I have to confess that my grand plan of slowly working through both Gaia's Garden and Introduction to Permaculture in tandem with Will Hooker's online permaculture course fell by the wayside.  My edition of Mollison's book didn't have the right page numbers, and it was more interesting than either of the other information sources, so I zipped ahead to finish Introduction to Permaculture before listening to more lectures or reading more of Gaia's Garden.

Which is all a long way of saying --- even though I didn't get into Mollison's book when I first tried it several years ago, I now consider Introduction to Permaculture to be the best way for those new to permaculture to get a sampling of dominant ideas in the field.  You'll be introduced to Salatin-style grazing, greywater management, no-till gardening, and much more, and will be inspired by line drawings that make you want to jump out there and put some of these ideas into action.  And while I'm usually dubious of books that contain no photos (is this all just philosophizing, or has the author actually tried it?), Mollison is clearly a doer who seasons his text with warnings about when each project is likely to succeed or fail.  90% of the time, I even agree with him, even though Mollison gardens in dry Australia and I garden in wet Appalachia.

Stay tuned for some of the highlights of Bill Mollison's book later in this week's lunchtime series, and consider dropping by our chicken blog later in the week where I'll be relating Mollison's tips for grazers.  Or, if you're just tuning in, you might be interested in this post from a few weeks ago about Mollison's approach to forest gardening.

This post is part of our Mollison's Introduction to Permaculture lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries: Mollison's Introduction to Permaculture Shade houses Changing house temperatures with plants Mollison on creating a new forest pasture Mollison on integrating poultry into the homestead

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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