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 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 are looking for a book to help you with surviving and living off grid or even just a great book on how to plant a permaculture garden, this is it!!! Mr Austin has numerous YouTube videos on his channel and he shows diagrams and pictures of how to set up a garden that unless you know it’s a garden, you’ll walk right on by. LOL.

I really liked this book and it provided a wealth of information about how to grow a self-sustaining garden that doesn't even look like one. My only complaint is that the author goes into a lot of detail about how to build this type of garden on a hill type slope but doesn't really explain what to do if your property is level. I also wished he had spent more time giving details of what plants and how they should be spaced. His diagrams could have included a planting plan for the different types of plants and trees from an aerial perspective with each plant's location layed out in detail. I was looking for a detailed plan on what to plant and where. I will need to do more research to figure out exactly how to do this. I am considering writing the author to see what additional information he can provide. That being said, I think this method of planting is how I will approach gardening from now on and the book is a must for those who are interested in learning more about this method

I happen to see one of the videos on YouTube from 78 years ago found out that he had books and his wife had books so for the last month week by week I bought secret garden of survival secret greenhouse of survival and last was secret livestock of survival I am very impressed with the detail step by step how he explains everything I am on chapter 3 of The secret greenhouse and I just can't put the book down secret garden of survival I read in about 3-4 days I can't wait to get into secret livestock of survival because the do's and don'ts of his other books or so informative and educational and I thank him for writing his experiences of the pros and cons mistakes and fixes I definitely recommend these three bucks to anybody and it don't matter to be a survivors or a prepper or a living off grid they're very educational books to read and to know I was very surprised on the whole natural culture of gardening for Forest gardens it's phenomenal

Ok first off information wise I give this book 4 stars, lots of good info on what type of area you are looking for a how to set it up. I give this book 1 star on actual preppers guide. This book was meant to be done 2 years or so before a actual emergency, most of the stuff he did would take years by hand to do without the use of heavy equipment. And most people don't have a lot of money to spend 2 years prepping something like this. I give this book 1 star for photo's. While the author himself said the book is so expensive because of the photo's if it meant getting this book for 14.99 without photos vs 30 with, I would take the 14.99 version 100% of the time. The photo's show some nice before and after, but show virtually nothing at the same time. Drawing taken from the side, top to bottom with guides of where he planted would have served a better purpose than the worthless color photo's. Better photo's would have been in close showing of the guilds with circles in the photo's of where the stuff was planted (bare, before growth). He had drawing of how guilds where done, but nothing in depth actual color photo wise. In reality most of the photo's where to far out to show anything or to close to show anything but the intended crop. I give the rest of the book 1 star as far as grey water and root cellaring, we all have 100's of books on the subject a lot of wasted pages for stuff most of us already have. I wanted guilds and good guild guides. I would have rather seen the author put together a list of tree's, plants into a geographical location and what works best and what doesn't. He gives some through out the book, about some types of plants that have a certain synergy. But not enough in my opinion. While overall this is a great book and I wouldn't have known about a lot of this stuff before hand, I will end up doing most of the research myself vs. paying $30 for an idea. If I'm paying 30 for a book it damn well better have all the info I require. This book does not. That is why this book gets 3 stars, it provides a lot of good starting points, but ultimately for the price it's not worth 5 stars. But now that I see it's 20 now I feel like my butt hurts.

Rick Austin has authored a straightforward and easy to read "how-to" reference on permaculture gardening and food production that comes right out of his personal experience. I have seen his "Secret Garden" with my own eyes, and have been fed with its produce. The before-and-after photos and descriptions of what can be accomplished in just a couple of growing seasons after starting from scratch are real. I personally saw the process unfold. Whether you are a homesteader, prepper, survivalist or just a smart gardener willing to learn a better way, this book is an invaluable tool. Read the book all the way through to get an overall grasp of what Rick is teaching. Then go back and get into the detail. I recommend the paper version because you are going to want to make notes as you go along that you can easily refer to later. Besides, if you are "off grid", the battery in your Kindle is not going to last forever.

This book kept my attention in content from beginning to end. It was very thorough and detailed how to complete each process from start to finish. I don't often read these help type books beginning to end but skip around looking for specific information. This is one for the most part I didn't want to miss any of it. I feel the author even went beyond in giving not only examples but explaining "why" he recommended certain things which gives the reader a more complete understanding of how nature works synergistically. Would be an excellent book for any gardening skill level. So glad I stumbled across this as I have been studying other forms of gardening for survival needs. Saved me a lot of time and money.

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.

A good start for people who want make a perennial garden with lot of food...permaculture at it best ...i loved it

Intéressé par la permaculture, ce livre m'avait été recommandé. J'ai été un peu déçu par le contenu. La plus grande partie du livre évoque l'irrigation du jardin et délaisse un peu les autres techniques. Ce n'est pas un mauvais livre, mais je trouve le titre trompeur.

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.

Worth buying. Good intro to permaculture on difficult ground, starting from clay. If you found this book, it was actively seeking you. Enjoy the ride!