About the Book
"This well-illustrated case study . . . will help students of permaculture, of sustainability, of earth regeneration and of integrated eco-social design." --Prof. Declan Kennedy, Chairman, Advisory Board, gaiauniversity.org To ensure food security and restore the health of the planet, we need to move beyond industrial agriculture and return to the practice of small-scale, local farming. The Bioshelter Market Garden: A Permaculture Farm describes the creation of a sustainable food system through a detailed case study of the successful year-round organic market garden and permaculture design at Pennsylvania's Three Sisters Farm.
At the heart of Three Sisters is its bioshelter--a solar greenhouse which integrates growing facilities, poultry housing, a potting room, storage, kitchen facilities, compost bins, a reference library and classroom area. The Bioshelter Market Garden examines how the bioshelter promotes greater biodiversity and is an energy efficient method of extending crop production through Pennsylvania's cold winter months. Both visionary and practical, this fully illustrated book contains a wealth of information on the application of permaculture principles. Some of the topics covered include:
Design and management of an intensive market garden farm
Energy systems and bio-thermal resources
Ecological soil management and pest control
Wetlands usage
Solar greenhouse design and management
Whatever your gardening experience and ambitions, this comprehensive manual is sure to inform and inspire. "Darrell Frey's inspirational book gives you all you need to know to create an energy-saving, food-producing bioshelter . . . [It] covers everything you need to understand, build, or simply admire these important tools for sustainability." --Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia's Garden
About the Author :
Darrell Frey is the owner and manager of Three Sisters Farm, a 5 acre permaculture farm, solar greenhouse and market garden located in Western Pennsylvania. Darrell writes extensively on permaculture design and ecological land use planning and has been a sustainable community development consultant and permaculture teacher for 25 years.
Review :
"Darrell Frey's inspirational book gives you all you need to know to create an energy-saving, food-producing bioshelter. It not only offers plenty of detail on the nuts and bolts of construction and maintenance, but it also provides the big picture: the concepts and principles behind these innovative structures. Bioshelter Market Garden covers everything you need to understand, build, or simply admire these important tools for sustainability."
--Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture
"Darrell Frey has mapped out the possibility of regeneration of individuality and of nature, of liberty, of community, of food security and of ethics such as the modern agricultural literature has never known -- a harmony with nature, with the earth, with one another in a sharing society such as the world has often dreamed."
--Prof. Declan Kennedy - Chairman, Advisory Board, www.gaiauniversity.org
"Darrell Frey's Bioshelter Market Garden is a welcome addition to the North American permaculture lexicon. Darrell has pondered and observed his systems -- large and small -- for a long time, and I'm glad he has shared his successes and lessons with us. The book is sensible, grounded, and practical, while offering a wide view of how to put the pieces together in a multifunctional way, on the ground, as a business, and as a way of life. The world needs more bioshelters, and this book contributes substantially to reinvigorating the development and deployment of this technology."
--Dave Jacke, Dynamics Ecological Design
"The increasingly complex ecological problems we face today will require increasingly complex solutions, leaving the average person to wonder where to even start. Darrell Frey's example, as exhibited in this book, is as simple as it is essential . . . one must start here and now, with what nature has provided. Frey is no dreamer, but a practitioner, who shows us how the world can and must be changed, one farmer, and one small plot of land at a time."
--Brian Snyder - Executive Director, Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA )
"It is no simple matter to create livelihood on a few acres and to preserve the biodiversity of that place. In Bioshelter Market Garden , author Darrell Frey shares the wisdom of his 20-plus years of doing so, and invites readers to work with the sun, the dragonflies, the muskrats, and the complexities of human enterprise to engage their own blessed swatch of land."
--Terril L. Shorb, Ph.D., Founder, Prescott College Sustainable Community Development Program
"Some of us learn by reading, some by asking questions, and some of us just forge ahead and take risks. Darrell Frey is in that last category, and the lessons he has gleaned the hard way over the past 30 years, are now available to anyone who wants to plan for an uncertain future. Frey shows, with well-illustrated case studies, how to grow a fourseason garden, turn sunlight and rainfall into sources of income, and live in the comfort of an architectural ecosystem that nourishes the planet as it shelters the family."
--Albert Bates, author of The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change .
"Darrell Frey is at once keen observer, adept teacher and consummate communicator, demonstrating to the reader in a style reminiscent of Aldo Leopold how we are all connected to the web of life and that our daily choices matter. Bioshelter Market Garden is equal parts inspired storytelling and how-to manual for living creatively and responsibly upon the earth. Through his own experience as a permaculture instructor and market gardener, Frey sets forth a detailed roadmap by which we might all reach a sustainable future and celebrate our interdependence."
--Dan Sullivan, managing editor BioCycle magazine and former senior editor with NewFarm.org and Organic Gardening magazine.
" Bioshelter Market Garden is a must read for home gardeners and farmers alike. Darrell Frey shares the secrets of creating a great year round growing system developed through a lifetime of farming. Best of all, he teaches readers simply how to grow things the right way, organically. The lavishly illustrated book is an essential tool for sustainable growing."
--Doug Oster, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Garden Columnist and Co-host The Organic Gardeners Radio Show
