For Plant Study School: Handout 1, A Bibliography

American Horticultural Society Plant Propagation: The Fully Illustrated Plant-by-Plant Manual of Practical Techniques, Toogood, Alan, © 1999 DK Adult, A nice enough book and if you get into propagation, this book is as good as the next.

Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener's & Farmer's Guide to Plant Breeding & Seed Saving , Deppe, Carol © 2000 Chelsea Green If I ever meet Carol Deppe, I'm buying her whatever she's drinking! She has written two of my favorite gardening books of this decade – this one has a delightful second half that discusses all the advantages and pitfalls of seed-saving. Full of practical advise from the pen of 'one who knows' it is a primary text on my shelf.

Heriloom Vegetable Gardening – A Master Gardener's Guide to Planting, Seed Saving and
Cultural History, Weaver, William Woys, © Henry Holt & Co Out of print but Mother Earth News sells a DVD of the whole book.

The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants, Smith Jane S. © 2009, Penguin Press HC, At one time Luther Burbank was held in the same echelon of American heroes as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison and he should be still. The man who brought us Shasta Daisies, the Burbank potato and Santa Rosa plums was truly a wizard of propagation and breeding of plants.

The Grafters' Handbook, Gardener, R. J. © 2003 (2^nd) Cassell There is no other book that compares to this book for grafting – it is out of print and the price is considerable now. Having been in print continuously from the 1800's, (the English know how to do this sort of thing, yes?) this book has it all; every thing else is a shadow of this book.

The Home Orchard, Ingels, C. et al, © 2007 UCNR Press, Failing The Grafter's Handbook this book will fill in all the data you need to know and will lead you to a productive and lovely home orchard as well. It is particularly suited to California, which is natural because it's from the University of California.

The New Seed Starter's Handbook, Bubel, Nancy © 1988, Rodale Books, The book that started me towards growing most of my plants from seed – still the authority today.

Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine, Nabhan, Gary Paul © 2008, Island Press, Gary Paul Nabhan writes a good deal about the seeds that feed us and this book is particularly poignant. The story of a Russion (Soviet) scientist and his dedication to discovering ways that would relieve hunger in the Soviet Union, only to die of starvation himself in a Soviet Gulag is riveting, allowing the reader to learn some fascinating facts about the food we live on today. A well-written book and worth the read.

david