Secret Garden of Survival: How to grow a camouflaged food- forest.

“Secret Garden of Survival” by Rick Austin is a book that fits squarely in the ”must have” category for your preparedness library. Like many preppers, I have a ton of books in my library. Personally, I prefer having hardcopies of any I think are particularly useful. In a long term grid-down, having a hardcopy library will be essential. Many preparedness books, while they may be good, can be duplicative. Many essentially rehash the same territory.“Secret Garden of Survival” is one of the books I want to have around both before and after a long term disaster. It stands out for me as one of the books that has critical information that you just cant get elsewhere. I like books that either make me rethink my prepping strategies or teach me better ways of doing things. “Secret Garden of Survival” did both.I’m a novice gardener (to put it generously – if gardening was a martial art, I might say I’m barely a “yellow belt”). I have the typical back yard raised gardens and I mostly buy annuals at Home Depot or a local garden store with everybody else. Some years I’m more successful than others, but I have recognized that my food production capability and skills are areas that need much work.Rick Austin takes you on a detailed tour of how he set up his secret garden of survival. He touches on every aspect, from site selection, construction, grey water systems, permaculture guilds – all the way up to storing and preserving the harvest. This book ties together the entire cycle from concept to canning. This book is both for preppers and those who would like to explore more natural methods of gardening.This book accomplishes what Mr. Austin set out to do: It provides an overview – from start to finish – on concepts that many people are not familiar with. It provides a solution to one of the most important preparedness subjects: food. (In “beans, bullets and bandages” terms, this book covers one third of it.) For many, this book will provide practical and innovative ideas to improve their odds in a survival situation. For many, this book will provide great ideas for having a more natural and productive garden. For many, it will provide both.This book is not intended to be a detailed treatise on every subject and sub-concept involved and it never pretends to be. Its strength is that it gives you a view of the entire food cycle and how to cooperate with nature – rather than trying to outdo her – in order to get better results. The fact that you can do this in a manner not likely to be noticed by others is an important factor for those of us who worry about the security of our food sources from a preparedness perspective. Although the garden Mr. Austin describes and builds is ambitious, he emphasizes that you can start small – with one guild at a time – and improve over time. It does not need to be done all at once. That being said, the book will also enable you to plan your garden so that you start it out right the first time and have the flexibility to expand it in the future.So how has this book changed me? As I look at land for my future homestead, this book has given me a lot of ideas of what to look for. I assure you that when I look at land now, I’ll be thinking about the concepts I learned from Mr. Ausitn’s book and exactly where my secret garden of survival would fit in. I can also start small at my current location to experiment with and benefit from the concepts. I have learned a lot from this book.I highly recommend ”Secret Garden of Survival” by Rick Austin. If you are new to prepping or gardening, this book will put you on the right path. If you are experienced in one or both, it might just change the way you look at your food preps. It is well worth the price. If I lost the copy I have now, I would buy another.

I learned amazing new techniques that I hope to experiment with in my own garden soon

Setting up my homestead, planting gardens and trees. This book gave me some good ideas with many of the concepts are easy to apply to my situation. Nice to have on hand as a reference and well worth the cost.

I can't help but laugh at the negative reviews. First thing I noticed in his video on Natgeo was that he can't be that far from me. Maybe just the other side of the mountain. I too know a fair bit about gardening however this soil grows rocks and oak trees better than anything else. His property seemed so similar. Rick's book isn't really about basic gardening but more focused on companion planting and better organization. What I found out, and I have a lot of elbow grease to go yet, was that he really helps you prep a self sustaining garden.Outstanding book, very informative, it speaks to my experience levels and definitely speaks to the problems I have here. I am now reading his other book on green houses. Just for the sake of his critics, I read the book 3 times. I studied it cover to cover and made notes. I used goggle as he recommends in his book to search out the items he makes reference to. The book could of been a 1000 pages and couldn't have said it better than he did. I think he did very well making his point which is why I purchased his book. Great Job Rick, I have a backhoe on the way to get started. I had given up on all the steep ground. Not now! Thanks

