Rate this book

Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide To Small-Scale, Integrative Farming And Gardening (2004)

by Sepp Holzer(Favorite Author)

4.36 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

160358370X (ISBN13: 9781603583701)

languge

English

genre

Food & Cookbooks

publisher

Chelsea Green Publishing

review 1: If you want to see what can be done with permaculture design, this is an incredible start. Sepp's approach to sustainable living is unique and yet completely doable. Highly recommend this to anyone interested in sustainability, food-security, the environment, plants in general, defying the norm, alternative living. Best part about Sepp is that he only writes from experience and with no nonsense, as a reader and someone extremely interested in Permaculture I felt a complete trust.
review 2: Before I comment on the book I just have to say that I very much admire Sepp Holzer and his work. The man is obviously brilliant when it comes to permaculture and understanding how to make the most of natural systems. Because of this I really wanted to love this book. Unfo... morertunately it fell a bit short for me. I was able to get some interesting information about what is possible in permaculture systems: fruit trees that need almost no yearly care, plants that feed other plants without addition of large amounts of compost or other fertilizers, and combinations of plants and animals that are managed with very little work. I can only dream of doing what Sepp Holzer has done on his land (which most would call unarable) in Austria. It gives me hope that we can achieve much more with sustainable organic techniques than I ever dreamed before. Unfortunately, I feel inspired but feel like I have very little information to get started with unless I want to raise pigs and start grafting trees tomorrow. This book was a maddening mix of extreme specificity and foggy vagueness. The authors spend a few pages on raised garden beds that totally confused me. I had to study the pictures to figure out what they were talking about. They never discussed how they selected vegetables to grow or how they were seeded in the beds. The only actual photograph of the raised beds is a winter shot with the beds bare under a blanket of snow. Not terribly helpful. Also, according to the map of the farm there is a greenhouse on the property but it is never mentioned in the text. The general feel is that the author sprinkles seeds here and there and everything just pops up in the places they will grow best. This is just one example of an area I would have loved a bit more explanation, charts, diagrams, ANYTHING! Another thing that frustrated me a bit was the photographs, particularly in the first part of the book. There are many aerial pictures of Sepp Holzer's property that frankly meant nothing to me. I couldn't distinguish the terraces, the water, the lay of the land, etc. There are many photos of colorful plants, few of which are labeled or discussed as to why that mix works together. Pretty, but not helpful.Many of Sepp Holzer's techniques require large machinery. He describes his projects in great detail and casually mentions that "This work can be carried out very easily with a mechanical digger." What about those who can't or don't want to own large gas-guzzling equipment? Are there other options? Obviously in the mountainous area he comes from terraces are very important, but the massive earth moving projects were hard to take page after page.I would have loved a detailed chart that covers a year of some of his growing areas. He mentions harvesting one crop and then sowing another, letting pigs and and out of certain fields to forage for crops he sowed earlier, planting mulch crops, etc. It all sounds brilliant and balanced except that I have NO IDEA how to imitate it because I can't figure out what is happening when and where. Again, it was extremely vague in some areas where I would have loved extreme detail.North American audiences must also be careful with some of the plant recommendations and lists. Sepp Holzer lives in Austria and draws on plant lists for his area. He occasionally mentions plants such as the multiflora rose as being beneficial for various reasons. I'm sure it is true in Austria, but in the USA the multiflora rose was imported from Europe and has become an invasive species here. Most of our native insects cannot recognize it as food and it is overpowering native plants. So the plant lists in the book are helpful to some extent, but make sure you double-check the suitability of any plant before spreading it around your property.He also talks all the time about experimenting and trying things out to see how they work best on your own property. On the other hand he'll offhandedly mention that a certain plant grows best alongside a certain nemotode so you should innoculate the soil. How could you possibly figure that out by experimenting? He must have learned that somewhere. What are his sources? Where did he go to start figuring out how certain plants or insects work together? There must be SOME starting point other than just experimentation. I'll conclude my rant with a comment that some of the book simply isn't well written. With three very intelligent people working together you would think they could at least manage to have coherent paragraphs. There are all kinds of random comments inserted here and there that break up the flow of reading. One of my favorite is on the chapter about building ponds. The authors begin a paragraph, "Islands and small biotopes can be made in the pond" and then continues to describe in great detail how to seal the pond. What?! What about the islands? How are they made? Why do they head off the paragraph about sealing the pond? This happens all over the book. I know that English is not the authors' first language, but basic paragraph structure does translate well. It just made the book hard to read and a little confusing at times.So was this book worth reading? Yes, I gained enough from it that I enjoyed it. I was inspired by what he is able to achieve on his property in Switzerland. At the same time I wish I had not paid $18 for it and there is little than I can specifically apply to my situation. I think the book can be improved upon in many ways and I'm not sure I would spend money on another one of his books. less

Download links for: Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening

Advertising