Here are some of my favorite books, tools, supplies, and more for growing a permaculture garden that is as resilient as a natural ecosystem.
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Permaculture Gardening
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture
Highly recommended for beginners and professionals who want to learn how to create an edible backyard ecosystem. Build a productive garden with biodiversity in mind.
The Suburban Micro-Farm: Modern Solutions for Busy People
All about growing a stress-free garden using permaculture techniques. Learn how to deal with challenges such as small space, sloping land, poor soil, and shade.
Edible Forest Gardens - Volume 2
Learn how to design, establish, and maintain your own permaculture forest garden through case studies and lists of the best edible and useful plant species.
Farming the Woods
An integrated permaculture approach to growing food and medicinals in temperate forests.
Russian Comfrey Root Cuttings
Your #1 multipurpose permaculture plant for biomass production, attracting beneficial insects, and more. Grow this sterile-seed variety to prevent spreading.
Practical Permaculture: for Home Landscapes, Your Community, and the Whole Earth
Explains the basics of permaculture and its various systems, and includes the fifty most useful plants for permaculture landscapes.
Improving Soil Quality
Daikon Radish Cover Crop Seed
An edible cover crop for compacted or nutrient deficient soil and the no till garden. Creates lots of biomass and attracts worms. Leave these in the ground to decompose.
Heavy-Duty Digging Fork
Important tool for loosening and aerating soil in the no till garden without destroying structure and soil life. Don't skip this annual step in repairing compacted soil.
Organic Fish & Seaweed Fertilizer
Adds vigor to the garden by providing nutrients and activating beneficial microbes. Bang for your buck: Spray on top of other soil amendments to activate them.
Worm Castings Organic Fertilizer
Richest known natural fertilizer that attracts beneficial organisms and neutralizes pH. I make my own but always need more! Trustworthy source, OMRI listed.
White Clover Perennial Seed
Sow under fruit trees, in forest gardens, and in garden paths. Fertilizer, living mulch, and pollinator attractor all in one. Pre-inoculated with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
Tilth Soil - No Junk!
Living soil, made from food scraps, with beneficial microbiology and fungi WITHOUT junk like heavy metals or other contaminants. Approved for organic agriculture. Ships anywhere in continental U.S.
Growing Fruits
Dwarf Everbearing Black Mulberry Tree
Grow food for yourself and the songbirds! These delicious tree fruits are a decoy crop that lure birds from favored harvests. Prolific producer, plant in the fall to help tree get established and you'll have fruit for years.
Consort Black Currant
A perfect addition to any edible landscape, currant bushes grow naturally in dappled shade. The tart berries are high in vitamin C and antioxidants.
Cumberland Black Raspberry
An easy-to-grow perennial, with lots of dark, juicy berries. Black raspberries also "stay put".
Montmorency Cherry Tree
Tart cherries are excellent for fresh eating, and the trees also make a beautiful privacy screen!
The Holistic Orchard
Leans toward permaculture techniques for growing fruits and berries which reduce pests while increasing vigor naturally. Includes tips for selecting varieties, pruning, grafting, soil fertility, planting care, and more.
Landscaping with Fruit
Great edible landscape design ideas. I love the 'Luscious Landscape Index', which rates fruit crops based on flavor, time investment, maintenance, difficulty, etc.
Growing & Using Herbs
Chesnok Red Garlic
No garden - or kitchen - is complete without garlic. Great tasting and easy to grow hardneck variety, produces 8-10 cloves per head. Plant in fall for early summer harvest.
Introductory Herbal Course
Start your herbalism journey at home with this self-paced course from Herbal Academy. Over 34 lessons, you will feel comfortable and excited about selecting herbs and making wellness-promoting preparations.
Herbal Tea Seed Collection
Make your own cup of homegrown tea with this 8-packet set of herbs by Botanical Interests. You'll get both beautiful flowers and health-promoting libations all in one.
Sweet Alyssum Flower Seeds
Super attractor for beneficial insects! Excellent living mulch and for planting among crops in the vegetable garden. Showy and fragrant flowers for edible landscape borders.
Chef's Herb Garden Collection
This set from Botanical Interests includes 9 herbs that every chef should be growing in their garden!
