We’re pretty chuffed to be celebrating a big milestone! There are 20,000+ copies of Milkwood – Real Skills for Down to Earth Living in the bookshelves, laps, ebook readers, kitchen tables, and garden benches of awesome people across the world.
It took us many years to gather and learn all this knowledge on our favourite subjects, before releasing the first Milkwood book out into the world almost exactly 3 years ago. And it was very much a group effort – so many mentors and friends helped along the way. Thank you, one and all!
In the book, there are histories, DIY projects, recipes, guides, and methods of all kinds, and most importantly the *motivation* to get going or to dive in deeper.
We’re so grateful to see our book pop up all over the place, giving folk real skills to grow amazing tomatoes and mushrooms, forage for wild food and seaweed, and to keep bees naturally. You folks are amazing.
It makes us so happy to see the fruits of your labours on plates, in baskets, jars, bottles, hives and tummies – it’s been an amazing journey so far.
Don’t have a copy? Here’s some free Milkwood book extracts to get you started…
So, as you may know, the book has five chapters, each focussing on a different topic – The Tomato, Mushroom Cultivation, Natural Beekeeping, Seaweed and Wild Food.
If you haven’t read Milkwood yet – we’ve published a bunch of free resources over past couple years, all based on extracts from the five different chapters of our book:
- ‘Valuing the Marginal’ with David Holmgren + a Free Foraging Guide
- The Tomato: history, growing tips + our best ever seed raising mix
- Making Wildwood Tea
- Growing Great Tomatoes: Planting ’em Out
- The Right to Roam: tips for first-time foragers
- Making: Wild Fermented Elderflower Soda
By the way, you can find copies of the book at all good libraries too.
And we’re now working on book number two!
In other news, there’s a second Milkwood book afoot – it’s currently in the writing and wrangling stage. Looking forward to sharing it with you all one day in the not-too-distant future.
Until then, writing, pickling, digging, doing. Hope you are well in this season, through all that’s being navigated, by us all.
A big Thank you to all the Insta-folk who have been using our hashtag, #MilkwoodBook. It’s awesome to see Milkwood books out in the wild! Check some of them out here:
Thanks, lastly, to all the beautiful and amazing independent bookstores who have supported us through this journey, we couldn’t have done this without you. If you’re after a copy or two of Milkwood, please support them! We also sell signed copies and post Australia-wide – over here.
We acknowledge that permaculture owes the roots of its theory and practice to traditional and Indigenous knowledges, from all over the world. We all stand on the shoulders of many ancestors – as we learn, and re-learn, these skills and concepts. We pay our deepest respects and give our heartfelt thanks to these knowledge-keepers, both past and present.
