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A review by rainbowofcrazy
The Manual of Seed Saving: Harvesting, Storing, and Sowing Techniques for Vegetables, Herbs, and Fruits by Andrea Heistinger
informative
medium-paced
4.0
This was a pretty interesting book on the process of seed saving. The book is divided into different sections on different plants so it's easy to find what you're looking for. The beginning goes through why you might want to save your own seeds, and a whole thing about crop diversity. A whoooole thing. It really focuses on growing specifically for saving seeds, not necessarily growing for eating, so it goes into depth about things like how to avoid cross pollination and really recommends having MANY plants of one variety to have the best seeds saved.
An example, it recommends at least 30 (ideally, 50-100) carrot plants to harvest seeds from. That.. that is a lot. This kind of aims at the hardcore seed saver, not really me, who's happy just saving a few seeds from one or two peppers from one or two plants, lol. This is like, next level seed saving, but still provides helpful information if you just want to save a few seeds and want to learn more about the process.
I liked that it provided lots of photos of different seeds so it's nice to see exactly what you're looking for. I also liked that it touches on some disease/pest issues that certain plants may come across, but I wish it gave more information about how to avoid or fix these issues, rather than just letting you know what they are.
I also really liked how it added blurbs about the history of the plants, like where it originated, how it was cultivated and how they reached other countries. Pretty spiffy info for anyone that might be interested in that. (I was!)
NGL I didn't read the ENTIRE book. I skipped through some parts, and skipped sections on plants that I really don't plan on saving seeds for. It is those books where you can probably find all this information on the internet, but if you like having a nice reference book, this is pretty great.
An example, it recommends at least 30 (ideally, 50-100) carrot plants to harvest seeds from. That.. that is a lot. This kind of aims at the hardcore seed saver, not really me, who's happy just saving a few seeds from one or two peppers from one or two plants, lol. This is like, next level seed saving, but still provides helpful information if you just want to save a few seeds and want to learn more about the process.
I liked that it provided lots of photos of different seeds so it's nice to see exactly what you're looking for. I also liked that it touches on some disease/pest issues that certain plants may come across, but I wish it gave more information about how to avoid or fix these issues, rather than just letting you know what they are.
I also really liked how it added blurbs about the history of the plants, like where it originated, how it was cultivated and how they reached other countries. Pretty spiffy info for anyone that might be interested in that. (I was!)
NGL I didn't read the ENTIRE book. I skipped through some parts, and skipped sections on plants that I really don't plan on saving seeds for. It is those books where you can probably find all this information on the internet, but if you like having a nice reference book, this is pretty great.