Beginners guide to forest garden in Bulgarian?

[junee...@gmail.com]

     If anyone knows of a short, well-written printed guide to the forest garden concept, in Bulgarian,
please let me know. One with lots of pictures and diagrams would be best as my interested friends
have limited literacy levels. A 'coffee table' book would be ideal.

[Julia Rose]

Hi Juneelder,

I have been studying forestry and landscape architecture several years ago
I don't want to disappoint you but there is no book for forest gardens at all.
But there are some guides for the trees in Bulgaria and as far as I
remember my teacher was preparing one with pictures. These guides
usually have information how to recognize the tree, and have
specifications like type of soil, type of air, more or less sun needs,
more or less water it needs things like this. There is not much info
about the interaction with other types of trees that is important for
the permaculture.
On the other hand there is information I have been studying in some
classes that gives you full information what kind of trees, or
combination of tree societies that grow good according to the regions
you want to grow them but again, no book, no pictures.
My best suggestion is:
1. find the nearest forestry and ask them what kind of trees are
typical for the region - you have to keep in mind that the type of
soil and sun exposition (south, east, west north slope) are essential.
Don't trust them on 100% percent as all the forestry is about profit
from the tree wood, so they will give you species that are ok for the
region but not always typical or not the only ones as they exclude all
unprofitable types of trees that can be 80% of all the species.
2. have a nice look around the region and find the wild places that
the forests are combined and not cultivated, recognize the species and
write them down.
3. then with the collected info you can go to the bookstores and look
for english book of the kind you are looking for and check if you can
find the same types of trees. Most of the species that we have here
you can find in Britain also and the british books are a lot more than
the bulgarian.
4. you can also go to university of forestry in Sofia (лесотехнически
университет) in the bookstore there and ask them for some books as the
ones that I mentioned as guides. They also have several little books
for different forest herbs, bushes and mushrooms with a lot of
interesting info and drawings.

You can always ask around and use help from some students there as the
ones that remember the most are 2 and 3 year landscape architecture.

I hope I was helpful. You can write me back with any other questions.
All the best :)

Julia

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--
JULLS

[junee...@gmail.com]

   Julia, thank you for your interesting and useful reply.

   It is a shame there is so little printed information for Bulgarians about Permaculture. The people I'd like to introduce the concept to only rarely have access to computers
and no money to travel to the capital to meet students. I had hoped to buy some books to distribute...

   Gap in the market for someone enterprising with the right qualifications and maybe a green-friendly publisher on board.

   best wishes to you,
   June 

[[bo]]

Sadly, no amount of enthusiasm, entrepreneurship or qualifications will help a person wanting to publish any book in Bulgaria, let alone a permaculture one. The market is so small, that sales cannot even begin to cover the expenses of printing the absolute minimum of 1000 books.

Maybe the best way to distribute printed material is freely given small batches of digitally printed small format leaflets with several pages (printing funded by some foundation). Those leaflets should contain at least several basic guidelines and references - where to look next, who to talk to, etc.

Just my 2 cents worth of ex-publisher wisdom...

[junee...@gmail.com]

    Bo,

    Thanks for that word from one with experience. There's some lovely material online, such as the simple-to-understand 'flower' describing permaship principles, which could be translated perhaps and printed out. Perhaps there's something similarly set out for the forest garden principles.

    A cartoon might work nicely too and 'translate' to many languages.

   So only bestseller type of material gets published in Bulgaria besides academic stuff?

[[bo]]

On Tuesday, July 30, 2013 2:09:34 PM UTC+3, junee...@gmail.com wrote:

     So only bestseller type of material gets published in Bulgaria besides academic stuff?

Mostly - yes. There are precedents (self-published!), but they are few (only one?) and far between. I encourage quality self publishing, but it's clear that only people of substantial means can afford it. Some publishing houses have their own printing presses, mainly smaller 1- or 2-color old machines that allow them to print cheaply, on cheap paper and in lower numbers. Others try to make ends meet by high book prices.

The main problem (IMNSHO) lies with the market, however - all the people I've met on different permaculture events (workshops, presentations, meetings, etc) have no problem with English publications, can use the Internet and find info topic by topic, according to their interest. Self-teaching and trial-error are the preferred ways of gaining knowledge. Those people are not the potential market for whatever you try to publish on this topic - they *could* buy a copy as some sort of support for the cause, but it would be foolish to rely on that.

