Backyard Giants

The Passionate, Heartbreaking and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever

by Susan Warren

I should have guessed that in the world of competitive vegetable growing, there's people whose goal is to produce the biggest pumpkin ever. When this book was written, men aimed to break the record with a pumpkin that weighed over 1,500 pounds (now the world record is 2,624 pounds). This story focuses on a group of giant pumpkin growers in a Rhode Island club, telling the ups and downs that several of them face through one season. The opening and closing chapters, which are mostly about the individuals and their competitiveness, the history of record-breaking giant pumpkins, and the weigh-in that closes the 2006 season, were not that great for me. The writing style tries a little too hard to be enthusiastic and felt awkward in some parts. Nearly stopped reading after chapter three. However the bulk of the book, about how the pumpkins are actually grown and tended, was more to my interest- I can relate as a gardener. Careful selection of seed, testing and prepping the soil, germinating and tending the young plants, setting them out then protecting them anxiously from rough spring weather, pruning and feeding and spraying against pests all summer, fretting over disease and disaster (hungry wildlife, cracked skins, even in one case a suspected fellow grower who jealously poisoned someone's plants!) I'm not a competitive person myself so I don't really understand the fire that makes them work for huge fruit with so much effort- forcing the plants to strain to the max without cracking, rotting or collapsing. I'd rather have something beautiful, useful, or good to eat, than just a right to brag about "mine's the biggest"! But if I ever go to an agricultural fair I'll be sure to stare at prize-winning pumpkins with different eyes now, knowing all that went into getting them that huge size. They do look rather obscene, though.

Rating: 3/5                256 pages, 2007

The Exotic Garden

Designing with Tropical Plants in Almost Any Climate 

by Richard R. Iversen

     This book is about growing tropical plants in a temperate climate. It has information on design- including how to artfully combine the varied textures, colors and growth habits of different plants to best effect. It tells how to cultivate them, including keeping in pots or setting out into beds, and overwintering- which consists of either bringing plants inside, keeping seed, rhizomes or tubers to grow from next year, or taking cuttings. Some plants sounds like it's easier or more economical to just buy new plants in the spring- as once it is warm enough outside, if properly fed and watered, tropical plants can grow very fast. While much of the information in here is repetitive to me, the specifics on tropicals in my kind of climate was very useful. The author is really enthusiastic about tropical plants and his delight in them is infectious. I thought at first well, my choices are limited- I don't have a lot of space indoors to overwinter plants with bright light- nor can i afford to buy tons of basically disposable plants every spring (though I do try to add some perennials to my yard every year). Then I realized hey wait a minute- I already do some of this: I grow and take coleus cuttings every year. I bring my bay laurel, potted figs and geraniums indoors for the winter, set them out again in spring. The book taught me that I could do a few things differently- such as saving the tubers of my decorative sweet potato vine dried and stored in a small box, instead of keeping cuttings growing in pots. This would save space, giving me room for a different plant, and also maybe curtail my problem with whitefly and/or tiny leaf hoppers every winter, which tend to come in on my plants especially the sweet potato vine, even though I take measures against them. So! the book encouraged me. I started taking notes- jotting down names of all the plants that caught my eye in photos as being particularly striking or pretty, and then writing down species I liked the sound of from the some hundred plants in the detailed glossary. Sticking to only those I think I could handle their overwintering needs and mature size, I still ended up with a list of forty plants. It's like my never-ending TBR, the lists I make of plants I'd like to try and grow- after learning more about them and hoping I can actually find a specimen to bring home someday. Now more eager for spring and a new growing season to try my hand at a few new things!

Rating: 4/5           170 pages, 1999

You Grow Girl

by Gayla Trail

     When I started reading this book, I thought it wouldn't teach me much new. I could not have been more wrong. Yes, it covers the basics of gardening, keeping things simple and small-scale whether you just have a balcony space or a patch of backyard. Includes explanations on things like mixing potting soil, making compost, cleaning tools, reading plant labels, thwarting pests, mulching, starting seed, saving the harvest and so much more. There's also lots of crafts such as making a planter box, sewing a gardener's apron with pockets, creating plant labels and seed packets, building a trellis, and custom stepping stones. There's directions for many things I've never tried before such as candied flower petals, floral-infused vinagers and homemade hand salve. I already have ideas to try a few new things, or grow several plants I never considered before, due to her enthusiastic recommendation. Sunchokes and calendula are now on my list. It's all presented in a very cheerful, friendly style, telling you up front what to be concerned about and what to shrug off. This book really made me feel interested in picking things up for the garden again- I had been feeling quite blah about the cold weather lately but it is halfway through february after all, so before turning the last page I went and started seventeen trays of seed for my spring garden. Oh, and I finally found the name of the 'scat plant' I grew one year! This book tells me it's coleus canina, also known as 'scaredy cat plant' (which info I had before but somehow missed the correct ID looking that up). Kinda odd because it's not in the coleus family? so I'm still a bit confused about this one but now I know how to find it again. Very happy to have that little mystery in my head solved.

