Gardening with Heirloom Seeds: Tried-and-True Flowers, Fruits, and Vegetables for a New Generation - Tapa dura

"The 'living antiques' of fruit, vegetable, and flower worlds get their due in Lynn Coulter's premier book, "Gardening with Heirloom Seeds". Through lush photography and fascinating stories about seeds lost and found, Coulter inspires the urge to plant these rare beauties, and provides some basic growing tips to boot." -- "Midwest Home" "A well-written, useful, nicely organized, and beautifully illustrated book. For die-hard gardeners who grow plants from seed, it's a great experience." --"Washington Gardener"

Heirloom seeds are more than the promise of next summer's crookneck squash or jewel-colored zinnias. They're living antiques handed down from one generation to the next, a rich inheritance of flavor and beauty from long ago and, often, far away. They are sometimes better adapted to pests and harsh conditions than many modern varieties and often simply smell or taste better. ""Gardening with Heirloom Seeds"" serves as a resource for gardeners, cooks, and plant lovers of all levels of expertise who want to know more about finding, sharing, and propagating the seeds of heirloom flowers, fruits, and vegetables. In these beautifully illustrated pages, Lynn Coulter describes fifty treasured heirloom species, from Frenchman's Darling, a flowering herb whose seeds were pocketed by Napoleon Bonaparte when he invaded Egypt in 1798, to Snow White beets, an old Dutch favorite that will not stain the cook's fingers red. Most of the plants included here will grow all across the United States; a few are best suited for warmer climates. The text is sprinkled throughout with practical advice from heirloom gardeners and lists sources for finding the seeds of many old varieties. Because it also provides ample room for making notes, ""Gardening with Heirloom Seeds"" can be used year after year and can become an heirloom in its own right - a personal journal to pass along to the next generation of gardeners.