It’s the time of year when things start slowing down outside. The weather is cooler, and most of our outdoor work for the season is behind us. It’s the time of year when I like to get cozy inside and cuddle up with a cup of tea or hot chocolate and a good book. I read my fair share of fiction, but permaculture books also top my list. And winter is the perfect time to read up on permaculture theory, tools, and methods, and get design ideas for next year’s projects. So this post is about the best permaculture books (in my opinion), and where to get them.
Since I live in the US, my list contains some books specific to the States (for example, Perennial Vegetables by Eric Toensmeier), and others specific to my ecological biome of cold temperate. However, most are applicable worldwide and in any climate.
This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I may earn a commission if you make a purchase (at no extra cost to you). I prioritize ethical and independent sources, but when alternatives aren’t available, I may link to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. See my full disclaimer HERE.
Where to Get These Permaculture Books
My first recommendation is to check your local library. I’ve had little luck finding permaculture books at the libraries I frequent, but I’m sure some libraries have some. Better yet, submit requests to your local library to get these books, and spread the word about permaculture.
Many of the books on this list are available wherever books are sold, but a few of them are scarce. I recommend ordering through Bookshop.org or directly through the publisher. Sometimes the prices vary widely between sources, so it’s worth checking out multiple options.
Bookshop.org
I’ve included my bookshop.org affiliate links to the available titles. (just click on the book cover images). By buying through bookshop.org, you’re supporting independent bookstores and this website.
Amazon.com
If you prefer to order through Amazon, please consider clicking through my Amazon Associates link on your way there. There’s no additional cost to you and it supports this website.
Direct From the Publishers
Some books on the list below are out of print or only widely distributed in Australia, making them harder to find or very expensive in the US and other countries. If the book you’re looking for is wildly expensive on Amazon, and not found at other booksellers, then look into ordering directly from the publisher.
Tagari & Melliodora
All of Mollison’s books that are still in print are available from Tagari Publications, and its US branch, Tagari-USA.
You can order Holmgren’s books (Published by Melliodora Publishing in Australia) from the Permaculture Principles Australian or United States Book Stores.
I’m not affiliated with either branch of Tagari Publications, Melliodora, or the Permaculture Principles Book Stores.
Chelsea Green Publishing
Additionally, many of the books on my list are published by Chelsea Green Publishing in the US and the UK and are available directly from their websites. As with Bookshop.org and Amazon, I am an affiliate of Chelsea Green Publishing (in the US only), so I might receive a small commission when you order through my affiliate link to the US store above.
Whew! Now that we’re done with all of that transparency and (hopefully) helpful information, let’s finally get on to the book list.
My 8 Best Permaculture Books
I’ve divided this list into three sections: the best permaculture books for beginners, the best permaculture gardening books, and the best permaculture books for hardcore permaculturalists. There is some overlap in these categories, but I’ve divided them up in the way that makes the most sense to me.
These are my personal favorites. If I haven’t listed your favorite, let me know about it in the comments. Maybe It’s one I haven’t read yet.
Oh, and a quick head’s up, at the end of my favorites list I include three bonus books I think deserve spots on this list, but I haven’t read them myself just yet. (Too many books, too little time!)
The Best Permaculture Books for Beginners
Permaculture can be overwhelming, so starting with a couple of good introductory texts to familiarize yourself with the concepts before diving into the more advanced texts is a good idea. Information overload can happen quickly, and it can also prevent you from moving from learning permaculture to doing permaculture. So start simple with one or two texts, then start practicing. You’ll learn more from your own experiences than from reading every book on this list from cover to cover.
Without further ado, here are my top beginner permaculture books.
1. Introduction to Permaculture, Bill Mollison with Reny Mia Slay
What better starting point than an introductory permaculture text written by Mollison himself?
Introduction to Permaculture came on the heels of A Designer’s Manual (listed below). Mollison wrote it as a simpler introduction to permaculture, intended for beginners and those wanting a more accessible explanation of the permaculture concepts.
