This critically acclaimed and definitive permaculture design book was the inspiration that BBC2’s Brigit Strawbridge (of It’s Not Easy Being Green) needed to attend her first permaculture design course with Patrick Whitefield, setting her and her family off on a voyage of discovery which is helping to introduce and inspire others.
Already hailed in the UK, Europe and America as definitive, and reprinted by popular demand, The Earth Care Manual offers an inspirational yet practical vision of a sustainable future invaluable to those new to the subject as well as to the experienced practitioner.
The permaculture movement started in the 1970s as a sustainable alternative to modern industrial agriculture, taking its inspiration from natural ecosystems. It initially placed an emphasis on gardening, with proponents of permaculture since expanding on its principles; addressing all subjects vital to sustainability, from building and community design to food, energy, water, microclimate and shelter.
All of these topics and more are addressed in The Earth Care Manual, demonstrating that permaculture is an interconnecting framework linking a diversity of green ideas. Its aims are a low input, high output efficient use of resources – and genuine sustainability.
The Earth Care Manual gives a vision of a sustainable future and the practical steps we can take towards it, both large and small, urban and rural.
Written by Patrick Whitefield, one of Europe’s foremost teachers and practitioners of temperate permaculture, it explains in depth how to apply permaculture to any situation, from the smallest of buildings or apartments, to houses, gardens, orchards, farms and woodlands.
“Just occasionally a book is published that fully justifies its title and can even change the reader’s perspective on life. This is one of those rare and inspiring landmark events. A visionary, yet practical book.”
The Garden – Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society
Book Details
Published: Originally published: 2004, revised edition 2011
ISBN: 978 1 85623 279 1
Size: 297mm x 210mm
Format: Hardback, 480pp. 206 b/w and 43 colour photographs; 145 line diagrams and numerous tables
Author
Patrick Whitefield (11th February 1949 – 27th February 2015) was an early pioneer of permaculture, adapting Bill Mollison’s teachings with a strong Southern Hemisphere bias to a cooler, maritime climate such as the British Isles. He wrote a number of seminal books, Permaculture in a Nutshell (1993), How to Make a Forest Garden (1996), a new edition of Tipi Living (2000), The Living Landscape (2009), How To Read the Landscape (2014) and his magnum opus, The Earth Care Manual (2004), an authoritative resource on practical, tested, cool temperate permaculture.
