Paperback

If you’re new to seedsaving then Back Garden Seed Saving is absolutely the best place to start with an introduction covering the basic issues, and then crop-by-crop instructions.

Add to Basket

Paperback

This is a great book for the serious seed grower who wants to produce seed to commercial standards. It’s a US book, but the information translates across really well to the UK.

Add to Basket

Hardback

Kimball and her husband are first generation farmers on 500 acres in the Adirondacks, NY State. They run a 'full diet CSA' - families pay a yearly membership fee, and the farm provides them with all the food that they need, from meat and eggs through to maple syrup. This is her second memoir; the first (The Dirty Life) covers the years when she met Mark, her husband, and the early stages of starting the farm. This book follows them as they develop the farm, have two children, and deal with the struggles of expanding and growing the business while maintaining a functioning relationship and family life. This really struck a chord with me - I know so many 'invisible women' in farming/growing who do the vast majority of childcare while still carrying a lot of the farm work. As well as the endless hours, every penny poured into the land while house/car/everything else is starved, cooking for armies of workers & volunteers, plus in plenty of cases working a side job to bring in money to keep the whole show on the road. Too often the result of doing all this & therefore having less time on the land is that the man ends up being seen as the 'real farmer' by the outside world. It’s not all negative though - the descriptions of the farm, animals & food they produce are wonderful, and there's rather more positives than the description above might suggest!

Paperback

Absolute classic re-issued a few years ago in a 30th anniversary edition. There is so much information in this covering everything from propagation, rotation planning, tools, marketing and pretty much every other aspect of organic market gardening. US based but transfers across pretty directly.

Add to Basket

Paperback

This is written from a US perspective, and also largely focused on big scale and generally heated greenhouses. Despite this it’s the most useful book currently available that I know of for anyone looking to improve their technical understanding of protected growing. You may read it and weep over your slightly battered second hand polytunnels, but there’s an awful lot of useful information in there.

Add to Basket