Rating: 4/5                    208 pages, 2005

Garden Open Today

by Beverley Nichols

     Delightful book written by an avid gardener who was famous in Britian. He wrote lots of books about his gardens- this is one of the later ones and frequently makes references to past events or plants he used to grow or things he mentioned in other volumes, but never in a way that left me feeling in the dark. This book seems to have a focus on flowers, in particular ones that he considered rare or at least less-well-known. There were of course lots of plants mentioned I have never grown or even heard of, but also plenty that I'm familiar with, so I enjoyed learning new things all around. As even the familiar ones had interesting bits of info.

In particular, Nichols writes effusively about lilies, old style roses, clematis and various other climbers, dwarf sweet peas and nicotiana, flowers that are blue and many that are white, plants that have beautiful delicate scents and how they bring memories back so strongly, why he considers a water feature essential in a garden and what to do with it, irises, lamb's ears, rhododendrons, tulips and many many more. There are growing tips and little stories and many times I laughed aloud. I didn't really relate to the chapter on flower arrangements and the appendix at the back is a list of recommended nurseries and growers- all in Europe so not of much use to me. I did look some of them up out of curiosity and quite a few are still operating today. Would be nice to have an index but I took notes (it's been a long while since a gardening book prompted me to do that) on some things I want to remember. 

I would now someday like to have a pink-berried rowan tree, if it's feasible in my part of the world. Also Euphorbia lathyrus, or the 'mole plant'. Not that I have moles, but because maybe it would keep the chipmunks from tunneling in certain areas. I've been wanting to read Beverley Nichols for a while, very glad to have this book at last and now wish for all the others.

Rating: 4/5                            252 pages, 1963

At Crossroads with Chickens

by Tory McCagg

Subtitled: A "What If It Works?" Adventure in Off-Grid Living and Quest for Home. The author and her husband lived in Rhode Island and bought some land in New Hampshire where they built a solar-powered house for vacation use, where they end up living full-time. I was interested to read this book because keeping chickens is something I aspire to - and I admire off-the-grid living but don't know if I'll ever do so (it sounds like a lot of work). The chickens don't show up in this book until about page 50. A lot of it is actually backstory- where the couple came from, how they met, how she grew up and that formed her world. Struggles they had, not only with building and maintaining the house on a windy hillside up a long winding rough road but also in their relationship, in their feeling of responsibility towards the Earth, and in a very personal way, the author watching her parents grow older and face death. The story of her father's passing very sad. Reading about her mother's progressing difficulties living with Parkinson's disease also very sad. Even keeping the chickens- which began as an effort to only eat "happy eggs" from chickens that had been raised well and treated humanely- had its sad moments. In spite of trying to only buy or adopt chicks that were female, they ended up with more than one rooster. (They let a hen hatch her own eggs too). Sometimes they were able to find another farm that needed a rooster for their flock, but they also once went through the process of slaughtering their extra roosters for food- emotionally difficult after knowing those chickens so well, their personalities and little struggles and triumphs over the years. Of course they also lost some chickens to natural causes- taken by hawks and other predators, and quite a few died of cancer (a vet did autopsies for them). But there are glad moments too, and wonderful ones, and bright humor. For example, their first rooster considered everything outside his domain, and would attack the husband whenever he went out to work on the building project. He figured out how to deflect these attacks, and it was hilarious!

It feels a bit scattered at times- the book's focus is their whole life, their view on things, what that came from, how it grows and changes just as much as anything. Ongoing concern for the environment, personal efforts to live better, have a lighter footprint on the earth, and struggles to reconcile other things they can't, or won't, change about their lives. No, it's not just chickens. They are a central part though, once you get through the beginning.

