Historical Reading List
Aquatias, P. Intensive Culture of Vegetables on the French System. London: L. Upcott Gill, 1913. This book states that “manure, water, and labor . . . constitute the backbone of intensive culture” and describes how to apply those three in the successful production of year-round vegetables.
Bailey, L. H. The Forcing Book. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897. Complete and carefully presented, this is a classic Liberty Hyde Bailey book. The bulk of his information is just as valuable today as it was back then.
Dreer, Henry A. Dreer’s Vegetables Under Glass. Philadelphia: Henry A. Dreer, 1896. Dreer was obviously skilled at his craft. In addition he had done enough traveling to comment knowledgeably on the techniques of other growers. He has an easy writing style and provides clear and concise information. This little book is a real gem.
Henderson, Peter. Gardening for Profit. New York: Orange Judd Company, 1907. This is the classic of classics. First published in 1867, it was the first American book devoted to market gardening, and it inspired a host of people to give it a try. Still a great source of information all these years later.
Kropotkin, Peter. Fields, Factories and Workshops. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1901. Kropotkin was a perceptive observer of the agricultural realities of his time. This small volume has been referred to in The Ecologist as “one of the canonical texts of the ecological tradition.”
Macself, A. J. French Intensive Gardening. London: W. H. &L. Collingridge Ltd., 1932. This is good hard data from a competent practitioner. Excellent drawings and photos are included to clearly illustrate every aspect of the craft.
McKay, C. D. The French Garden in England. London: The Daily Mail, 1909. One of the early small books that attempted to popularize the practices of the French growers. It’s nice to see such passion for the idea that small-scale food production can be a successful profession.
Newsome, T. Gold Producing Soil. Stroud: Frederick Steel & Co., 1908. This is a very enthusiastic and reasonably complete presentation of the French system.
Nussey, Helen, and Olive Cockerell. A French Garden in England. London: Stead’s Publishing House, 1909. A record of the successes and failures of a first year of intensive culture by two young women graduates of Lady Warwick’s Gardening School. A realistic account by two beginners.
Robinson, William. The Parks and Gardens of Paris. London: John Murray, 1883. You can read this wonderful old book online thanks to Google’s digital library project.
Smith, Thomas. French Gardening. London: Joseph Fels, 1909. ———. The Profitable Culture of Vegetables. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1919.
The wealthy American soap manufacturer Joseph Fels, who had been involved with providing gardens for workers in Philadelphia, bought land in England to help small-scale intensive vegetable producers get established. Thomas Smith was his farm manager. These books give a clear presentation of the successful production systems they used.
Weathers, John. French Market-Gardening. London: John Murray, 1909. Not as complete as some of the others but still worth reading because of Weathers’ extensive experience. The introduction is by William Robinson, who first brought the successes of the French growers to the attention of the English.
Winter-Harvest Reading List
Anonymous. Blocks for Transplants. Grower Guide No. 10. London: Grower Books, 1980.
———. Cucumbers. Grower Guide No. 15. London: Grower Books, 1983.
———. Lettuce Under Glass. Grower Guide No. 21. London: Grower Books, 1981.
———. Peppers and Aubergines. Grower Guide No. 3. London: Grower Books, 1986.
———. Vegetables Under Glass. Grower Guide No. 26. London: Grower Books, 1982.
The above books were written for chemical growers using mostly heated greenhouses, but the basic information is system-neutral and very complete. Grower Books, a branch of England’s leading grower’s magazine, used to publish a number of small volumes like these on a wide range of vegetable topics.
Artiss, Percy. Market Gardening. London: W. H. & L. Collingridge Limited, 1948. A little-known book by a competent grower who was almost organic without saying so. “The soil must be biologically healthy.” He gives very thorough coverage of every aspect of field and greenhouse cultivation.
Coleman, Eliot. The New Organic Grower. Revised edition. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 1995. The New Organic Grower provides indispensable background information on soil-fertility management and cultural techniques for both field and greenhouse vegetable growers. The information in The Winter Harvest Handbook complements and updates the winter-harvest chapters in this earlier book.
Gerst, Jean-Jacques. Legumes sous baches. Paris: Centre Technique Interprofessionel des Fruit et Legumes (CTIFL), 1993. The title translates as “Vegetables Under Covers.” This is a technical manual for French growers. It is professional and practical. The contents include every possible vegetable and every imaginable combination of high tunnels, low tunnels, reflective covers, floating covers, and heated and unheated greenhouses. The book is written for more temperate climates than mine, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable. If you don’t speak French it is worth learning the language or marrying a French speaker just so you can read this book.
Larcom, Joy. Oriental Vegetables. New York: Kodansha International, 1991. This is the volume we consulted when we began to explore the vast trove of potential Asian crops. Everything you ever wanted to know and more.
Lawrence, William J. C. Science and the Glasshouse. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1948. Lawrence is my favorite old-time greenhouse writer because he was so tireless in trying to pin down what did work, what didn’t, and why. His experiments are fun to read about and his conclusions are of great practical value. An earlier book of his, Seed and Potting Composts (1939), was my indispensable guide when I was trying to formulate my own potting mixes.
Nisley, Charles H. Starting Early Vegetable and Flowering Plants Under Glass. New York: Orange Judd, 1929. This is a very professional book with information on plants, horticultural techniques, and building glasshouses and frames. There are lots of black-and-white photos of the field and greenhouse vegetable industry in the 1920s.
Van den Muijzenberg, Edwin W. B. A History of Greenhouses. Wageningen, Netherlands: Privately published, 1980. The story of greenhouse development from the earliest recorded examples up through modern Dutch glasshouses makes for fascinating reading.
Wittwer, S. H., and S. Honma. Greenhouse Tomatoes, Lettuce, and Cucumbers. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1979. Although some of the material is dated, this is still a good book to introduce beginners to the techniques involved.
About the Author
Eliot Coleman has nearly 40 years of experience in all aspects of organic farming, including field vegetables, greenhouse vegetables, rotational grazing of cattle and sheep, and range poultry. He is the author of The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest. He has contributed chapters to three scientific books on organic agriculture and has written extensively on the subject since 1975. He also wrote the foreword to Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning, by the gardeners and farmers of Terre Vivant.
During his careers as a commercial market gardener, the director of agricultural research projects, and as a teacher and lecturer on organic gardening, he has studied, practiced, and perfected his craft. He served for two years as the Executive Director of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements and was an advisor to the US Department of Agriculture during their landmark 1979-80 study, Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming.
He has conducted study tours of organic farms, market gardens, orchards, and vineyards in Europe and has successfully combined European ideas with his own to develop and popularize a complete system of tools and equipment for organic vegetable growers. He shares that expertise through his lectures and writings, and has served as a tool consultant to a number of companies. He presently consults and designs tools for Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
With his wife, Barbara Damrosch, he was the host of the TV series Gardening Naturally on The Learning Channel. He and Barbara presently operate a commercial year-round market garden, in addition to horticultural research projects, at Four Season Farm in Harborside, Maine.