Calendula 'Pacific Beauty' Seed Mix
Calendula is an edible flower with many medicinal uses. Essential in my vegetable garden for trapping pests and attracting pollinators and beneficial insects.
Growing Vegetables
Heirloom Organic Seed Bank Collection
This 24-packet set by Botanical Interests is the survival stash of seeds to have on hand for food security. These tried-and-true heirloom varieties have been around for 50 years or longer.
Hori Hori Knife
Makes digging, weeding, and planting a cinch. Mine is over 10 years old and looks like new. Go ahead and get this good quality garden knife that lasts forever. Or check out my Amazon Shop for my left-hander's knife.
Biochar Blend
All-in-one amendment by Organic Mechanics includes biochar, worm castings, compost, and more. Improves and nurtures soil biology. A one-time application for the life of a garden is all that's needed!
Grow Bags
Especially suitable for urban and small-space gardening, growing vegetables in grow bags optimizes space and soil conditions. I love growing potatoes in these 15 gallon ones!
Yukon Gold Seed Potatoes
These potatoes are always my top pick for growing in my garden or in grow bags. I'm a fan of their creamy texture, beautiful golden color, and consistent yields
Container Vegetable Collection
This 10-packet set of seeds by Botanical Interests includes a yummy variety of vegetables that are easy to grow in containers and small areas.
Seed Starting
Wire Shelving Unit
This unit can hold 10 standard (22″) nursery trays, double what other 6-tier shelving units can hold. Just be sure to compare the height of your ceiling to the dimensions of the shelving unit before purchasing.
LED Grow LIght
Mimics sunlight and is extremely energy efficient and long-lasting. The dimensions of this light fixture are only 11.8″D x 11″W, but the light coverage spans 24″ x 24″ (2′ x 2′).
Seed Starting Mix
This coconut coir seed starting mix is both OMRI listed and certified organic. It's also compact and easy to store!
Heat Mat with Thermostat
The ideal soil temperature for starting seeds indoors is 68-86° F, which is usually attainable with ambient heat in a house along with a supplemental heat mat. The accompanying thermostat can ensure you keep your seedlings within a healthy temperature range for germination.
Seed Starter Cell Packs
Sturdy cell packs that can be used year after year, with proper cleaning and disinfecting.
Growing Trays Without Holes
Use as drip trays for seedling cell packs, and provides easy way to move seedlings when needed.
Gardening Gifts
Edible Flowers Seed Collection
This 8-packet set of beautiful, edible, flower seeds by Botanical Interests will bring colorful cheer to your garden or edible landscape. And the culinary possibilities are endless!
Edible Landscaping: Now You Can Have Your Gorgeous Garden and Eat It Too!
Create gorgeous and delicious landscapes with planting suggestions, combinations, and design ideas from the vanguard of the edible landscaping movement.
Farm-Grown Comfrey, Arnica & Calendula Salve
Perfect for hard-working gardeners' hands. This soothing, healing herbal salve by Catskills Comfrey is made on the farm from freshly harvested comfrey, arnica, and calendula.
Herb Drying Rack
Dry all your culinary and medicinal herbs in this 5-foot-tall drying rack with breathable mesh that ensures good airflow while keeping bugs out. Colored zippers for easy access. Hanging clip, pruners, and storage case included.
Worm Factory Indoor Composter
I've had this model for years! Compost kitchen scraps indoors and harvest worm castings for the garden simply. Includes a variety of accessories to save money in the long run.
Maximilian Sunflower Seeds
Provides food and habitat for birds, pollinators, and other beneficial insects. Cheerful, North American native perennial is deer resistant and excellent for erosion control.
More Resources
Gift Guide for Permaculture Gardeners
Looking for even more gift ideas? Check out my gift guide for permaculture gardeners. 💚🎁
Tenth Acre Farm Amazon Shop
Visit my Amazon Shop for bargains and more books, tools, and supplies that I love.
gather + root Foraging Course
Learn to forage without fear with this self-paced course from Grow Forage Cook Ferment. Meant for beginner to intermediate foragers, all the foraging basics and more are covered!
