The Minimalist Gardener: Low Impact, No Dig Growing

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There were plenty of other suggestions to try out as well including pink purslane, sea beet, and herb patience as well as more familiar perennial kales and broccoli. This book was written for the English climate, there’s some crossover for me but the varieties he recommended are not likely to be available in the states.

Patrick Holden from The Sustainable Food Trust wrote, "It is only towards the end of his life that the wider significance of permaculture ideas began to emerge . And I don’t think it really lives up to the title, there’s stuff about permaculture and raised beds and perennial vegetables but overall it’s the authors personal garden experience and specific way of doing things that he’s passing on. He wrote a number of seminal books, Permaculture in a Nutshell (1993), How to Make a Forest Garden (1996), a new edition of Tipi Living (2000), The Living Landscape (2009), How To Read the Landscape (2014) and his magnum opus, The Earth Care Manual (2004), an authoritative resource on practical, tested, cool temperate permaculture. Through observing, season after season, he found the middle road, the sweet spot between productivity and ease. Minimalist gardening appeals to all gardeners – every grower is excited by the prospect of increased yields and decreased effort – it’s a dream for anyone trying to combine food growing with a busy life or ageing body.Some of my favorite bits included the tips for small gardens, and the perennial vegetables and self-seeders. Let the plants grow how they will – without fertiliser they may not grow as tall but they will be stronger and more durable for it. the true significance of Whitefield s ideas was not adequately acknowledged during his lifetime, but his influence will survive him. Patrick Whitefield (1949 – 2015) was an early pioneer of permaculture, adapting Bill Mollison’s teachings with a strong Southern Hemisphere bias to the cooler, maritime climate of the British Isles. The Minimalist Gardener brings together a series of 17 articles written by renowned grower, permaculturist and teacher, the late Patrick Whitefield and originally published in Permaculture magazine over a period of more than twenty years.

Patrick has appeared in several BBC TV programmes, made popular YouTube videos and was a consulting editor of Permaculture magazine since its launch in 1992. Get yourself secateurs, a piece of hessian for collecting prunings and weeds, a spade and a fork, a hand trowel, some shears, a hoe and a scythe and a stone to sharpen it. Cut the branch, reduce the ivy by 50% and remove the Eleagnus and plant something better suited to that position. He qualified in agriculture at Shuttleworth College, Bedfordshire and after several years working in agriculture in the Middle East and Africa, he settled in central Somerset.

terraces are well-built, paths lead somewhere and sculpture has a sense of scale and grandeur that fits in with the rest of the garden.