1,001 Old-Time Garden Tips: Timeless Bits of Wisdom on How to Grow Everything Organically, from the Good Old Days When Everyone Did [Hardcover]

Roger Yepsen (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 1998

Discover the secrets of old-time gardeners and their time-tested organic techniques to make a garden grow more beautiful and bountiful. "1,001 Old-Time Garden Tips" features an incredible selection of advice from successful 17th-, 18th-, 19th-, and early 20th-century gardeners on everything from how to read weather signs to how to improve soil quality, plus recipes for tasty dishes, drinks, and herbal seasonings. 150 illustrations Targeted national ads. .

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

1,001 Old-Time Garden Tips

Timeless Bits of Wisdom on How to Grow Everything Organically, from the Good Old Days When Everyone Did

Old-time gardeners were ahead of their time! Their ideas for wildflower gardens, children's gardens, organic pest controls, decorating with houseplants, healing with herbs, and more are at the forefront of modern gardening trends. Take a look back to the future of gardening with this incredible collection of gardening advice from successful 17th-, 18th-, 19th-, and early 20th-century gardeners.

Early gardeners knew what they were doing--they had to, since they depended on their plants for food, medicine, home decorations, and recreation! Whether you're growing vegetables, flowers, herbs, fruits, trees, shrubs, wildflowers, houseplants, or lawn grass, these old-time tips will help you get the most out of your plantings. Do you want a lusher lawn? How about more beautiful flowerbeds or hints for making your yard look bigger? You'll find all that and more in 1,001 Old-Time Garden Tips.

Learn how to read weather signs, improve your soil organically, hide landscape eyesores with ease, decorate your home with flowering vines, and soothe sore joints with herbal remedies. Discover creative ways to landscape your home with fanciful topiary tree houses or practical hedges and windbreaks. From fruits to nuts and artichokes to watermelons, you'll find recommendations for healthier harvests--not to mention recipes for unique and tasty side dishes, drinks, and herbal seasonings. Plus: hundreds of organic techniques that have been proven effective by generations of great gardeners! Look for these special features and more:

* "Old-Time Wisdom" boxes present early gardeners' best planting notions.
* Tried-and-true recipes from early kitchens will tickle your tastebuds.
* "Strange but True" boxes reveal weird, wacky, and wonderful gardening techniques.
* A source list makes it easy to locate wonderful old-time plants.
* Authentic old-time illustrations take you back to a time when garden tips were on everyone's lips.
* A "Recommended Reading" list guides you to more great ideas from the past.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

You've never seen a book like

1,001 Old-Time Garden Tips!

"Never has so much heirloom gardening wisdom been gathered together in such an accessible format." --Tovah Martin Author of Well-Clad Windowsills and Tasha Tudor's Garden

"An old gardener's proverb quoted in 1,001 Old-Time Garden Tips recommends 'manuring with brains' as well as with spades. The hundreds of hard-earned, time-tested, and well-gleaned tips in this collection will certainly help today's gardeners do just that!" --Pat Stone Editor of GreenPrints magazine and author of Real Gardeners' True Confessions

"The ideas in 1,001 Old-Time Garden Tips prove that many gardening notions we think of as stylishly new have been around for hundreds of years. It is difficult to turn a page without finding a recipe or project to try or a timeless observation that makes you smile. My favorite part is the collection of ingenious tool ideas, but the entire book is packed with fascinating facts and gardening fun." --Barbara Pleasant Author of The Gardener's Bug Book and Warm-Climate Gardening

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books (January 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875967663
• ISBN-13: 978-0875967660
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #152,957 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I work as a freelancer writer, editor, and illustrator out of an old stone farmhouse in Berks County, Pennsylvania. I love to write, like very much to edit, and have a difficult relationship with watercolor. For a look at my projects, please check out www.rogeryepsen.com, from which autographed copies are available.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

114 of 116 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new gardening jewel!, September 22, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1,001 Old-Time Garden Tips: Timeless Bits of Wisdom on How to Grow Everything Organically, from the Good Old Days When Everyone Did (Hardcover)

What a jewel! This book is a well-organized, illustrated collection of OLD gardening tips, including everything from herbs to houseplants to lawns to controlling pests. Paragraph-long entries end with their original publication sources--which are almost as interesting as the advice. The suggestions are timeless. I find I "hear" my grandparents' wisdom about plants on every other page. This book will definitely hit my list of favorite books to give as a gift--but I'll always save a copy for myself.

68 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Full of ideas not easily found in other resource books., November 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: 1,001 Old-Time Garden Tips: Timeless Bits of Wisdom on How to Grow Everything Organically, from the Good Old Days When Everyone Did (Hardcover)

This book is a joy to pick up when you're bored or looking for gardening ideas or help. I especially enjoy the "Strange But True" sections. New and Long time gardeners will enjoy this publication.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Terrific, Highy Useful Book!!, June 21, 2003

By 

Thomas L. Ogren (San Luis Obispo, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 1,001 Old-Time Garden Tips: Timeless Bits of Wisdom on How to Grow Everything Organically, from the Good Old Days When Everyone Did (Paperback)

1001 Old Time Garden Tips
I enjoyed this book very much, and find that it is one of those gardening books that I keep going back to for new advice.
What is interesting about 1001 Old Time Garden Tips is that so much of the advice, the tips, so much is old stuff, good old advice that has often been forgotten. I do landscaping, design work, horticultural consulting, and am a garden writer myself ( Allergy-Free Gardening, and most recently, Safe Sex in the Garden ) and I love to have good, solid, informative, well-written gardening books on hand for quick reference.
The longer I garden ( and I've been at it for close to 5 decades now ) the more I appreciate an organic approach. 1001 Old Time Garden Tips: Timeless Bits of Wisdom on How to Grow Everything Organically, from the Good Old Days When Everyone Did, sure has the longest title I ever saw! But it is also a mighty good, easy to follow, highly useful book and if you garden, I'm almost certain you'd enjoy owning it. I know I sure like my copy. The editor for this great collection of useful tips and advice, Roger Yepsen, has done a terrific job.