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Growing Vegetables
All of us at West Coast Seeds love gardening, but being able to eat the fruits of our labour is an extra reward. Growing vegetables for use at home or for the market garden is a skill that improves every year. Whether you are a novice gardener, growing cherry tomatoes in a patio garden, or a seasoned horticulturalist trying an Heirloom seed for the first time, there is always more to learn. The books we have selected below contain valuable tips and techniques to improve your crop, your health and the environment.
100 Heirloom Tomatoes
By Carolyn J. Male
A gorgeous book for tomato snobs! Every page features a different classic tomato to breed - in wild colours and crazy shapes. Beautiful photography throughout, and fascinating history, lore and cultivation tips. 246 pages.
Grow the Best Corn
By Nancy Bubel
This helpful book offers valuable tips and tricks for getting the absolute most of every corn seed that is planted. When to plant, where to plant, how to condition the soil to the best effect, and when to fertilize. It's all in this informative little handbook. 32 pages.
Grow the Best Peppers
By Weldon Burge
This helpful book gives gardeners a wealth of tips and techniques for maximizing their sweet pepper and chile pepper crops. How and when to sow seeds, when to plant out, which varieties to do best under glass and when to harvest. More thorough and indepth than many brief chapters in gardening books, this handbook is necessary reading for all growers of pepper crops. 32 pages.
Grow the Best Tomatoes
By John Page
Everything the home gardener needs to know about tomato plants and their needs. This little handbook discusses sowing seeds indoors, containers, soil, plant support, fertilizers, pest control and many other aspects of getting the most out of tomatoes. For experienced or novice gardeners. 32 pages.
Grow Vegetables
By Alan Buckingham.
Home-grown vegetables are fresh, healthy and inexpensive. Here is the manual for growing your own, whether on your balcony, in your apartment, or in a garden, large or small. Even if you have only a few hours a week, Grow Vegetables teaches you the tools and methods you need to produce your own vegetables. This full-colour book is a wonderful gift for all growers of food. 352 pages.
Growing Great Garlic
by Ron L. Engeland
Fifteen years of organic farming experience has enabled Ron to write this, the most comprehensive book on growing garlic. He discusses everything from the history of modern garlic types to correct planting procedures and pest control. 213 pages.
Rodales Vegetable Garden Problem Solver
By Fern Marshall Bradley.
This encyclopedic collection of gardening advice is purely organic, albeit with a no-nonsense, 21st-century attitude. Extensive attention is given to cover cropping and dealing with deer damage. The vegetable entries are equally comprehensive with sections detailing Crop Basics, Secrets of Success, Preventing Problems, Regional Notes and Troubleshooting Problems. Drawings of pest-infested plants are helpful. Practical information is given on timed planting, crop rotation, barriers and repellants. Wise advice regarding prevention as the first tactic and using (organic) insecticides as a last resort. For any gardener who needs to keep track of "crucial care" for squash, how to control cucumber beetles with a vacuum cleaner, or any of the myriad details that arise every day in the garden, this book is a must. 471 pages.
Salad Leaves For All Seasons
By Charles Dowding
Small is beautiful, less is more; a salad a day - but not the supermarket way. This compendium of practical methods for growing a wide variety of salads throughout the year will inspire you to grow your own, whether on a windowsill or a garden. Here is all the information you need for productive, healthy, and tasty salads. Learn the subtleties of salad seasons and virtues of different leaves throughout the year. And when your table is groaning with the abundance of your harvests, there are delicious and imaginative recipes from Susie, Charles' wife, exploiting the fantastic flavors, color, and vitality of home-grown salad leaves. 234 pages.
The Compleat Squash
Another fantastic gift book by Amy Goldman, with lush, seductive photographs by Victor Schrager, the team that brought you The Heirloom Tomato. This coffee-table style book covers all aspects of the squash family, from zucchinis to pumpkins, with full descriptions of the various styles and types, growing details, and even recipes. The Compleat Squash is the ultimate gift book for someone who loves these vegetables or anyone who appreciates fine photography. 214 pages, full colour throughout.
