 2018
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
"The" book on forest gardening in North America. I wish I would have bought this first. So many other books I have are encompassed in this book. Volume 1 is about forest ecology, learning about what we are trying to mimic. Volume 2 is the practical applications section. These books and the Permaculture Designers manual are all you need. Volume 2 is a great reference. Volume 1 is pretty dense, but very interesting, thorough background information for what we are trying to accomplish.
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The realskinny
5.0 out of 5 starsEXCELLENT BOOKS!January 20, 2015
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
These are SERIOUS reference books that you will have to go back to again and again. Martin Crawford has a very readable tome about food forests which is excellent--these are excellent too, but give much more indepth analysis of the process and on ecology. I have read them in tandem--again, these are books for the serious raw foodists and sustainable gardener, or designer and will probably take MONTHS of reading and years of digesting, but I think they are well worth it AND will serve anyone serious about sustainable agriculture, well.
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Julie Guerrieri
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat Books!January 30, 2014
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
I had originally checked these books out at the library, but, being as they are so large, I couldn't even get close to finishing the first one in only two weeks. I was impressed with them, however, and decided to spend the money on my own copies.
I was so excited when they arrived--I'm still only partially through Book 1--and it's great having my own copies. And, unlike the ones from the library, these ones were in good shape--I'm a freak about the condition of my books, and I intend to keep these looking as good as they did the day they came!
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George Roark
5.0 out of 5 starsAn Amazing, in-Depth ReferenceMarch 25, 2010
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
It's no surprise to learn that Dave and Eric worked for seven years to write the Edible Forest Gardens books; the depth and breadth of permaculture knowledge that they present is incredible. Although I've heard some say that these books are not an easy read, I've found them to be fascinating, enjoyable and indispensable. I started my journey into permaculture with Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway, then decided to plant an edible forest in the back yard, so I purchased Volume 2 of Edible Forest Gardens, since it covers the practical consideration of forest gardening. I was so impressed with the book that I then purchased volume 1, which focuses on the ecological vision and theory for temperate climate permaculture. Highly recommended!
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Skip
5.0 out of 5 starsThis two volume set is worth it's weight in silver bullion...... Really!December 16, 2013
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
The author, Dave Jacke, has nailed this topic cold. Informative, to the point, "hands on" useable information..... Simply the best book I've found on this topic.
Mr. Jacke's work is as good or better than Fukuoka, Louis Bromfield, Joel Salatin or Wendell Berry. This book will has become a how-to classic. A must have if your planning a premiculture project of your own.
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R. Lopez
5.0 out of 5 starsRE: expensive, but well worth itNovember 27, 2012
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
I hesitated to spend so much money on these books. I find the information they contain to be the result of years of hard work by many people. They are prominently located on my reference shelf for easy access. If you are interested in Edible Forest Gardens, you will not be disappointed in the information they contain.
Forest Gardening is a lengthy endeavor. You won't get many chances to get it right, so better to do it right the first time.
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carlos
5.0 out of 5 starsyou will enjoy all of the little and big drops of wisdom ...September 12, 2015
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
I am starting a business called Epic Edible Backyards, and researching permaculture and ways to maximize food production. This set of books has been on my reading list for a while and they were well worth the wait. For someone interested in ecology, nature, permaculture, and design, you will enjoy all of the little and big drops of wisdom in these books.
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Review: Edible Forest Gardens, vol 1: Ecological Vision and Theory for Temperate Climate Permaculture
The two-volume Edible Forest Gardens by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier is the last directly permaculture-related work on my reading list for now; I gather I have amassed enough knowledge on the topic for the time being after these two final books; it’s then time to do some thinking and action before further reading. This two-volume text is topically split with most of the theory in this first volume what this review is about – titled Ecological Vision and Theory for Temperate-Climate Permaculture and more practical things in the second volume, titled Ecological Design And Practice For Temperate-Climate Permaculture
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One important thing to note is that despite the name, these books are not about creating “forests” per se, but mimicking the interconnectdness, sustainability and resilience of forests. It’s not about organic agriculture either; organic agriculture attempts to move agriculture toward the ‘nature’ end of the agriculture-nature continuum, maintaining high yields while reducing negative characteristics such as high rate of nutrient flux, high fragility, low resilience, low biodiversity, high amount of management effort required, high amounts of waste & pollution produced etc. Forest gardening, on the other hand, starts at nature’s end and attempts to increase yields while maintaining all of nature’s desirable characteristics (typically the opposites of that list).
