£19.95 – free UK postage ISBN: 978 1 85623 299 9
After many years of being asked when I was going to write a book on forest gardening – here it is!
This book condenses all my experience of how to do forest gardening in a cool climate or small garden into one volume, with 180 pages of plant profiles and chapters on
– Understanding forest gardens
– Designing a forest garden
– Implementing a forest garden
– Maintaining a forest garden
– Cooking and eating from forest gardens
Topics include how to source and propagate forest garden plants, a practical guide to rolling out and adapting a plan in various situations, how to get the most from plants through pruning, how to design to avoid weed problems in the future, how to make sure that your food forest stays accessible at all times of year and, most important of all, methods of cooking the produce. I explain forest gardening principles such as ‘the more you pick, the more you get’, the Panda Principle and how the forest gardening year works.
In the UK you can buy it through this website. In other countries it is also available from Permanent Publications and online booksellers. In the US the publisher is Chelsea Green.
It’s great to see a forest gardening book written with Scottish conditions in mind. This is one of the best recent books I’ve read aimed at smaller-scale forest gardens too, and is especially good with its coverage of the many herbaceous crops it is possible to grow.
Martin Crawford
Alan walks us through the theory and reality of creating a food forest, whatever the size of our plot. As the processes and delights of creating a home garden unfold, we are guided by useful observations and practical information. The directory of forest garden plants is an eye-opener and has me rethinking so many plants I’ve dismissed in the past. I wish I’d read this book before creating our first food forest!
Liz Zorab, Byther Farm
This is the book we in the North have been waiting for, as Alan Carter has a realistic understanding of the climate. He comes up with a remarkable range of edible plants that will ‘do’ and all the techniques needed to get them established, making a British forest garden seem wholly desirable and possible.
Fi Martynoga, editor of Scotland’s Wild Harvests
Neatly contained in Alan’s timely book is the knowledge to achieve greater productivity from your plot for many aspiring gardeners. You will view ‘untidy’ and ‘weedy’ gardens very differently after studying it, and see the role of tree fruit in a more important light. I thoroughly recommend it!
Andrew Lear, Appletreeman Nusery
It’s great to see a forest gardening book written with Scottish conditions in mind. This is one of the best recent books I’ve read aimed at smaller-scale forest gardens too, and is especially good with its coverage of the many herbaceous crops it is possible to grow.
Martin Crawford
This is one of the more positive things to come out of Covid! Alan’s written a fantastic comprehensive book I would have loved to have had time to write myself, covering a multitude of edible plants suited to all the diverse habitats that can make up a forest garden and with particularly relevance to colder climates. I genuinely enjoyed this book and learned much new from it, not really a surprise as I’ve enjoyed his blog with the curious name “Of Plums and Pignuts” and sought him out when I was passing Aberdeen. Importantly, the book provides the inspiration to growing more climate friendly food in what are often called “marginal areas”. I look forward to making pernicious pasta every year! Thanks Alan.
Stephen Barstow