The Gardening Reading List

I have been working on these books for just under a year. I am not even finished with the last one yet, but I need to move on.

The last one is Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades: The Complete Guide to Organic Gardening by Steve Solomon. It's kind of slow going, at least partially because he comes across as a cranky old man. He is not yelling at you to get off of his lawn, because it is a vegetable garden, and he does want you in there, kind of, but a lot of what you think you know is wrong and it bugs him.

One reason I felt it was important to add his book is because it was specific to this region. That is still valid, but one thing that has been inspiring is to see how many of these authors are from this region, or have spent at least some time here, and how many other books have come from local publishing houses.

When I first started the list, it was really just four books. Two were more how-to in nature, and the other two were more historical, but I thought they could be inspiring. Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation by Andrea Wulf was one of those. I knew I would not have a layout similar to Mount Vernon or Monticello, but maybe I would find some interesting tidbit that would inspire me. That didn't work out as well as I hoped, largely due to an inability to forget about the slavery aspects.

However, things don't have to relate directly. The two books by Amy Stewart - The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks and Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities - proved that. I have no intention of fermenting anything or poisoning anyone, and the books were still great fun. Some of that is on the author, who really loves plants.

And plants inspire that love because they are fascinating. That also really came out in Botany for Gardeners by Brian Capon. There is a lot of science like you would have in a college classroom, but suffusing it is an awe for all of the amazing aspects of the plant kingdom, a lot of which are not common knowledge.

Those kinds of books - as much as I enjoyed them - did not really tell me what to plant. They did keep bringing up Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World in my library searches. I kept telling myself that it was enough books already, but eventually I gave in and read it. However, knowing that Pollan has another book - Second Nature: A Gardener's Education (which sounds like it would fit in even more with this list) - did not move me. I am not going to read it as part of this group. (Yes, I am sure I will read it some day.)

Because at some point, you do start wondering if you are getting anywhere. This can especially be a concern when the first book you try, Grocery Gardening by Jean Ann Van Krevelen, Amanda Thomsen, Robin Ripley and Teresa O'Connor, ends up being so very annoying. (The multiple authors should have been a clue.)

Then of course you read other books that are better, but it can turn into a sort of information overload, especially when it seems like there is a new interesting-sounding book mentioned every time you look in the gardening section of the paper. One thing you find is that there are multiple approaches.

For example, Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work by Mel Bartholomew and The Postage Stamp Vegetable Garden: Grow Tons of Organic Vegetables in Tiny Spaces and Containers by Karen Newcomb have some similarities, but they followed different development paths and have different emphases. I was more drawn to Bartholomew's book, but Newcomb's book still gave me a valuable gift.

It was almost an accident. At one point she started listing a a lot of different vegetable varieties, and it felt like overload, because I can't grow that much and how many of them would I even want? But, what if some of the vegetables I don't like are ones that I could like with the right variety grown by me? And then I realized, I could just try a couple of new ones each year. There are things I know I want, but there is also room for some experimentation.

Grow a Little Fruit Tree: Simple Pruning Techniques for Small-Space Easy-Harvest Fruit Trees by Ann Ralph had good information. I don't know that I want to use it; maybe I would be fine with just two normal size fruit trees. And I know lots of people find it a valuable technique, but I don't think I can get into espaliers. However, I don't need to decide everything right away.

Foodscaping: Practical and Innovative Ways to Create an Edible Landscape by Charlie Nardozzi could totally inspire people. I am more drawn to Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway, because it was one of the most beautiful books I've ever read and I think practicing it is how we heal the world. So, I lean toward Hemenway.

I also know that I am not going to get all of the possibilities explored and established this year. I have figured out some things I can do this year, and some steps that I can be taking now to be ready for that. And even this unfinished book has reminded me that if I am not producing enough material to compost well, that vermiculture can still be an option. So you keep learning and experimenting and building on that.

And frequently when you do that, you become very passionate and write a book about it, where people who want to really know the topic need to learn to pace themselves.