So, again, I think the best way to publish basic permaculture info is to find someone to finance low cost brochures and then give them away for free at thematic gatherings.

ps: At times I've been called a pessimist or even a cynic. I usually take that as a compliment, although I consider myself a skeptical realist :)

[Tatyana Kossekova Birch]

Hi Juneelder and Bo, 

I am pleased to inform you that we, at Permaship had the enthusiasm, entrepreneurship and qualifications to publish the Permaculture Home Garden by Linda Woodrow in Bulgarian. 

The book has not much info on forest gardens, but is a very good book on permaculture gardening. 

On our web site you can find some info in Bulgarian on forest  gardening. 

Cheers and good luck, Tania  

--

[junee...@gmail.com]

      tabasa,

      Many thanks for this most encouraging information. 

      June 

[junee...@gmail.com]

    Bo,

   To give the sceptical realist a boost:
   With Amazon Kindle self-publishing no upfront money is needed and they pay you. It's worldwide.
   That said, an e-reader misses out the same big potential public as the internet.

   Just like with the demos in Sofia, an informed/educated 'middle class' can network and learn from one another quite easily these days,
but what of those with less access to higher education and scant access to the net? Into this category come many of the backbone rural community who
spend their lives working with the land.

    In my (limited) experience, such people are currently 'at risk' of being approached by less than scrupulous 'big agriculture' concerns - and may be persuaded to plant crops which may do damage one their land, for cash.

   tabasa, bo - is there a chance there cuold be a permaculture 'roadshow' thought Bulgaria one day? Maybe that could reach more people than a book..   

[[bo]]

On Tuesday, July 30, 2013 10:54:13 PM UTC+3, tabasa wrote:

I am pleased to inform you that we, at Permaship had the enthusiasm, entrepreneurship and qualifications to publish the Permaculture Home Garden by Linda Woodrow in Bulgarian.

Tanya, I used your book as an example in my previous post, as you've probably seen. It's the only one, though... and I have no information on the financial side of the enterprise :) So it's a nice precedent, but in order to be useful for anyone thinking about self-publishing, some numbers must be made publicly available (which may not be to everyone's liking).

On Wednesday, July 31, 2013 7:47:36 AM UTC+3, junee...@gmail.com wrote:

 but what of those with less access to higher education and scant access to the net? Into this category come many of the backbone rural community who spend their lives working with the land.

If you're talking about Bulgarian "old timers", they're mostly a lost cause in regard of education. Using ebooks won't help :D Those people cannot be educated or their ways - changed. It's understandable - my own grandfather, whom I dearly love, is an example. He taught me almost everything I know about gardening, has worked his garden in a specific fashion for over 40 years and won't change his ways because of a book, or worse - a pamphlet.

I won't go into details of our (re)search for clean fruits and vegetables, that has shown us massive ignorance among people across the country that work the land and a huge reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesti/herbi/fungi-cides. I'm not talking about industrial farming, I'm talking ordinary small scale home gardens that feed a few families and maybe have a little something left for sale.

I agree that it's a noble (if foolish) undertaking to try and educate people that for the most part don't want to be educated. I've spent a few years *trying* to do that, albeit in a different field of work, before I realized the futility and gave up. An open mind that's ready to learn will find its own way to knowledge.

Back on the original topic. If anyone is willing to invest tons of time (and obviously - money) in a book in Bulgarian, those resources will probably be better spent doing the proposed "free permaculture roadshow". That sounds fun :)

Cheers!


ps: What's exciting are facts + images. Like a photo of Paul's home garden in the driest summer in the last 10 years (when we visited), their tomatoes very much alive and covered with great fruit in September (or was it October?) and they've watered the garden only TWO times the whole summer. Wow. How? Raised beds + tons of mulch. Ooooh, what's that? Read all about it here! People need some easy to understand real-life examples, something visual and practical to spark their interest and make them search for a more theoretical information (like a book ;) ).

[junee...@gmail.com]

    Bo,

   I understand you about those 'old timers' set in their ways but I bet a few Babas with bad backs would LOVE to water only sometimes..

  Also I take your points about the wide use of pesticides etc. Lots of British were 'sold' their homes in BG on the ticket that everywhere there was 'organic' produce. Not so, sadly.

  You are right, eye-catching visuals are probably more useful than a lot of text in any medium.

  I think a roadshow might go down well among those young folk in the maxlata who will have or already have land and want to use their own methods rather than copy those old timer Bulgarian neighbours..   And if the demographic continues in the rural areas, they may be the ones working most of the land in the future. In a lot of cases the main ambition among couples under 20 is to have a little land and live off it as much as possible. This seems to come to a lot of other Europeans only later in life - because of higher education/'higher' ambitions in between.

  Some lively music for a roadshow would be nice.. Vlada Tomova, a friend, has just produced her first pop song and some green songs. Does wonderful traditional singing as well.