Presentation

The presentation can be viewed on http://www.rehash.nl/ by clicking on HAR'2009 and searching for Hacking with Plants. The presentation has an online page at https://har2009.org/program/events/79.en.html where the slides are also available.

Introductions

Following are a few nice introductions to Permaculture. They are targeted at general audience; hackers may like to skip ahead to the reference works below.

• A Farm For The Future, Rebecca Hoskin, BBC documentary. A beatiful and impressive introduction to farming problems, and Permaculture as a potential solution.

• Permaculture in a Nutshell by Patrick Whitefield, ISBN 978-1856-2300-32, is an excellent short read introduction. I tend to borrow it to people that want to quickly get an idea of Permaculture.
• Permacultuur Nederland offers freely downloadable Dutch courses into Permaculture, a plant/fungi database, and more.

• The course handouts by GroenGemak are in Dutch, but the references include many English-language reference works.

Reference works

Most of these can be found in the Permaculture reading list in BibTeX format.

About Permaculture in general

• The Earth Care Manual by Patrick Whitefield is a reference work for the English climate and similar ones. It is a very detailed assessment of the ideas behind Permaculture. ISBN 978-1856-230216.
• How To Make A Forest Garden by Patrick Whitefield is a good howto-styled book on setting up a garden with various layers of edible goodies, by turning it into an engineered forest, no matter how small. ISBN 978-1856-230087.

Useful plants' "datasheets"

• Plants For A Future is a vegan-friendly database full of edible and medicinal uses of plants. It also hosts interesting leaflets about various topics. There is a book form as well: Plants For A Future: Edible & Useful plants for a healthier world, Ken Fern, ISBN 978-1856-230117.

• ECHO is a Christian organisation that hosts an array of information for developmental work, including many plants that grow well in (sub)tropical environments. In more northern hemispheres, these may prove to be welcome additions for in-house planting.

• Food For Free, Richard Maybe, ISBN 978-0007-247684. A famous book about what food can be harvested for free (as in: free beer) in the (British) wild.
• Perennial Vegetables, Eric Toensmeier, ISBN 978-1931-498401. About plants for (sub)tropical climates that contain food, sometimes much to our surprise.

Uses of mycology and bacteriology

• Visit http://www.fungi.com/ and read a book that is surprisingly accurately called Mycelium running: How mushrooms can help to save the world, Paul Stamets, ISBN 978-1580-085793.
• Wild Fermentation: The flavor, nutrition and craft of live-culture foods, Sandor Ellix Katz, ISBN 978-1931-498234. An enthousiastic book full of recipes and principles behind them, all using micro-organisms to transfer food from one form to another.

Making animals thrive while serving us

• Have a look at the site of Polyface Farms where you can find what Joel Salatin is up to, including many of his books.

Nature as a source of inspiration

• Biomimicry: Innovation inspired by nature, Janine M. Benyus, ISBN 978-0060-533229. Also watch her excellent contributions on TED. She's inspiring.

• The Gecko's foot, Peter Forbes, ISBN 978-0393-0622-36. Another book full of inspiring examples taken from nature and on their way into technology.

Technology without waste

• Cradle to cradle: Remking the way we make things, William McDonough and Micheal Braungart, ISBN 978-0865-475878.