Now THIS is reading weather…

With rain predicted through the end of this week (and with credits at both Island bookstores), I decided to ask some of the Island’s best gardeners & farmers for a list of their favorite garden books. And I checked on availability of many of these through the King County Library System (more on that below).

(PS: As the rain just WON’T quit, I also got online and ordered seed catalogs. Most catalogs are bulk-mailed this month, so get on their lists now. For me, some Must-Haves are Territorial Seed Company* (which bought Abundant Life Seed Foundation of Port Townsend, another good one), Johnny’s Seed Co., and The Cook’s Garden* (*Local stores will offer their seeds in carousel racks later this winter.)

Thanks to Joanne Jewell of Plum Forest Farm, Chandler Briggs of Island Meadow, Chris Greenlee, Mark Musick, Nancy Lewis-Williams, Cathy Fulton, March Twisdale, Julia Lakey, Michelle Crawford, Colleen James, and Anita Halstead for sharing your favorites!

Favs of the Farmers

These first two are touchstones of my own library. The last book, I’ve checked out at least twice when I’ve had a good growing summer (which is about two months too late, as you’ll see).

Steve Solomon’s “Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades” and “Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times.”  Do ALL our local farmers have this book? It’s now in its sixth edition (2007); Chris Greenlee says “Much of what Steve wrote about earlier, he’s refuted in his later versions.” Hummm… might be time to retire my 1989 copy.

“The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide” by Seattle Tilth. This year-round guide to growing organically in the Seattle climate delivers a ton of information within helpful month-to-month “To-Do” chapters. Islanders Rob Peterson, Joanne Jewell, and Kathryn True all worked on the 1998 edition, and Joanne reports that a new edition is in the works. 

Binda Colebrook’s “Winter Gardening in the Pacific Northwest.” Lots of personal observations on vegetables and techniques that work for the winter garden. TIP: if there’s the chance you might want to extend your growing season, get this NOW and read by July.

More on Growing:

I was thrilled to find at Granny’s last week John Jeavons’ classic on bio-intensive gardening “How to Grow more Vegetables.” Some of my correspondents liked:

“Better Vegetables Gardens, the Chinese Way” by Peter Chan. Chris Greenlee says “I love the simplicity.”

John Seymour’s “The (New) Self-Sufficient Gardener.” Joanne Jewell: “It’s so beautiful, and it’s good for home gardeners.” Amply illustrated, like all DK publications.

“Gaia’s Garden” by Toby Hebenway. Cathy Fulton (Mariposa Gardens, the Compost Fest) says “This is a very accessible book about permaculture. I checked it out of the library three times, then gave up and bought it.”

Anything by Eliot Coleman, says Chandler Briggs: “The New Organic Grower” and “Four-Season Harvest.”  Fascinating tools and techniques of an extremely successful organic grower in New England.

Nancy Bubel’s “Seed-Starting” and “Root-Cellaring” are essential handbooks for Nancy Lewis-Williams, who will rerun her popular vegetable growing classes this March.

Michelle Crawford, tomato diva of Pacific Potager, recommends “The Art of French Vegetable Gardening” by Louisa Jones.  Beautiful photos of all seasons of the ornamental kitchen garden, with great text; I first saw this awesome book at Michelle’s “Kitchen Potager Salon” last February. She also likes “Organic Farming” by Nicolas Lampkin… an English book, but similar to our climate. ” I must have read it 7 times.  Very good explanation of soil chemistry, how nutrients are released, etc. “ 

Links to our Land

As I’ve said before, Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma” pushed me to grow more of my own food, rather than depend on “industrial food.” And as one season bends toward another, I felt kinship with Carol Williams as she gardens and writes up a year in her bio-dynamically influenced backyard, in “Bringing the Garden to Life.”

For his winter inspiration, Chandler Briggs is reading Wendell Berry’s “The Unsettling of America” and Wes Jackson’s “Becoming Native to This Place.” 

Speaking of being in place, Anita Halstead loves “The Authentic Garden: Five Principles for Cultivating a Sense of Place” by Claire Sawyers: a book about seeking design inspiration not in Europe or Asia, but in the environs we live in.

Lewis-Williams is savoring “Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate” by Wendy Johnson, a Zen Buddhist who is Head Gardener at San Francisco’s Green Culch Farm Center. “It’s one of those books you read a few pages at a time to make it last.”

Eye-Candy: Ornamentals

Les this list become dominated by vegetables, I asked Master Gardener Colleen James, whose Burton perennial garden was profiled here a few weeks ago, to contribute a few. 

One of them, I had just read: “Perennials: the Gardener’s Resource” by Susan Carter, Bob Lily and Carrie Becker. “This has replaced the Sunset book as far as perennials go,” Colleen opined. This coffee-table reference is written by three local experts, covering 2700 species and cultivars, their demands, upkeep, and performance, with commentary.

“Anything by Beth Chatto: her “Drought-Resistant Planting Through the Year” on gravel gardening is what really got me going,” said Colleen. “She turned a parking lot into this big drought-tolerant planting of all these flowering, gorgeous ornamentals—and she never waters.”

James also turns to Jane Taylor’s “Plants for Dry Gardens: Beating the Drought”  (“we’re only going to see more drought in the future”), “Covering Ground” about ground covers by Barbara W. Ellis, and “Seedheads in the Garden” by Noel Kingsbury.

Another from Nancy Lewis-Williams is “Passionate Gardening” by Lauren Springer and Rob Proctor. It too “emphasizes perennials for low water and extreme climates. And it’s got great photos to drool over.”

Garden Design

When I need to design a large area, I often have a stroll through “The Book of Garden Design” by English designer John Brookes. And like Anita Halstead, I find local writers Ann Lovejoy’s “Organic Garden Design School” and Valerie Easton’s “A Pattern Garden” both full of eye-candy—much of it from around Seattle—and practical hort advice.

Postscript

I checked on many of these books in the King County Library System and found high demand for a few—Colebrooks’s on Winter Gardening and “Root Cellaring”—and Seattle Tilth’s book has 19 holds on its few copies, so you might as well buy it.

Finally, I want to thank Julia Lakey, she GAVE me one of her favorite books: “Let It Rot” by Stu Campbell. I find reading about compost wonderfully soothing: its litany “1 part browns to 1 parts greens” so comforting and familiar, I suspect this book will lull me right into that other guilty pleasure of January, a long winter’s nap.

Happy, Fruitful Reading!

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