I received an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating 3/5               191 pages, 2020

The Triumph of Seeds

by Thor Hanson

How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History. This book was plenty interesting. Some parts are about the minutiae of how seeds work- what kinds of energy storage different species have, what triggers growth after periods of dormancy, how they have evolved chemicals to avoid being eaten (which humans use for medicine and poison in turn) or fruits to tempt animals to disperse them (make humans in essence slaves to plants in some cases). Other parts are about the history of seeds that had huge impacts on civilizations: coffee beans, cotton, wheat, chili peppers, etc. Other sections are more personable, describing the author's own investigations into the nature of seeds, including participation of his enthusiastic three-year-old son, and his interviews with researchers who do various work dealing with seeds. Sparked a lot of interest, and prompted me to attempt to finish another heavier book simply titled Seeds which is more like a dense textbook and has been languishing on my bedside table for months on end.

Rating: 3/5             277 pages, 2015

Grow More With Less

Sustainable Gardening Methods
by Vincent A. Simeone

This book looks nice, but was a disappointment for me. It has thick, glossy paper and clear photographs, but they're often not identified so you might not know which of the plants in the text is pictured. As the material seems aimed at beginning gardeners, this felt lacking. I do appreciate the message, to use gardening methods that are environmentally friendly and cost effective: saving water, selecting plants that require less care, encouraging wildlife etc. However there wasn't much new material in here for me. It wasn't interesting until page 90 where I was looking forward to the chapters about integrated pest management and attracting wildlife, but even that felt bland. I dutifully finished the book hoping to glean something, and noticed after a while that a lot of the text is repetitive, there are quite a few typos, and the information never gets deep enough to actually be useful. For example, the charts never tell you much more than the text itself did. One section in the book says you should survey insect pests on your plants regularly and lists things to gather for the task, but then doesn't tell you how to use the items. Also, the chapter intros have a printed background of burlap texture, which makes the text annoyingly hard to read (might have worked if the font was bold for those pages). It also tends to veer slightly off-topic sometimes, into other ways you can make your home and landscape more 'green'. Not just about gardening, and I didn't learn a bunch of new ways to recycle and save in the garden like I'd hoped. So I can't recommend it, except to absolute beginners who want a nice general introduction into organic, sustainable gardening.

Rating: 2/5              192 pages, 2013

Paradise Under Glass

An Amateur Creates a Conservatory Garden
by Ruth Kassinger

I don't know if it's just my mental state, but I found this book a disappointment. It seemed right up my alley- a woman who could barely keep a single houseplant alive, suddenly feels inspired to build what I'd call a large sunroom onto her house to replace an old deck. She stocks it with fruit trees and vibrant tropical foliage plants, learning by mistakes and with the guidance of a helpful local nursery employee. Becoming enthused with all the green growing things, she travels to visit commercial greenhouses and public arboretums, admiring a living green wall, learning about the history of clivias and Victorian fern hunters, seeing what it takes for an operation to produce thousands of houseplants for sale. She tells a lot about the history of greenhouses- starting with how citrus trees were first imported from China to other countries and kept alive through the winters- and early plant collectors and the architecture of glass buildings and so much of that overwhelmed the main story and made my eyes swim. I really was not interested in all the historical people and their doings. I'd have rather just read the personal bits- the part about butterflies was really wonderful, also the chapter on how she battled infestations in her sunroom and learned about beneficial bugs. The section about her sister's poor health very sad but also felt a little out of place. In all it was a rather uneven read for me- I really liked reading about her own plants and how she learned to care for them, but the historical sections failed to hold my interest.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 2/5          347 pages, 2010

Herb Gardening at Its Best

Everything You Need to Know About Growing Your Favorite Herbs
by Sal Gilbertie and Larry Sheehan

Simply a practical how-to on growing herbs. Written by someone who grew them commercially for over forty years. The cultivation methods are slightly different from what I've been doing, and maybe I will try some in my own garden. I knew enough to water the herb bed less frequently than the other plants, but didn't realize they also require less fertilizer. Because the oils that give herbs scent and flavor are less concentrated if they have lush, excessive growth. So I might quit feeding that bed compost and just give it leaf mold. Except this book also says that herb gardens shouldn't be mulched during the growing season, as it keeps them too damp. It's pretty hot here in summers so I'm not sure about that in my case. Anyhow, aside from information on germination, cultivation and harvest times for herbs, the book also has a section of layouts for different types of herb gardens, each with a specific focus. Herbs for making tea, for soups, for adding to bread or making potpourri. Herb gardens for medicinal use, to attract bees or selections to repel pests. There's a list of plants to include in a collection of just basil, thyme or sage (so many varieties!) and I'm most intrigued by the scented geraniums. Aside from some general suggestions for culinary uses, this book doesn't tell much about the different plants' characteristics, but the names of ones I'm unfamiliar with intrigue me to look up more: sweet woodruff, bergamot, costmary, tansy, comfry, dittany, santolina etc. So many I don't know. Although many have suggested uses I wouldn't need- for dying cloth, for cure-alls or love potions haha! I do find it interesting the wide variety of herbs out there and their properties. Also, the cover of this book is hideous. There's another with very similar title by the same author, Herb Gardening From the Ground Up, which looks like it might be an updated version of this edition, I'm not sure.