The Complete Book of Garlic
By Ted Jordan Meredith
An essential element in cuisines around the world, garlic enjoys near mythic status among cooks, chefs, foodies, and enthusiasts of natural remedies. Worldwide, garlic cultivation occupies over 2 million acres of farmland, an area that has more than doubled since 1970. Yet even garlic fanciers may be unable to tell hardneck from softneck, or Purple Stripe from Rocambole, not to mention the hundreds of cultivated varieties grown today, many with distinct differences in taste and character. In fact, the wealth of garlic varieties in nearly a dozen horticultural groups rivals that of corn, carrots, apples, and peaches. This book is the most comprehensive and in-depth guide available to what surely should be the next gourmet frontier. From 'Ajo Rojo' to 'Zemo', Meredith presents illustrated profiles of nearly 150 cultivars. Detailed chapters cover natural history, the history of garlic in cultivation, the nuances of cuisine and culture, therapeutic benefits, plant structure, how to cultivate, curing and storage, taxonomy, pests and diseases, and chemistry. Especially useful are the Quick Guides, which summarize information on growing and buying garlic and provide recommendations for the best-tasting cultivars for specific uses and climates. Lists of garlic sources and organizations are a boon to the aficionado. Whether you share Ted Jordan Meredith's "garlic affliction" or just find the pungent bulb indispensable, you'll understand it as never before with this meticulously researched, lovingly written book. Beautiful bound hardcover, 330 colour pages. Great gift!
The Complete Book of Potatoes
by Hielke de Jong, Joseph Sieczka, and Walter de Jong
This really is the complete book of potaotes - a thorough exploration of potato history, biology, varieties, diseases, cultivation, nutrition, harvesting, storage, pests, and more. Illustrated with colour photographs and diagrams, this is the ultimate reference for potato growers and something of a tribute to this versatile, nutrient-rich food crop.
$43.95
The Complete Chile Pepper Book
By Dave De Witt and Paul W. Bosland
This "gardener's guide to choosing, growing, preserving, and cooking" chile peppers is an exhaustive, hardcover, full-colour, fascinating book. This is the final word on all things chile, and includes extensive notes on history, botany, soil preparation, container cultivation, diseases and pests, chemistry, chile varities, preserving the harvest, cooking with chiles, and even a thorough resources section... We have yet to see a finer book on chile peppers. It's a really excellent book. 336 pages.
The Perfect Pumpkin
By Gail Damerow
Growing, cooking and carving: it's all coverd in this extensive and thorough guide to behemoths of the vegetable garden. Filled with anecdotes, quotes and facts about pumpkins, the book also features a large and surprising receipe section nd some amazing pumpkin crafts. "...I believe this could be the best book ever published on pumpkins." - Howard Dill, pumpkin breeder from Windsor, Nova Scotia. 224 pages.
The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Growers Guide
by Steve Sando
More than ever, we crave connection to the food we eat, and growing gorgeous heirloom food has never been more accessible and fulfilling. Let Rancho Gordo founder Steve Sando win you over with his infectious enthusiasm for the humble bean.From the dusky, chocolatey Rio Zape to the rich, peanut-buttery Vallarta, the flavors — and beauty — of his favorite varieties will astonish you. So simple to grow in your own backyard and full of luscious surprises, these beans are a delight for both the gardener and the cook.In reintroducing the best of the New World heirloom beans, Sando has created a sensation, and food lovers everywhere will relish transforming this humble staple into a celebrated delicacy.
18x24cm, 180 pages.
Tomato
By Gail Harland and Trevor Cole
Tomatoes are by far the most popular edible vegetable or fruit grown in gardens- US plant nurseries and seed websites stock many more varieties of tomatoes than any other vegetable or fruit. The popularity of heirloom varieties has further fueled interest. Aimed at both food-lovers and gardeners, The Tomato Book showcases the different varieties and shows how to grow them-in pots, hanging baskets, grow bags, under glass, and outdoors-and harvest tomatoes, as well as cooking and preserving them.