Create a garden that nourishes you and the planet — without the stress!
If you're craving an easier, more sustainable way to grow your own food, Low-Maintenance Eco Gardens is the perfect place to start. This easy guide is perfect for beginners, time-strapped gardeners, busy families, and wellness seekers alike. Designed for accessibility, it shows you how to create self-sustaining gardens that promote food independence, enhance food security, and work with nature — not against it — saving time, money, and effort while producing healthy harvests year-round!
Inside you'll find:
- Step-by-step guidance to help you build your garden with confidence — no experience needed
- Simple, sustainable systems ideal for urban lots, suburban yards, or larger spaces
- Natural solutions for pest control, soil building, irrigation, and seasonal growing guidance
- 60+ plant profiles including over 50 edible fruits and vegetables suited for a range of climates
- Creative DIY projects like edible borders, mini orchards, and pollinator havens with ecological benefit
- Real-life success stories that prove low-effort gardens can be beautiful, productive, and rewarding
Authors Fred Meyer, a certified permaculture designer and founder of the nonprofit EarthMind Practice, and Jen Kardos, a licensed mental health therapist and wellness coach, combine their knowledge and hands-on experience to offer a fresh, holistic approach to eco-conscious gardening. Their methods blend the principles of permaculture and regenerative gardening with practical gardening wisdom and the emotional and physical benefits of time outdoors, helping you create spaces that support both environmental and personal well-being.
Work with nature rather than against it, using a holistic strategy that promotes biodiversity, natural pest and weed control, and year-round backyard abundance. Inside this book, you'll discover how to select and grow 100 productive, low-maintenance plants — 50 fruits and 50 vegetables — suited for urban lots, small yards, and larger spaces alike. The book also includes detailed guidance on building practical garden systems, such as high-yield mini orchards, edible borders, and low-effort irrigation solutions. You'll learn how to spend less time weeding and watering while cultivating a resilient garden that thrives in harmony with the land.
Meyer and Kardos also explore how gardens can nurture both physical and mental health, emphasizing the therapeutic benefits of connecting with nature. Whether you're a first-time gardener, a busy parent growing food for your family, or someone seeking a more mindful lifestyle and trying to reduce your environmental impact, Low-Maintenance Eco Gardens offers a clear, encouraging path to success.
Grow more with less effort, live more in tune with nature, and discover how a low-stress, high-impact garden can be a source of nourishment, joy, and wellness all year long, with Low-Maintenance Eco Gardens!
Fred Meyer has spent decades helping busy families, retirees, and beginners turn balconies, backyards, and community spaces into joyful, low-maintenance gardens that nourish body and spirit. A certified health coach, Master Gardener, permaculture designer, and wilderness guide, he's known for making eco-friendly gardening simple and fun. Through teaching at the University of Iowa and Earthmind Practice, Fred has guided countless people from feeling overwhelmed by gardening to confidently cultivating ease, beauty, and abundance. In Low-Maintenance Eco Gardens, he shows how to let nature do the heavy lifting, so you and your garden thrive no matter your time, space, or experience.
Jen Kardos is a licensed mental health therapist (LMHC) and certified functional medicine health and wellness coach (NBC-HWC, FMCHC) in private practice in Iowa City, Iowa. She is a lifelong gardener and holds a professional certificate in Horticultural Therapy. Over the past decade, through her work in therapy, health coaching, and as the Wellness Director with the nonprofit Backyard Abundance, she has taught classes and worked one-on-one with people suffering from physical and mental health concerns who are seeking new solutions. Her favorite approach is to connect them more deeply with nature, and nurture other lifestyle factors that can reconnect them with their aliveness and innate ability to heal. She asserts that nature reflects the wisdom and soothing of our nervous systems that we are all seeking during these stressful times. She is delighted to share the permaculture gardening approach with a larger audience, for as a busy mom of three teenagers, she finds it be the most time efficient and stress relieving way for her and her family to enjoy the bounty of their yard.