Rating: 3/5        245 pages, 1978

Leaving the Wild

the Unnatural History of Dogs, Cats, Cows, and Horses
by Gavin Ehringer

I don’t like the cover at all. And I found the material interesting enough, but a bit uneven. The sections on dogs and cats are more than half the book, the part about cows a little shorter than the first two, and horses felt tacked on at the end with far less coverage. Honestly I almost put this one aside, because the first chapter on how dogs became domesticated, was boring. I’d either read most of it before elsewhere, or felt my eyes glazing over on the history details. There’s a lengthy chapter on how the Victorian craze for purebred dogs changed the course of dog breeding forever, and another on how rightfully pit bulls are vilified. Curiously, this book states that overpopulation is no longer a huge problem for dogs and cats in America, that in fact a lot of shelters now have to import homeless animals to keep their operations running. Another section looks into the ethtics of dog shows and breeders- stating that most people who breed dogs knows what they’re doing and look seriously into the genetics to ensure healthy animals, but the public knowledge about what goes on is woefully behind the reality. Hm. The part about cats has a lot of Egyptian history, and about how the popularity of cats waxed and waned over the centuries- I learned quite a bit of folklore and such I hadn’t known before. There’s a strong emphasis in here on the problem of stray and feral cats- firstly it states that cats are not wiping out birds (except on certain isolated islands where they are truly invasive) that statistics blaming domestic cats for falling bird numbers across America are exaggerated or wrongly extrapolated, there being so many other factors. And examples are given how trap-neuter-release programs can be extremely effective. When it comes to cows, I found myself reading about genetic cloning, dairy farm management, criticism of feedlot operations, and the plight of unwanted steer calves among other things. And organic milk production. And the debate on hormone injections. And so on. The horse chapters were very few. There is a bit of breed history, mostly about Mongolian horses under Ghenghis Khan, the beauty of Arabians, the inbreeding of famed quarter horses, and where it is all going. I skimmed much of the last chapter, just like I did the first.

So I learned a few new things, and I found a lot of it interesting, but much more was repetitive or simply felt off-topic. If I’d wanted to read about GMO tomatoes I would have picked a different book. Maybe the title gave me the wrong expectation, but I was alternately disappointed, bored and then intrigued again (when learning something new, or reading stuff that refuted things I thought I already knew).

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 2/5                               356 pages, 2017

Green Thoughts

A Writer in the Garden
by Eleanor Perényi

Just the sort of garden writing I love. A collection of short essays (organized alphabetically by subject) on everything it seems: plant choices, catalogue perusing, balancing acts against pests, shunning harsh chemicals (she was an organic gardener), designing outdoor space, composting, pruning techniques, controlling weeds and disease. Also on individual plants: strawberries, tomatoes, peonies, daylilies, beans, onions, sweet peas, tulips, potatoes etc etc. The parts that waxed historical were not as interesting to me- although I did pay attention to the section about the tulip craze, and another about the development of rose varieties. The part on historical aspects of garden design, not so much. Her voice is down-to-earth, amusing, frank and informative. I even laughed out loud a few times! This book goes on the shelf right next to Thalassa Cruso and Katherine White (whom she quotes- we are among good company). I took notes (on plant species to look for, mostly) and bookmarked pages. I don't agree with all her opinions, but everyone's methods are slightly different. She avoids the work of carting seedlings in an out of the house, for example (like me, not having a greenhouse) but commiserates on how this style of "labor-intensive" gardening is becoming an anomaly- surrounded by neighbors who use gas-powered, noisy machines that do a crude job instead of the care and finesse could have done by hand. And this book is from the early eighties! I would be glad to tell her (she passed in 2009) that not all old-school gardeners are gone by the wayside, in fact there's a rising cadre of us now.