If you're expecting this book to be a guide or handbook then think again as it only provides a sketchy description with little instruction. I see in another review that someone said they were glad it wasn't big and scary or something and actually had to LOL at that (I truly did snort). I'd think anyone that would buy this sort of book would demand big and scary, I sure do. Here's the email I sent to the author after reading the book:Hi Rick,When I saw your book on Amazon I was pretty excited because I've been shopping for something EXACTLY like this for awhile, but I have to say after reading it I was a little disappointed. My first thought when it arrived was in regards to how small it is, I was expecting to see something with at least 200 pages...it barely broke 100 and half of it is useless pictures.I am not a master gardener. I, like most people, need to be able to learn thoroughly about a subject in order to put it into action. We pay the $20.00+ for a book like this because maybe we don't have the time to experiment year after year. The point is you should have included some companion charts, more examples (with details), and sponsored a forum so people can chat about what they've got.I, for example, have flat ground located in an arid climate with harsh winters. I did pick up a few tips but not 20 bucks worth from the book. I don't expect you to know secret recipe for success about my particular soil, but some specific examples and ideas would have left me able to get rolling this fall when I can plant again.I am sure I am not alone in this matter. As it stands I'm really not much further ahead and will have to continue to scour the internet for ideas on the variations of plants. I'll most likely return the book.***UPDATE*** Reply From Author:Mike:Thanks for buying my book and for sending me your email below.I am sorry you are disappointed and the book did not meet your expectations. (Hopefully you have read the entire book, as most people who have, have told me that they love it.)I wrote the book because so many people asked me to do so, to explain how they could create their own Secret Garden of Survival for themselves. When I decided to write the book , I knew how difficult it was to read all the technical, lengthy, and confusing permaculture texts out there (and I have read plenty of them) that were 300+ pages, and that more oriented toward someone who was more of a horticulturalist, that your average home owner.I therefore tried to make the book simple, straightforward, and give people the most information, using the fewest number of words possible so that they could get to actually doing the project themselves. I also used a huge number of full color photos, since people learn more from seeing something, than from reading. And even though my publisher said the book would be expensive to print with 120+ full color photographs, I knew that it was important for people to see the detail, so that they would not have to read 300+ pages of explanation.I try to give the basic concepts in the book of how guilds work and the infrastructure that will give people the best result. I talk in my book about how I cannot possibly give every example of every guild plant that will work in every environment and USDA zone. However, I also state that it is important for the homeowner to find a good local plant nursery, that understands permaculture and that can provide you with plants that were propagated in their area, and that are native to that area and environment. That is because plants that you get from the big box stores typically have travelled 1500 miles and are pumped full of "drugs" to make them look good when they are on the store floor. Most of those trees will not be of a variety that will do well, or that will actually bear fruit in every zone in which they are sold.As an example, there are apple trees that will grow in the Northeast US, and apple trees that will grow in the Southern US. They are all apple trees, and each may grow in each other's environment, but a northern apple tree will never bear fruit if planted in the south, because a northern apple tree needs more "chill hours" (hours in the winter below 45 degrees) before it will set fruit.All that being said, most people appreciate that they do not have to read 300+ pages, or have to wade through 20 page charts, and cross reference each guild plant, to figure out how to plant their own guilds in their own environment.If however, you are looking for a bigger text that goes into more specific detail, with multiple charts and graphs, then I recommend you get the book Gaia's Garden. It is 300+ pages, and I have seen it on amazon for $48.00+.As you can see, I am open to answering questions of people who have purchased my book and I am always willing to help answer questions that people might have, as well as provide a forum for questions on my website, and radio show.If you have not read the book completely, please do so and see if it is not helpful to you. If you want to return the book after that, and want to pick up any one of the permaculture books geared toward more professional gardeners and landscapers, then I encourage you to do so.Let me know if I can help you in any case.Rick.

Good book on why and how. Shows you tools on the subject, not a step by step how to, everyone's needs are different, so a good book.

Love this book has motivated me to start my own Survival garden.

Best for someone who starts out with a new garden, he proves that food grows well on clay with topsoil after two years. In my experience after growing for more than 4 years on sandy soil on the west coast rain climate is that after 4 years the soil was too depleted to grow anything. I had to remineralize and followed Steve Solomons "The intelligent gardener" to get my soil back to its original state.

its ok,,a good read and imformative. you would need your own land and have money to do the prodjects,,but the imformatoin gets you thinking and i think the prodjects could be scaled down accordingly

This book is very informative and shows a more natural way to garden whereas one cannot recognize it is a garden. It is done without fertilizers and pesticides. Very interesting.