Customer Reviews

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

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Vintage, antique, old-timey. Use your own choice of words to apply to collecting venerable items. Antique automobiles, vintage clothing, and heirloom seeds. All have their unique charm and attraction to certain aficionados.

Numerous authoritative books have been written about antique automobiles and vintage clothing to informally educate the reader in those subjects. Now, I'm pleased to see a book written that performs the same function for home gardeners.

My wife and I prize our ginger, brought from Hawaii in 1960 by her mother. Each fall its incredibly aromatic blooms transform our front entrance into a perfumery envied and enjoyed by all. While the ginger is a bulb rather than a seed, it is heirloom and extremely valuable to us.

Through the years, my wife and I have often stopped at old homesteads and gotten cuttings and seeds from their generous owners. These people, proud of their plants, many times have regaled us with the history of their unique plants.

Even so, I never really thought of documenting the history behind many of these rare finds that I wanted for their color, overall structure, or scent. Indeed, I had never considered many aspects of heirloom seeds, per se, until I read this wonderfully researched and informative book. I am very grateful that Lynn Coulter has taken the time and made the effort to document this information.

Most people today are familiar with Angel Trumpet (moonflower) vine, a night bloomer that is unique in its own right. But we have moonflower shrubs that came many years ago from an old homestead in Stamps, Arkansas. Their history can be traced back generations. It is the importance of these types of seeds that makes Gardening With Heirloom Seeds such a valuable, informative, and interesting book to read.

Knowing the history and availability of heirloom seeds will once again send me to my planning template as I search for just the right location to put `one more gem'. I strongly urge anyone interested in bringing a touch of the past to their modern gardens to get a copy of this book for their use and reference. It is one volume every serious gardener should have.

A must for anyone who cherishes the beauty and bounty of a garden. This book is well-written, meticulously researched, and beautifully photographed. The information and wisdom it provides on flower and vegetable varieties handed down through the generations are well worth any gardener's attention.

This is a book that should be in everyone's collection. Not only does it tell you what you need to know about heirloom seeds it has some of the most beautiful and real pictures of flowers, fruits and vegetables. The section on where to find seeds is most helpful.

This is a great book. I got it for my mom the advid gardener who loves local/organic gardening. The pictures are beautiful and there is ample knowledge for the advanced gardener.

I find myself going back to this book for reference so often while I'm researching plants to consider for planting our garden of around 1860.
I just love to read the discriptions of the plants and where they originated.

Not much more than you would get out of a seed catalog, should have been cheaper.