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

This book is perfect who believes in a 'green' environment, a complete avoidance to chemicals, descriptions on microclimate and macroclimate designing, utilization of your farm animals to do your yard work, farming in very inhospitable environments, and the ability to recover any land from past abuse. I 'ear-marked' a dozen pages for important information that I will forever refer back to and the index at the back of the book is superb for finding topics, foods, and practices described throughout the book, which makes this book efficient and very user friendly. The use of hugelkultur, swales, keyline, ponds, trees, and rocks to create a bountiful yard or small farm is exactly the type of self-reliant infrastructure I am looking for. Once established, this self-sustaining program can easily turn a profit for anyone anywhere. This book has totally changed my outlook on what is a weed and how many of these predetermined 'weeds' actually provide a huge benefit to the garden, bees, birds and beneficial insects so pesticides can be avoided. I plan on reading the book a second time to fully grasp the intricacies of farming in this manner. I now have a much lesser outlook on monoculture farming and how destructive commercial farming really is.

The information in this book is invaluable! This man is a fascinating human being that manages to live in peaceful harmony with nature and his surroundings. All the pieces together form a whole - humans, animals, plants and environment living together in symbiotic relationships. It is my belief that to achieve excellent spiritual and physical health, one must be able to do what this man has done. We have a deep connection to earth and all living things and modern society separates us from that connection. If you would like to feel more connected to your food and where it comes from this is a good book to help you. If you are interested in finding ways to integrate plants, animals your environment, home and yourself into a happy union, this book is an excellent resource. Sepp Holzer is full of unconventional ideas that he has researched and found to work well. His experience comes through in the book. This can work for a small yard or a whole farm.

Mr. Holzer's book was fantastic, my husband and I are reading it together, we are almost finished. When we bought our farm, we had a clean slate, the land had not been farmed in many years, we are doing just about everything on it either with a tractor or by hand, including fencing the entire thing in with a "by hand" post hole digger. We have been searching for information on how to make this a "multipurpose" "self-sufficient" farm. A farm with the main goal of being able to help feed the less fortunate & feed our family, we did not want to use any chemicals! We have prayed over our land even before we bought it, that God would use it in a big way! We feel God led us to read this book, we had NEVER heard of permaculture, though my husbands family had farmed for many years & as we have learned in this book, some of the reasons my husbands Grandfather did things the way he did them was for the very reasons that Mr. Holzer farms the way he does!! We are so excited as we plan to build "earth shelters" around our farm, and there is several areas where the "terraces" he spoke of will do so much good for us! The only downfall I have found so far is that Mr. Holzer's book The Rebel Farmer is not available on the Kindle! We are going to have to order a "real book". Other reviews I read said he did not go into enough detail.. OH YES HE DID! The details are fantastic! And he does state in this book that he has even more detailed information in The Rebel Farmer! I plan to order it right away! Thank you Mr. Holzer for sharing your very important information with all of us! And thank you that is was available on the Kindle!! What a fantastic find the Lord has led us too! There will be many many people that will benefit from our farm for years, God willing, thanks to YOU Mr. Holzer!! Our Farm in named aptly "Matana Farm", Matana is a Hebrew word for "gift". This farm was a gift from God and we plan on passing the gifts on for many years to come!! Thank you Mr. Holzer & Amazon & Kindle!!

This was an easy read, not at all dry or too technical. Mr Holzer describes his farming methods and his farm, his trials and errors and the lessons he learned the hard way. He talks about permaculture, principles that he has been applying even before the term was coined. He has some great ideas, and you only have to see the pictures of his farm to know that they really work. What I didn't like about it was that although he tells us what he did on his farm, he doesn't give enough details on how he does them. He whets your appetite for his methods, but then doesn't tell you enough. For example, he says stuff like: "I use foxglove to improve the health of the soil, among other reasons". It only leaves me wondering, what are those reasons? He keeps telling that he has been watching the nature for 40 years, but he doesn't give the recipes for his plant mixtures. Instead, he suggests that one should observe nature and experiment for oneself. I bought the book precisely to learn from his experiences, instead of having to spend years observing nature myself. But overall it is a fascinating read, especially if you want an introduction to permaculture. It is a great lesson on thinking outside the box and succeeding against all odds. You can feel his love and respect for nature and for his land.

