The Edible Ecosystem Solution: Growing Biodiversity in Your Backyard and Beyond

Start a peaceful revolution by planting an edible ecosystem and sharing the experience with your neighbors

Humans have always thrived in rich, diverse, edible ecosystems. Yet most cities and suburbs are blanketed by lawns, ornamentals, and a lack of biodiversity, let alone anything edible. It is within these sterile landscapes that seeds of an edible ecosystem lie.

The Edible Ecosystem Solution is a comprehensive, practical guidebook that looks at underutilized spaces to reveal the many opportunities for landscape transformation that are both far-reaching and immediately beneficial and enjoyable. Contents include:

• Hundreds of full-color infographics, illustrations, and photographs that clearly outline the principles and concepts of edible landscape design and benefits
• How to get started with as little as 25 square feet of land
• How to transition a garden plot into a place of edible abundance and an edible biodiversity hot spot, living laboratory, and a source point for transitioning and transforming community and culture
• Choosing appropriate plants for insects, wildlife, and food production
• Scaling up and networking backyard edible ecosystems at the neighborhood level and beyond to build community food security and resilience.

The Edible Ecosystem Solution is for everyone with access to a bit of yard, a desire for food security, biodiversity, and a beautiful and resilient community, and for anyone who wants to reclaim humanity's place in a rich, abundant, edible ecosystem.

Zach Loeks is an educator, designer, and grower who specializes in Edible Ecosystem Design through landscaping and education. He is director of the Ecosystem Solution Institute, which is dedicated to the education, propagation, and inspiration of ecosystem solutions for land use transition. He consults widely with homes, farms, colleges, schools, and municipalities across Canada and United States, and through many biomes from Guatemala and South Africa to the Yukon and Mongolia. Zach manages an award-winning farm with diversified food forest products, and his innovations have won three provincial awards and are featured in his first book The Permaculture Market Garden. He lives in Cobden, Ontario.