Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening--With information on mushroom cultivation, sowing a ... ways to keep livestock, and more...
Sepp Holzer
Language: English
Pages: 279
ISBN: 2:00116047
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Sepp Holzer farms steep mountainsides in Austria 1,500 meters above sea level. His farm is an intricate network of terraces, raised beds, ponds, waterways and tracks, well covered with productive fruit trees and other vegetation, with the farmhouse neatly nestling amongst them. This is in dramatic contrast to his neighbors' spruce monocultures.
In this book, Holzer shares the skill and knowledge acquired over his lifetime. He covers every aspect of his farming methods, not just how to create a holistic system on the farm itself, but how to make a living from it. Holzer writes about everything from the overall concepts, down to the practical details.
In Sepp Holzer's Permaculture readers will learn:* How he sets up a permaculture system
* The fruit varieties he has found best for permaculture growing
* How to construct terraces, ponds, and waterways
* How to build shelters for animals and how to work with them on the land
* How to cultivate edible mushrooms in the garden and on the farm
* and much more!
Holzer offers a wealth of information for the gardener, smallholder or alternative farmer yet the book's greatest value is the attitudes it teaches. He reveals the thinking processes based on principles found in nature that create his productive systems. These can be applied anywhere.
will protect the soil from frost. The earth will not freeze as quickly, which means that the invertebrates and microorganisms in the upper layers of the soil will survive longer in the spring and autumn. The practice of cutting grasses back in the summer and autumn and removing them to make hay is a terrible mistake. We must discard the concept of order that so many people embrace today and recognise that `untidiness' is a part of nature. Once the soil is fertile enough, the crops can be
and raised beds below will steadily be supplied with water. Great care should be taken with ditches on heavy soils: the danger of landslides is at its greatest! It is best to start on a small scale and observe the system closely. The sides of the ditch should slope gently upward and it should be set well into the hill. As I have previously said about making terraces, it is important not to let the water form channels, otherwise it will cause a great deal of damage. The gentle sloping of the
stage, I consider the local conditions and the individual requirements of the people that will be managing it. Although the beds can vary considerably in their dimensions, all of them create the positive effects that I have already described. The beds vary in height, length, width and shape according to function, location, soil conditions and the preferences of those involved. Flat areas of land in particular offer a variety of interesting aspects to experiment with: the beds could be made in
by the wall on the east side of the Krameterhof. In these fast-paced times when so many people anxiously rush their way through life, more and more will discover gardening to be a relaxing balance to their working lives. For many people their own small garden is their only opportunity to come into direct contact with nature. Happily, medicinal and culinary herbs are also returning to the garden. The healing properties of many medicinal plants have been scientifically proven and are used in
well suited to this. Green manure plants (clover, lupins and mustard) are particularly good. In the mulch layer a constant process of decomposition takes place, through which the mulch is turned into high quality fertiliser. For the material to rot down oxygen is required and the soil also needs it to `breathe'. When mulching you should also make sure that the material is spread as loosely as possible. If the soil pores become saturated the soil life will suffer. A loosely spread layer of