This book is fantastic. I only wish he would take each chapter and sub-chapter and write a separate book about each, there is such an abundance to learn! Sepp's genious is looking at nature and translating it into human activity, so that farming, gardening, forestry,fooed-production, or animal husbandry follows a natural cycle, a natural way forward that is fecund and sustainable. It is his constant striving to create optimum diversity which is the key to his systems. And the use of ancient and heirloom varieties: ban F1's, ban GMO and ban herbicies & pesticides and you will have food-production success! Kiwi fruit in the Austrian alps - you have to pay attention! I loved his premis for keeping animals: would you be happy if you were expected to live like your animals? If not, make the changes immediately to their enviromment and feeding. Fascinating that the ancient breeds of animals know how to feed and get about, whereas new breeds simply perish if left out in the environment: if a new breed cow slips and falls onto its back it gives up and dies - not so the ancient breeds. A wonderful book - write in even greater depth about it all, Sepp! And buy it, it is absolutely worth it.

This is, by far, the best book written on sustainable, eco-friendly gardening. It is written in a personal, down-to-earth and very logical way. Everything that Mr Holzer wrote made total sense and aligned with my own observations. This is a very practical book too. I've read (at least tried) many permaculture books, they tend to be very scholarly and somewhat detached from reality. This book is as practical as can be. It does not over-complicate anything I've started implementing many things from this book and they do work in practice. Be warned though: this book is about working with the nature, not about using unnatural shortcuts, so things will take time. But eventually, you will end up with a thriving, stable and productive garden that doesn't require a ton of maintenance. I want to thanks Mr Holzer for writing this book and sharing his knowledge with mankind!

this is the book to define the art of permaculture. It is written in a clear interesting manner. this way of "living with the earth" is an overlooked way of living. the author describes the observing, experimenting, patience,that being an engineer to the earth and life around us require. In pop culture and main stream media we are force fed "quick fix" is the cheap answer to every aspect of life. when we buy into that mentality we live shallow, ghost lives always wondering why we experience so much emptiness and frustration. We are led to believe that the "gods" of technology have all the answers, so we buy into another quick fix, that ultimately fails us again. This thoughtful way of living with earth is the responsible answer. To live a life of this kind of truth is to live a life of dignity and self respect. A person living this way is powerful in the real sense.

Sepp Holzer developed and used principles of permaculture design independent of the permaculture movement, simply through a life of careful and open-minded observation and interaction with his landscape. That's really what it requires at its core, and that's the core of his message: observe and interact with an open-minded curiosity about what's really going on, and you will learn how to work with your land effectively, over time. Then people who identified as permaculturalists got really nasty with him, and he stopped identifying as a permaculturalist, which is fine and understandable. I wouldn't, either, if I was mistreated the way he was. If you live on land, e.g., in the Appalachian or Rocky our Cascade or Coastal mountain ranges, or even in the Northeastern US (e.g. Maine) or Alaska for that matter, where you have the challenge of a short growing season in a relatively humid environment, you'll find lots of great tips here. Don't expect a ton of inspiration for arid or brittle landscapes, though. If you live somewhere that is primarily (or used to be) grassland (before it desertified), then you are better off learning from someone like Geoff Lawton. If you have a large broadacre context, then Darren Doherty's Regrarians and/or pure Holistic Management will work fantastically. The holistic decision-making aspect of Holistic Management can provide clarity of process for all permaculture design contexts. Don't be dogmatic. Sepp Holzer isn't, which is how he attained the knowledge and wisdom he has to offer. But the people who drove him away from the permaculture movement were being dogmatic.