Rating: 4/5                   289 pages, 1981

Personalities on the Plate

the Lives and Minds of Animals We Eat
by Barbara J. King

This book looks at the lives of animals we humans tend to eat: fish, chickens, goats, cows and pigs. It also starts off with a chapter on insects- is it better to eat insects than mammals, because they need fewer resources (lighter burden on the planet), and have less apparent intelligence? maybe- but most people in the western world can't get over their repugnance. On the flip side, I can't think of anyone who would eat chimpanzee meat, for entirely different reasons- but the author tells us there definitely are people who do, in other parts of the world. There's also a chapter on octopus, how smart they are, how much a delicacy in certain cultures- but having not-too-long ago read Sy Montgomery's the Soul of an Octopus- which is quoted plenty in here- I found myself skipping through a lot of it. In fact that was a damper for me in most of the book- I've also read several Michael Pollan books, Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals and Barry Estabrook's Pig Tales, plus several others which are quoted or heavily referenced here. So although the author brought in a lot of personal experiences and incidents I hadn't heard of, still much of the material felt repetitive to me, not a lot new, and I skimmed plenty. I also gather that much of it was first written as a blog, which might have something to do with how brief and light some of the writing feels to me. It's also strong on the emotional slant, in giving reasons for moving away from eating meat and being vegetarian or vegan. However there was enough of interest in here - and some very convincing rationales I hadn't though of before- that I read it all the way through, regardless of the skips. So please don't take my rating to heart this time; it's more my personal response to the book because I already felt fairly saturated with this kind of information, than anything else. I think I need to switch subject matters for a while.

I was really horrified by the story of Mike the headless chicken by the way- just google that, if you will. Even worse is the fact that after this chicken gained fame (and money) for his owner, lots of other men tried to duplicate the curiosity- killing tons of chickens just to try and get one that would freakishly survive it. What??!

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 2/5                 229 pages, 2017

Closer to the Ground

An Outdoor Family's Year on the Water, in the Woods and at the Table
by Dylan Tomine

This book was very enjoyable. It's about a family that does a lot of what I wish I did more of- forage, grow, harvest and catch their own food. Well, they benefit by living right by the ocean- literally five minutes from a boat ramp. They go crabbing, fishing, deer hunting, gather mussels, dig clams, hunt chanterelles and pick berries in the forest, and grow a vegetable garden. The father is passionate about finding and cutting deadfall trees to heat their house all year round. Not all trees are equal in this- I didn't realize by how much. Not all goes as planned- but Tomine writes with wry humor his own mishaps, and describes in glowing tones his small triumphs, and wow the food sounds delectable all round (this book makes me hungry.) His kids get muddy, wet, cold and tired- and are happily involved, delighted in their part. They are always eager to try one more fishing spot, drop one more crab pot. They point out the lovely things alone the way- porpoises and seals in the Sound, birds on the water, when dad often just wants to find the thing they came to catch and get it home again- kids make you slow down and appreciate the doing of it. He talks about the tricky balance between trying to live "green" and being practical about it- especially when it comes to what kind of car they drive, and where they source materials for an addition to their house. It's honest about how much one can do- when their tomato crop fails due to blight, they recognize it's okay- they don't solely live off their garden produce, and they have a ton of stuff growing wonderfully even when the tomatoes didn't make it. It's about doing what you can to be good to the Earth, living close to nature and making the most of the available bounty. It also makes me nostalgic, being written by a man who lives on an island in Puget Sound- right around where I grew up. I heartily recommend this book to my siblings and parents- I'm sure they would really appreciate it.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5                  230 pages, 2012

Eating Animals

by Jonathan Safran Foer

This book has made my heart heavy. It put a lot on my mind and now I hardly know where to start talking about it. It starts as a personal narrative- the author had waffled for most of his life about eating meat or not- and finally decided to do some research on it: why do we eat animals? where does it come from? how are the animals treated? He also tells quite a few family stories, illustrating how important food is in culture and family heritage, emphasizing how difficult it is to change, and to reason out why. A lot of it is about how screwed up the food system is in our country, particularly factory farming of animals. The author took a very close look at all this. He interviewed many: a man who runs a large operation, a small scale farmer who personally knows all his animals, an activist who sneaks into chicken sheds. It's not just about how appallingly the livestock is treated in the poultry, cattle and hog farming industries, it's about how terribly they pollute the environment, how dangerous they are for our health, how wretched the working conditions are for humans employed there. How the power of the corporations enables them to shrug off fines or ignore audits and inspections that don't get enforced. I was shocked to read that over ninety percent of the meat now sold in America comes from large factory farms. Humanely raised animals are so few- not from lack of demand, but because the system makes it so hard for small farmers to function- they would never feed us- not even one city. Apparently even fish isn't a good choice- if you're not worried about mercury poisoning, or alarmed at how devastatingly commercial fishing ravages the ocean (killing hundreds of species for each one they actually keep), farm-raised fish isn't all that better: the conditions on fish farms are just as bad for the animals as those in land-based facilities, and are even less regulated. Foer makes it sound like the only way to avoid being part of all this nastiness and horror is to simply not eat meat. For the first time it sounds like a proper idea to me.

