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Book Reviews
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West Coast Food Forestry: A Permaculture Guide
by Rain Tenaqiya
(City Lights, 2004)
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West Coast permaculturist and food forest expert Rain Tenaqiya has created a guide to bioregional food forest concepts, design and maintenance that is a definitive, advanced textbook and practical reference on the subject. This will be a "must-have" for permaculturists seeking real-world and real-time guidance in maximizing yield in limited space, based on mimicking systems and patterns in nature. Available on CD-ROM, the 136 pages of West Coast Food Forestry are abundantly illustrated with hundreds of color photos of plants and food forests from the Canadian border to central California.
In her introduction, Rain wisely sends readers to Patrick Whitefield’s seminal How to Make a Forest Garden (1996, Permanent Publications) and Toby Hemenway’s highly accessible, info-packed Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture (2001, Chelsea Green Publishing Company) as prerequisites to get the most out of her work. She then proceeds to focus on practical aspects and examples that experienced permaculturists can use in design, installation and upkeep of food forests.
West Coast Food Forestry is organized into two sections, with several useful appendices. The first section begins by outlining characteristics of the West Coast that influence and affect plants and their growth, including climate, geography, fire ecology, pests and other factors. It concludes with a dazzlingly succinct tour of nine established food forests on the West Coast, from the Bullock Brothers’ legendary larger-scale site on Orcas Island in Washington to Jude Hobbs’ one-third acre in Eugene, Oregon, to Terry’s 30-year-old, 1,800 square-foot phenomenon in Santa Cruz, California.Not only do these virtual tours provide a thicket of useful information and insight, they will inspire readers to want to visit the sites Rain describes--the indispensable first-hand observation at the root of good permaculture design.
Section Two is a mini photo encyclopedia of 239 plants suitable for West Coast food forestry. This section is extremely useful not only as a guide to appropriate species but as a mini plant identification tool for those with limited experience in botany and taxonomy. The list is categorized into seven layers of a traditional permaculture food forest: tall trees, short trees, vines, shrubs, herbaceous plants, groundcover and roots. Current developing practice is to include an eighth, a fungus layer, in the design concept. It would have been interesting and helpful if Rain had included more information about the roles fungi can play in providing food, creating microclimate and releasing soil nutrients in food forestry, rather than the passing mentions to fungi that are offered.
West Coast Food Forestry also includes charts that list fruit and nut harvest seasons so that it is possible to design and create a food forest that will yield food year round. A table of plant characteristics, their preferences and needs for growth; a West Coast Permaculture Resources Guide including guilds, courses and websites; and plant information and materials sources and nurseries round out the book. Appended is a short introduction to permaculture, its ethics and principles.
Although the book addresses the West Coast, missing entirely from its focus is Southern California, the Coast’s most populous area and, some would argue, the one most in need of more permaculture. The author specifically states that she is focusing on food forests that have been in place at least four years. I assume that absence of sites south of Fresno (the southern-most point on the book’s map) means that there are none, but it would have been helpful to find information applicable to the Southland for those wishing to try their hands and soils at food forestry. I look forward to the success of West Coast Food Forestry and its applications by the rapidly growing number of Southern California permaculturists, so that future editions will include the area.
This is an important, useful and indispensable resource for permaculturists on the West Coast written by an accomplished author with depth of understanding, breadth of experience and generosity of mind and spirit.
The book is available on CD-ROM for $13.50, postage paid, and can be ordered by contacting the author at:
Rain Tenaqiya
1114A W. Perkins St.
Ukiah, CA 95482
707-463-1307
raincascadia@yahoo.com
Scott Horton is a permaculture designer and teacher who recently moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to the mountains of Southern California. He has taught permaculture and natural building through the Permaculture Institute of Northern California, Portland Community Colleges, in annual gigs at The Farm in Tennessee and other venues.
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