Trees certainly play a role here, but are not the only plants of relevance – and you do not need acres and acres of land to implement the ideas. Instead the book specifically focuses on smaller-scale solutions and systems, often making the designs more applicable to real life than those in Mollison’s Permaculture Designers Manual that I recently read & reviewed (it should, however, also be pointed that this book covers a much narrower scope, but does so in more detail and with more up-to-date information).
To begin with, Edible Forest Gardens lays out some reasons why we should start radically re-thinking our food production; to mention just one interesting point is that when fossil fuel usage is included, traditional industrial agriculture often has a negative net energy production. That alone should ring some serious alarm bells.
The book covers a large number of fascinating details about soil structure and soil life (and how critically important it is to healthy ecosystems), social structure of forests and many other things. It also provides an overview to four perspectives on vegetation dynamics, starting with how the traditional linear succession and climax model and how it is not exactly true (I vaguely remember this linear succession model from school), then introducing three other theories; progressive succession to shifting-mosaic steady state, patch dynamics and a unified old field theory.
Previously I mentioned that quantifying yields is one aspect lacking in many permaculture materials; these books do provide some data on typical yields in different ecosystems; it’s interesting to note, for example, that agricultural land yields around 3000 kcal/m2/year, whereas temperate forests yield almost twice that and tropical forests and swamps even more in terms of raw net primary productivity (NPP). Nevertheless, more work on this area is still needed.
The text, while firmly under the permaculture umbrella, introduces only some permaculture principles (and omits others). Included are things such as polycultures and guilds, the latter which is defined here as “groups of species that partition resources or create networks of mutual support” – probably the tightest and best description of it I have seen so far.
In the sustainability discourse, there continues to be much talk and debate about suburbs and their fate. Many argue that suburbs cannot be maintained when fossil fuels become scarce and expensive (like argued in the documentary “End of suburbia“), while others quite convincingly claim we simply can’t afford to just abandon them either. This book takes a view that probably best aligns with my own thinking (and also aligns well with the permaculture edict of “the problem is the solution”) – that despite being generally poorly suited to dealing with energy decline, suburbs actually represent one of the best opportunities for sustainable design and living.
“There are more people with a little bit of land in these habitats than in any other. In the cities, people have far fewer opportunities to connect with any semblance of the natural world, much less to be self-supporting in any major way. Rural areas have too few people for high productivity without machinery driven by fossil fuels.”
There is no question that ultra-commutes, particularly with cars, will become difficult to maintain, but suburbs can provide a good basis for relocalization – and with good communication technology infrastructure, it should be possible for most knowledge-workers (those who primarily commute to begin with) to work remotely. This transition is probably easier in places like Melbourne where many suburbs are already relatively lively places filled with services and small local merchants, as opposed to many US suburbs where there is no local service-infrastructure and the little there is are shopping centers or strip malls.
The book ends with a “Top 100” species list, their growth environments (zones, sunlight preference), size, what they produce etc. There are also comprehensive reference and publications lists and a glossary at the end.
Much of this book is theory. Theory, for many people can be rather boring, which brings me to one of the best aspects of this book; it is very professionally written, well laid out with clear illustrations and in general is a joy to read. Mollison, for example, can at times be a bit rambling, but happily this work does not suffer from such superficial annoyances. The polished, well-researched presentation of interesting material makes Edible Forest Gardens yet another recommended book, but naturally only if you find the topic somewhat interesting.
I have a lot of books on my reading list right now, so getting to the Vol 2 of this great work may take some time. Nevertheless I’m really looking forward to that after the fascinating background in this first volume – next up, however, will be some more business and innovation-oriented books related to my day job.
