Calamity Jane

Oh. My. Goodness. The Perma-Curious study group idea is AMAZING. I have goosebumps just thinking about it. I just made it today's "Daily Bite" at the top of the homepage and tweeted about it (I'm Cornelia's helper, Jennifer, by the way!), and I'm sure Cornelia and I both will be looking for more ways to spread the word. But holy flora. THIS IS RAD. And GENIUS.

Calamity Jane- Where is the introduction section for 'permacurious' on Homegrown?

I can't seem to find it!

Mollison book does get a bit technical but it is the best book on permaculture bar none. Some teachers have gone to using Rosemary Morrow's book Earth Users Guide to Permaculture. Its an okay book but just seems somewhat abridged to me. I did talk about this topic with 2 other teachers a week ago and both of them like the Mollison text for teaching better than any other. Problem is that  the book keeps selling out and Tagari Press the publisher has trouble keeping up with demand.

   I haven't read Whitefield's book yet but reviewers do like it. It's one shortcoming though is that it does not cover invisible structures or the human social constructs. Mollison does cover those in the final chapter of the Designer's Manual but then only briefly.

   A good intro to Permaculture is Ross Mars' book The Basics of Permaculture Design. Toby Hemenways' book Gaia's Garden covers much of the design process from a suburban context and is a good source of plant guild information as is Dave Jacke's 2 volume Edible Forest Gardening. A new book I had some hope for as a North American permaculture teaching text is The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country by Peter Bane but it falls short and does not offer much new in ideas.

   Is it  the General Core Model that the Manual explains that seems the most difficult? Picture the Earth and its wind patterns specifically the Coriolus Force or winds that circle the planet in opposite directions based on where one is standing , in the the Northern Hemisphere or in the Southern. That is probably the simplest example of atmospheric patterning. The rest of it just the use of geometry to define what is observable in nature. A slow reading of the chapter on patterning is the best way through it. At first read its like trying to read Dr Zhivago. After a couple times over it one begins to get to the heart of the chapter.

    Its important to realize that Mollison never intended that graduates of design courses would have full understanding of Permaculture after just 2 weeks at it. Follow up classes and study groups are offered and advance courses get to the deeper stuff from the book. But what Mollison did do is to write the definitive text on Permaculture that can be used by all students beginner or advanced. Another way to handle difficult spots in the pattern portions are to go to a few other sources too. Here is a series of short videos on patterning.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahXIMUkSXXo  My students found that it helped a little with pattern understanding.

   Another issue with Mollison's Manual is that he is an Australian and wrote the book that way. Words like chook and yabbie are in there as well as tree species like tagaste that most Americans have never heard of. After a while everybody just subs chickens for chooks and fish for yabbies and locust as asub for tagaste.

Sorry to hear that, but thats ok, ones you start over again led me know.Guess I just start reading myself.Have a great time.

Thanks Calamity!  I'll follow along with the comments and pick up the book when I get a chance. 

Wow, thank you so much for the quick response. I'm new to this and learning the site. I've been on here for like 2 days and have already learned a lot! I get about 2 hours a nite for reading so I will definitely be reading up on it. Thanks again!