This book was written a decade ago- I'd like to think that things have improved, but I'm rather pessimistic about that. However, there are at least two restaurants near me that specialize in farm-to-table fare, we are definitely going to patronize them although it's expensive (for good reason) I will just eat out less. As if I did much before, anyway.

Rating: 4/5              341 pages, 2009

more opinions:
words by Annie
So Many Books
Stuff as Dreams Are Made On

Bringing Nature Home

How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants
by Douglas W. Tallamy

This one was great. Just what I needed. Stuffed full of information and beautifully clear photographs. It's not necessarily about how to select plants, but instead focused on why homeowners need to reintroduce native plants to their land, and weed out aliens as much as possible. I've never been a purist in my gardening. I've always though ok: natives are good, feed the birds, but I like some striking, pretty plants that don't get eaten by the deer too. Although I haven't got very far in filling my yard with the perennials and shrubs I had my eye on yet, and a good thing I guess. This book has convinced me I'd do better with buttonbush than butterfly bush, and to really value the maples, oaks and crabapple in my yard- in spite of the mess they make with dropped seeds and small hard fruit.

His main point is that in order to support the wildlife we like seeing- the mammals- squirrels, rabbits, deer, foxes - and particularly the birds- we need to have plants that support the bugs. Because all the small creepy crawly things eat the plants and turn the value of the sun's energy trapped in plants into a major food source (their own bodies) for the birds. Most birds feed their young on insects, period. And he points out that the damage insects do to plants is usually minor enough that most gardeners don't notice it, if you have a good balance so there are enough predators attracted (birds, spiders, assassin bugs etc) to eat them! And he shows the scientific data that no matter how long an alien species of plant has been on our continent, the insect life here is not adapted to feed off it, and will take such a long time to do so it's pointless to consider. I didn't realize.

So a major part of the book is a gallery of photos showing all the little critters you might not notice in the yard, making a note of why they are important to the bird life (and other things), and what plants support them. There's also a section on trees, which native trees are the most valuable in terms of supporting wildlife- some feed literally hundreds of different species. I really like reading through the pages on insects. I learned some astonishing things, and found info on bugs I've seen in my own yard, but knew nothing about before. Did you know there are female insects that care for their young? some will guard the eggs from predators, others guard the nymphs, and one will lay its eggs near another female's clutch, then leave so the first female cares for them all! Did you know the female white tussock moth has no wings? I've seen their caterpillars a few times, had no idea. Did you know that monarch caterpillars can feed on more than just milkweed? any plant in the same family will do- and there's quite a few of them. So, so much more.

I paid to read this one, that's how much it galvanized me. I kept it beyond the due date (when someone else obviously wanted it- I couldn't renew) so I could finish reading, take notes, and find a copy machine for those lists of plants in my region that have the highest wildlife value (supporting the greatest number of insect and thus bird life). I really want to find a copy to add to my personal collection, so I can reference it often. I'm not going to stop trying to keep the bugs from ruining my vegetable garden, but if I plant more perennials and flowers around the yard they can eat, maybe they won't be so attracted to my little patch of edibles. And this book shows me how.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 5/5                  358 pages, 2007

