Over the last month I have been catching up on my reading. For a while I hadn't touched a book, as whatever I picked up seemed to be recycled material.
With a renewed sense of optimism I was happy to peruse two books high on the "must read" list. Unfortunately they seem to be pretty much carbon copies of each other. Tomorrow's Garden and High Impact, Low Carbon Gardening are both grab bags of everything new and hot in the gardening world. Both have ample anecdotes and profiles of folks involved in sub-cultures of the industry. Both have a bevy of great pictures and serve as introductions to the broader gardening world. Want to know more about edible gardens or using gravel in gardens, these are your "gateway books".
Admittedly High Impact, Low Carbon Gardening delves a bit more into progressive materials (ex. cob) and systems (aquaponics) than Tomorrow's Garden, but not enough content is there to truly distinguish it.
So after those two I was ready for something to really sink my teeth into. Next up was The vegetable gardener's guide to permaculture : creating an edible ecosystem by Christopher Shein & Julie Thompson.
More of the same. Another book which doesn't cover new ground, this one introduces, summarizes, and presents information which can be found in the landmark texts it references (like Edible Forest Garden by Jacke, Permaculture Principles by Holgren, Edible Landscaping by Creasy and several Mollison books).
So there you go, no standouts this time. As for me I will need a break from books for a while!
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