Winter Reading
With the holidays over, now is the time to settle down with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate. Here are a few suggestions from some of our members:
MC – My favorite to recommend is “Seeing Trees” by Nancy Ross Hugo: gorgeous photos, interesting text and views of trees you don’t otherwise get. I’m currently dawdling my way through “Planting Noah’s Garden” by Sara Stein: misadventures of a casual gardener trying to go native (learn from someone else’s mistakes). I’m also enjoying revisiting Edwin Way Teale: I read “Autumn Across America” with pleasure, part nostalgia, part the joy of learning new bits of natural history. I intend to get hold of “North With the Spring” once I finish reading “A Walk Through the Year“.
JW – I have bought two books this year that I love: “The Living Landscape” by Rick Darke and Doug Tallamy and “The Four Season Farm Gardener’s Cookbook” by Barbara Damrosch and Eliot Coleman.
“The Living Landscape” was sold at the Living Landscape symposium held at Green Spring in September where our own Laura Beaty and Alan Ford lectured. The photos alone make this a richly beautiful book, but it is the explanation of our connectedness to the natural world that make the book truly meaningful. These two authors, with intelligence and respect, describe the complexity of the natural world and the many layers of plant and animal life and our role in its protection and enrichment.
“The Four Season Farm Gardener’s Cookbook” is for vegetable gardeners and cooks in two sections. The first half of the book explains the best practices for year- round vegetable production and the second half provides recipes for the cook who will prepare the produce. Beautiful photos keep the reader focused on the perfect garden and the perfect meal.
On 3/1/2015 Green Spring will host a lecture by Jeff Lowenfels, author of “Teaming with Nutrients” and “Teaming with Microbes” (co-authored with Wayne Lewis). The organic gardener who wants to understand the science of plant nutrition and the soil food web will find these books helpful.
MF – I really love the bestsellers “Winter World” and “Summer World” by Bernd Heinrich. I also like “Noah’s Garden” by Sara Stein, “Second Nature” by Michael Pollan, and of course “Bringing Nature Home” by Tallamy.