From the back cover:
“What we frequently observe in the western world is a delinquent landscape — the suburban plots under lawns and cosmetic flowers, and areas of urban blight around cities, more land cleared at the edge of the wilderness, and a desperate misuse of land in between. This system is not sustainable. At this moment, it seems clear that planning for highly-intensive, biologically-based food production at the doorstep is the only way out of future crises.”
Bill Mollison, 1991
2. Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture, Second Edition, by Rosemary Morrow
Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture is a well-laid-out practical guide to permaculture, with detailed how-to processes and many simple illustrations to help convey the ideas explained in the text. Don’t confuse this book with its sister, Earth User’s Guide to Teaching Permaculture, which is also a great book, but is meant for those wanting to teach permaculture rather than beginning students.
From the back cover:
“Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture is a manual of practical permaculture, a step-by-step guide on how to assess and then design a permaculture garden of any size, whether it’s a small inner-city balcony, a garden in the suburbs, or a large rural property.”
Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture, Second Edition
3. Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition, by Toby Hemenway
If I had to pick a favorite beginner-friendly permaculture book, Gaia’s Garden would be it. In it, Hemenway focuses more on plants and the permaculture garden than other aspects of permaculture, which is ideal for beginners. His later book, The Permaculture City is a great follow-up, looking at permaculture from a city-wide perspective.
Hemenway expresses the whys and hows of creating ecologic gardens in a broad yet practically applicable way. This book is firmly on the side of permaculture gardening, leaving much of the theory and wider application of permaculture principles to other texts, but it’s such a good gateway book into the world of permaculture, that I included it in the beginner’s section. It is inspirational and a joy to read each time I crack open the pages.
The Best Permaculture Garden Books
These books are also good references for beginners, but they are more focused on the narrow aspect of permaculture gardening than an overall introduction to permaculture.
4. Edible Paradise: How to Grow Herbs, Flowers, Vegetables and Fruit in Any Space, by Vera Greutink
Edible Paradise is my new go-to book for no-dig annual, polyculture gardening. It is focused on container and kitchen gardening in temperate climates It has a wonderful monthly guide showing polyculture gardens at different phases of life depending on the season.
From the back cover:
“Vera’s 15 years of experience as an organic no dig gardener demonstrates that gardens can be beautiful and productive. She provides a vast amount of accessible information with gorgeous photographs to show you how to grow vegetables, herbs, and flowers all year . . . The many examples of polyculture gardens will help you create edible paradises everywhere, large or small, on patios, balconies, windowsills, allotments, community and school gardens, front and back gardens and anywhere else you can grow.”
Edible Paradise: How to Grow Herbs, Flowers, Vegetables and Fruit in Any Space
5. Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, a Gardener’s Guide to Over 100 Delicious and Easy to Grow Edibles, by Eric Toensmeier
This book is exactly what the title says, a “guide to over 100 delicious, easy-to-grow edibles.” It focuses on perennials that will grow in the United States and Canada, and as such is most useful for those living in these countries. He provides hardiness maps for each entry which make it easy to know at a glance if the plant in question is likely to grow in your region.
This book will be most useful to people living in the US because of its organization around US hardiness zones. If you live in a different country, I encourage you to search for edible plant guides for your region. That said, this book may still prove useful to you, particularly if you are in an analogous climate to those represented across North America.
Most of the plants in this guide are unusual or uncommon, and therefore somewhat difficult to source, at least in North America. However, part of the aim of his book is to put these vegetables in higher demand, to hopefully increase their availability in the future. Toensmeier does include a list of plant and seed sources in the back of the book to aid in sourcing them.
The Best Permaculture Books for Hardcore Permaculturalists
Here are the books that might be a little more challenging, and perhaps less accessible to a wide audience, however, they provide deeper discussions, and precious resources to reference time and again.
6. Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability (Revised Edition), by David Holmgren
Permaculture Principles and Pathways is the ultimate reference book for the Ethics and Principles of Permaculture. It has an academic feel to it and does require more careful reading and study to grasp than some of the more introductory and garden-centric texts. It is, however, a staple for the hardcore permaculturalist’s library.
