books on polyculture?

[bibliophile birds]

i'm planting my very own garden for the first time in the spring. since i finally won't have anyone else looking over my shoulder (yay!) i want to experiment with some new (well, old really) techniques. i'm really interested in polyculture, especially intercropping and companion planting as they relate to organic gardens.

does anyone have any suggestions on good books to get my research started? my local library is pretty hopeless and it's hard to choose books on Amazon when you can't look at them first.

 

[digitS']

Welcome to TEG, Leah !

I had fun reading "How to grow more vegetables . . . than you ever thought possible!" by John Jeavons back in the Pleistocene. You may like it, too!

click for a google book review

I gotta say that I no longer agree with Ehrenfreid Pfeiffer and his ideas on companion planting. If I ever DID believe them . . . probably didn't have any idea what Jeavons was talking about then.

Mostly, I think that some plants can "tolerate" each other growing close by and they don't make life too difficult for each other. That is about the best that we can hope for.

"Luv" and all that other stuff !

However, having a real mix of plants at different stages of development and with different requirements is a great idea. And, I have no doubt that it confuses the heck out of pests that seek to harm them .

Steve

edited to say: Oh! I see now that you may want "new" ideas on "olde" subjects. Well, I'm not sure if I've had a new idea this century . . .

 

[bibliophile birds]

Oh! I see now that you may want "new" ideas on "olde" subjects. Well, I'm not sure if I've had a new idea this century . . .

i really just meant "new to me" techniques. i've been gardening under the watch of my grandfather and dad for years, but they have very specific ways of doing things and i just want to try something different! it's all very experimental since my garden doesn't have to support me. it would be great if it did, but i can always "borrow" veggies from the farm garden!

thanks for the suggestions. i've been scouring Amazon, but i have the hardest time picking books i can't look at.

 

[patandchickens]

If you want ideas, whatcha want is to find Bill Mollison's older books on permaculture (I believe they are Introduction to Permaculture, and Permaculture: Principles for Design, but I don't swear to it). Now THERE's a whole big fruitbowl of ideas on polyculture for ya! Big time (Most - tho not quite all - of the recently-published permaculture books I've seen have shed most of the out-there innovation and in many cases dumbed the whole concept down quite shockingly, often not in the most useful ways if you ask me. I have not read any of Mr Mollison's more recent books, like published since 1990 or so, so cannot comment on those one way or the other).

(You do have to have a high threshold for putting up with him inventing woo-woo names for everything, and he apparently thinks in the sort of rigorous outline form your fourth grade teacher would have approved of, and he is big on swirly shapes and mandalas and so forth. Grit your teeth and read on, there's actually good stuff hiding in there)

I would suggest trying to find out what books your library could get for you via Interlibrary Loan that have 'permaculture' in their title, that would be the cheapest (free) way of testing the waters.

So that is one possible avenue to explore.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[bibliophile birds]

thanks Pat! i'm looking those up right now. i'm sure i can battle through the swirly shapes if there's good info!

my library's "interlibrary loan" only allows me to get books from other local county libraries (read: rural and not so great) and i've got to pay to have them mailed to the library and back. i've found 8 books in their system so far that i'm going to take a look at. you would think, living in the sticks with farms all around, that there would be more ag books available, but there aren't.