Common Sense Organic Gardening

by Warner and Lucile Bowers

In spite of being old, this book was pretty interesting and gave me some new ideas. It was written by an older couple who were very avid gardeners- their neighbors thought them crazy about it ha- and their enthusiasm really comes through the pages. They write mostly about labor-saving methods and how they grew produce organically for health benefits. Their main emphasis was using tons of thick mulch- made from shredded leaves- we're talking over a thousand bushels a year that they processed- and salt hay. After the first year they never had to till and barely weeded their garden. Interesting to me, they didn't grow a ton of vegetables but focused on exotics and curiosities that weren't available in grocery stores, and put most of their home made compost not on the kitchen garden but on their beloved fruit trees and roses. I was impressed at the output of those peaches and more. Some of the information is outdated -to be expected- but I was pretty surprised to read that while they definitely eschewed using poisons to control insect pests (except for one or twice-yearly spraying of the fruit trees), had no qualms about shoveling up sand from roadsides after winter, to use in their soil mix! (They did leach out the salts with water and use soap to remove most of the motor oil residue, but still. I would not.) And they scoffed at being told not to use landscaping plastic because it doesn't biodegrade, pointing out the many tatters and tears in plastics they had tried using- I assume nobody knew about microplastics at the time. I admired their thriftiness and zeal for building things- but dismayed that their favorite seedling container was styrofoam coffee cups!

Anyway, it was nice to read about all their methods, favorite tools, preferred ways to tend to plants- comparing to what I do and taking away a few new concepts. They built and used cold frames, made trellises out of discarded items like hat racks and metal screen door decorations, built birdhouses and feeders, grew many varieties of berries and grapes, made liqueurs and wine, etc. Their outright enthusiasm for propagating plants from cuttings or sprouting things out of seeds from what they ate- just to see if it would grow- delighted me- I'm of the same mind. I never thought of taking cuttings from chrysanthemums, I haven't yet tried air-layering to save my dracanea which is about to hit the ceiling, and I'd love to have a huge shaded fern collection or figs in pots like they did. Much to admire.

Oh, and there's recipes! Not my usual style of cooking, but I'd like to try a few.

Rating: 3/5               224 pages, 1974

Cultivating Delight

A Natural History of My Garden
by Diane Ackerman

This is probably the most introspective gardening book I've ever read. Full of the author's musings about her garden and lavish descriptions of it, arranged mostly by seasons. Unlike mine, hers is a flower and cutting garden, and her main passion is roses. But she's in a nearby locale, so I did find most of the plant names familiar and could picture them with ease. Some parts of the book are just a delight to read- Ackerman is a poet, and a lot of the prose just sings to the beauty of the natural world. But- it feels really uneven and there were many occasions where I had to sit back and read a line several times, or even skip a few pages. She interjects freely ideas on other subjects, and it's sometimes not clear at first how they relate to the plants or natural processes she's discussing. Sometimes the tangents veer a lot- I really didn't need to read two pages about all the different vendors at the outdoor market in her neighborhood, or how the handyman diagnosed an odor emanating from under her house, for example. I could see the delight in one, and the metaphor in the other- but the relation to gardening felt a bit of a stretch, and it certainly stretched my attention span. Also there were times where her phrasing or word choice really threw me off. For example, the very first line of the book tells how seductive the rituals of gardening can be- how I agree- but then mentions things I don't think of as rituals at all: mending a broken gate, transplanting a shrub to a better location. Those seem more like- repairs and one-time tasks to me. My rituals are things like making selections from the catalogs, disinfecting the pots, setting up the coldframe, planting the seedlings . . . I'd hope one doesn't have to replace a gate every year! Maybe I'm being a bit harsh- but this really started the book off on a poor note for me. She goes on for pages about John Muir, and Thomas Jefferson, and later Gertrude Jekyll- but I'd rather read a separate book about those admirable people, myself. Mostly, she goes on and on about the roses. How lovely her garden sounds, but she talks little about tending to it so the reader cannot learn much, only look on with envy. I don't know that I've ever read another book about someone's garden and come away mostly with a feeling of envy. Really it sounds like she spends all her time swooning over the flowers and then bringing them into her house to swoon some more. Of course, she is writing about what she loves, and probably just chose not to include details about the humdrum chores of gardening or the mistakes made. I did really enjoy the passages she wrote about observing birds in her garden, and was full of curiosity when she described live-trapping squirrels to tag them for a scientific study- but then no mention was made of the study's purpose or the results. I guess that's in another book somewhere else. Argh, I"m feeling rather cranky- perhaps it's nothing to do with this book, but just the cold virus I'm getting over. I am keeping this one on my shelf regardless, maybe I will like it better at another time further on.