From the back cover:
“. . .David Holmgren brings into sharper focus the powerful and still evolving Permaculture concept he pioneered with Bill Mollison in the 1970s. He draws together and integrates 25 years of thinking, exploring and teaching to reveal new ways of understanding and acting guided by a focussed and concise set of twelve interlocking design principles. . .”
Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability (Revised Edition)
7. RetroSuburbia: The Downshifter’s Guide to a Resilient Future, by David Holmgren
Retrosuburbia is a comprehensive permaculture text, written by the co-originator of permaculture, David Holmgren. Published in 2018, it applies permaculture concepts to our modern, changing world and everyday lives. Holmgren places a lot of emphasis on the concept of energy descent (the time after peak oil) and how our cities and suburbs will have to change in response to limited resources.
It’s an enlightening and inspiring read and manages to maintain positivity and hope, even while discussing the frightening reality of how climate change and energy descent will impact our future. Retrosuburbia lays out lifestyle changes and mindset shifts to lead us better equipped into our uncertain future.
8. Edible Forest Gardens Volume II
Edible Forest Garens Vol. II is a gold mine of plant tables, providing extensive data on growing conditions, ecosystem functions, and human uses of plants suitable for growing in food forests. It’s a bit dense for the casual reader, but provides an excellent resource for the practicing permaculture designer.
Edible Forest Gardens is a two-volume set, but volume II is the one that made it onto this list. Volume I also contains valuable information, and in my opinion, is worth having. But, If you’re only going to buy one, get volume II. If you’re interested in food forest design, it will serve you well.
Bonus Books
These are permaculture books I don’t yet own and haven’t read but probably deserve a spot amongst the best permaculture books.
Bonus Book 1. Permaculture One, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren
I can’t write a list of the best permaculture books without including the founding text that kickstarted the permaculture movement.
Permaculture One was the first book written on Permaculture, and the only book co-authored by its co-originators, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. First published in 1978, marking the beginning of the permaculture movement, Permaculture One is of great historical interest to permies, but its information is still relevant and useful today.
Because this book is out of print, it’s quite expensive to get your hands on. If you’re looking for a more affordable option, consider the ebook (PDF) edition available from permacultureprinciples.com: Permaculture One ebook (PDF) edition.
Bonus Book 2. Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, Bill Mollison
Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual is the curriculum for the 72-hour Permaculture Design Certificate Course. It’s geared toward teachers, students, and designers, but might be overkill for beginners. Although I’ve taken the 72-hour Permaculture Design Certificate Course, I don’t have a copy of this volume.
Bonus Book 3. Sepp Holzer’s Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening
In his book, Permaculture, Holzer shares his extensive knowledge and practical experience in small-scale, integrative farming and gardening. He provides insights into how to create and maintain highly productive and ecologically harmonious systems. Holzer’s approach involves working with nature, rather than against it, to create self-sustaining and resilient ecosystems.
Sepp Holzer developed his own variety of permaculture through his observations of nature and experimentation on his family farm in the Austrian Alps, which he transformed from a low-value monoculture tree farm, into a highly diverse, self-sustaining landscape with multiple lakes, terraces, and dense growth of high-value crops.
In the book, Holzer teaches his techniques and, more importantly, his way of thinking that allowed such striking transformations at his farm as well as in other locations including Spain, Portugal, and Montana, USA.
Only later, after requests from the permaculture community, did Sepp learn the word permaculture and agree to label his ideas as such, a decision he regretted at times due to the differences he saw between permaculture and his own work. While he saw permaculture as relying heavily on theory, his work was based on experimentation and observation.
Conclusion
This concludes my top eight favorite permaculture books, plus three more to consider that I included due to their importance in the permaculture community and history.
I plan to update this post regularly as I find and read more great permaculture books. Can you help me? List your favorite permaculture books and why you love them in the comments!
Bye for now, and happy reading!
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