The Pictorial Guide to Seeds of the World

What a coincidence that Mark from Mark’s Veg Plot has just posted a book review as just like him I have been approached to review a book too!

The book that I was sent was The Pictorial Guide to Seeds of the World. It’s a newly published book by Terry Woodger. Terry is a professional horticulturalist and botanist based in Australia who for ten years had his own seed collection business.

I know lots of you regularly collect your own seed so this could well be a book for you. I must admit that I have never really got into collecting in a serious way but having browsed this book then I think I may be missing a trick and am inspired to have a go.

My first impression of the book was that it looked inviting. The cover is attractive and appropriately represents the content. The content is clearly presented, it is uncluttered and the print large enough to read comfortably but not so large that it has the look of a school reading book.

The book doesn’t claim to cover every seed in the world - this would be impossible - but it does cover a very significant number, most of which are illustrated by scaled photographs. I do like to have plenty of photos in this type of book.

Although the book doesn’t go above your head by being too scientific the introduction includes an outline of the types of fruit (seed cases) that you may come across. I now can impress people by knowing that a drupelet is one of the tiny cluster of berries that make up a raspberry

Chapter One covers methods that can be used to collect seeds including use of a tennis racquet or a small vacuum cleaner.

The main reference section is divided into chapters covering vegetables, herb & spices, garden flowers, fruit & trees, shrubs and vines. Within each section seeds are grouped according to plant family and referred to by both their common and botanical names.

Are any of these the beans you are looking for Tanya?

Finally is a section on how to clean and store seeds including descriptions of pests and fungus that can affect seed storage and suggestions for how to combat them.

Although Terry does mention professional seed collection and preparation equipment  most of the equipment suggested is either home made or uses items readily available in the home so there is no need to go out spending a fortune on ‘proper’ kit.

So to sum up the book is reader-friendly. As I already mentioned, it doesn’t complicate matters by being too scientific but neither is it too basic.

This isn’t a book to read from cover to cover - after reading sections relating to collection, cleaning and storage of seeds, the main sections which describes each seed is more for dipping in and out of for reference purposes.

Although on the face of it this is quite expensive for a paperback, I can understand why. I know from experience how difficult it is to get photographs of seeds of a good quality and then to add a scale to each and gather together all the information must have taken years. 

It may even encourage me to be adventurous and have a go at growing  new plants from collected seed, If I do then you will be sure to hear about it.

A generous section of the contents can be viewed here

If you're interested the book can be bought at Amazon UK

The Pictorial Guide to Seeds of the World: An Introduction into the Collection, Cleaning, and Storage of Seeds

 or Amazon US 

The Pictorial Guide to Seeds of the World: An Introduction into the Collection, Cleaning, and Storage of Seeds

and no doubt other Amazons too!

Dead or alive?

In 2006 we planted a couple of figs in large tubs. One was placed in the garden and the other on the allotment and until this year all was well and they were growing strongly.

They stayed outside each winter and each summer new growth appeared.

They didn’t produce any useable figs but we could wait and the plants looked great anyway.

All seemed well until this spring when it seemed that both figs had been casualties of last winter’s big freeze.

We waited ‘just in case’ but there was no sign of any regrowth on either plant and so I decided to give up waiting and put something alive in the pot in the garden. If anything was going to happen and the plant wasn't completely dead, I guessed that by early summer there should be some sign of life 

Before emptying the pot I decided to cut down the stems but as I started cutting I noticed that the stems were green under the bark and the twigs that I'd started to cut back didn’t seem brittle or dead in the centre.

Deciding to give the plant a bit more time I trimmed back the branches to what seemed to be viable wood. I scraped some of the old compost from the top of the pot and freshened it up with new compost, just to give it an added incentive to grow. So was it dead or alive? 

Nothing happened so we figured that maybe it was dead after all. Then, on September 9, as we were sitting by the plant having a coffee, I noticed some tiny green blobs on the ends of some of the branches.

Looking more closely it seemed that some tiny figs were developing on the ‘dead’ branches, which indicated that the plant wasn't yet completely dead. 

Well yesterday the fig looked like this:

Some of the tiny figs have grown bigger and some leaf buds have developed. So the plant is definitely alive. Now I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens next spring but we'll be popping the plant into the greenhouse over winter to give it a better chance - it deserves it.

This plant seems to have been in aestivation* - wonder if it was the drought conditions and the fact that we had given up on it and not given it any water. Maybe the rain broke the dormancy. Anyway the will to live was obviously strong!

As for the plant at the allotment - well that is definitely dead - I think - but maybe I shouldn’t throw it on the compost heap just yet. Well you never know do you?


*opposite of hibernation i.e. sleep through summer

September Strawberries

Yesterday was our first visit to the plot after our week away in Wales. Our main intentions were to do some tidying up and harvesting of anything that was ready and waiting.

You may remember that we created a new strawberry bed this year using four different varieties to try and extend our strawberry picking season.

Well this has sort of worked - we have been picking strawberries from our Marshmello plants for quite a while now - no real glut just a steady supply. We even had some lovely ripe fruits ready for picking yesterday.

The only thing is that Marshmello is a mid-season variety and so shouldn’t really be fruiting now!- - and fruiting well! We have missed some of the fruits which have gone soft and mouldy in our absence but still have a good sized punnet to take home.

Marshmello

We have had a few fruits from our late season variety - Amelia although some of these plants don’t seem to be thriving (lucky I rooted some runners) - but we haven’t had any fruits from Flamenco our everbearing variety and only one or two fruits from the early variety Marshmarvel.

Amelia

I know we haven’t mixed up the plants as we were really careful this time to keep the plants separated.

I don’t really know what to make of this other than it is just the plants settling down to their first growing season - a season that has been unusual to say the least.

We also picked a punnet of raspberries, a cucumber, which is likely to be the last, and some carrots - yes we have managed to get some carrots but they are rather small and nothing like the amount we have come to expect!