Rating: 2/5                 261 pages, 2001

We Made a Garden

by Margery Fish

Charming little book about how the author and her husband Walter built a garden on a property in Somerset, England. I really enjoy reading about her forays into gardening later in life- and relating how she used to not understand her gardening friends who spent so much time out there working in it. Her love of the plants and excitement at trying something new really shines through the pages. Of course, being on a different continent, a lot of the plant names were totally unfamiliar to me, and the climate is different so there was quite a bit I couldn't relate to. She does a lot of rockwork in her garden- building walls and paths, planting succulents and other things in rock gardens and wall crevices. I couldn't relate much to that, either but it sounded nice. But I also have heavy clay soil so I appreciated reading about how she improved her soil. I really wish I could have my compost heap on a slightly tilted concrete slab with drainage to catch leacheate at the bottom, nicely screened by selected shrubs!

A lot of the amusement in reading this book came from the subtle antagonism between Margery and her husband. He sounds like a very domineering person, whose color choices always took precedent in the garden over hers, whose ideas of straight lines and proper plants supplanted her fondness for creeping things and interesting foliage. He at times callously took over and used a spot she had been preparing for her own choices all winter, or lopped off the heads of flowers she had been growing, because he didn't like the way they looked! She accepted all this, but remarks that after he passed away, she changed the color scheme of the flower beds and planted all the creeping things she wanted. There was one brief comment about how she envied men "their pockets" to carry secateurs around in! that neatly places this book in its era. Women's clothes did not even have pockets; heavy labor and decision-making was left to the garden help and the man of the house. I got a chuckle out of the way she used an old sharpened sword to cut down masses of flowers in one go, that were past their prime and needed trimming!

It would have been nice to see some illustrations of the plants, especially since I am unfamiliar with most, while their combinations are mentioned so favorably. There are some black and white photographs of the actual property and garden in my edition, but while the lushness of growth is very apparent, it is hard to really appreciate the beauty this garden must have been.

Rating: 3/5           120 pages, 1956

More opinions: Captive Reader

Folks, This Ain't Normal

by Joel Salatin

Joel Salatin runs an organic farm in Shenandoah Valley that amazes me- the systems he has worked out to cycle all the nutrients, to have the animals and crops support each other. I've wanted to read one of his books since I saw him speak in part of a film.

This book is all about what's wrong with our current food system. He discusses so much: how people ought to live closer to the land, be in connection with the food they eat, store up for winter, etc. How kids need to be involved in household chores. How ruinous packaging is to the environment. That pasture-feed beef is actually better for the environment that turning to a completely vegetarian diet (I hadn't heard this before). Raising cattle for food isn't good or bad, depends on how it's managed. Questioning how healthy soy products are (really?). The glories of compost. The preciousness of water. The horrors of GMO's. The immense difficulties small farms face in getting their products to consumers- regulations and rules tying their hands every step of the way, it sounds like. I didn't know that chickens are omnivores- in warm months of course they eat insects, in the winter it used to be common for farm boys to kill rats, squirrels, etc. to feed the chickens protein once a week. I'm sad to read about older farmers desperate to find a young person who will take their land and continue to farm on it- because often their kids don't want to. I learned why Virginia has famous ham- the climate is perfect for butchering hogs. If food is too preserved to start rotting when left out on your kitchen counter, Salatin thinks you shouldn't be eating it! He details a lot of reasons why chemical fertilizers became common usage, that I had not considered before. He says that properly grazed fields build soil faster and sequester carbon better than forests- using his own land as an example. And that's just a little sample of the subjects covered in here. I'm not sure if I agree with all his statements or ideas, and a lot of it sparks further reading. I'm definitely interested in a few of his other titles now: Everything I Want to Do is Illegal and The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Famer.

The only thing I didn't like about the book is it feels like it was drawn from TED talks he gave. He stuffs it with a ton of information- a lot of it quite brief, but really gets your mind racing with questions. Not a lot of detailed sources or data to back it all up- and he gets pretty worked up about certain subjects. Railing on big businesses and government decisions, often interjecting side remarks and comments like "let's get real, folks" and "come on, now!" I would have appreciated more in-depth examinations of the subject matter.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5            361 pages, 2011

more opinions:
Book Nook Club
anyone else?

Home Ground

A Gardener's Miscellany
by Allen Lacy

Enjoyed this one very much. It's another collection of little gardening essays, a man speaking from his own experience. He is obsessed with daffodils, praises or criticizes a great many other plants, expresses irritation at silly-sounding plants names in catalogs and limited selection in nursery stock. Describes many doings in his own yard and garden, and also describes a few others that he knew well- even if he never met the gardener. Each little essay feels too short- but rich with insight and lively with humor (even if he's poking gentle fun at himself). I definitely want to find more of his writings.

Rating: 4/5           259 pages, 1980