I love books. And generally speaking I have a cookbook and gardening book problem. I needed to deal with my overflow so I bought two of those inexpensive snap together under the bed carts the kids put in dorm rooms to store things under their beds. They are made of white wire, they are not offensive looking, and they fit nicely under the bed. Yes some have told me that I should just get rid of my books when I’m finished reading them ….but when you garden and cook you hang onto good books!

Me getting rid of gardening books that I love would be like getting rid of plants that I love. And I can’t do that. So one of my winter activities was to get the books a little better organized.

I love my gardening books and in particular I love what I have gathered over the years of vintage and antique gardening books.

I have always loved gardening books and even with the Internet at my fingertips I still refer to them more often then I might crowd source in a garden group or look something up on the Internet.

I encourage people to pick up vintage gardening books all over the place. You can find them at garage sales, flea markets, church sales, thrift stores, used bookstores, eBay, Amazon, and used book sites quite inexpensively. I’ll even shop for recent best seller gardening books that way. Occasionally I do divest myself of books and either sell them on eBay or give them away.

With the onset of a global pandemic known as COVID-19 in 2020, gardening is in vogue again. As a matter fact I have been told gardening supplies are going to become the new toilet paper.

I have started going through what I have leftover from my 2020 garden, to see what I need for 2021. Mostly I will need things like liquid kelp/seaweed fertilizer, and more vinyl tie tape for climbing things and staking.

I have a nice accumulation of actual stakes for the garden. I use the plastic coated metal and the fiberglass stakes. They are a little pricey at times but they last over for several years instead of just one year.

But back to my gardening books. I read to learn. I am not a master gardener although I am a very competent home gardener. My father always said if you can read you can learn. So I read. And I learn.

I might not sit there and study each and every gardening book like I’m going to have an exam next week but I pick them up and put them down and check out different topics of interest and plants I’m thinking of adding I’ll look them up.

I have been under the weather fighting something for the past couple of days, so I dove into some of my gardening books again.

With my vintage gardening books in particular, I love to occasionally crack them open because I have a more old-fashioned appearing garden. My garden is layered. I love natives and I especially also love heirloom plants and bulbs. Vintage and antique gardening books lead me down unexpected plant paths. And we can’t just be visual and say oh I like the way that looks in a photo, sometimes reading a description is also wonderful.

I run a really large gardening group. My group is virtual. I love the community, but you will rarely see me crowd source on what I should do in my garden. And that’s probably because I am at a different stage of gardening in my life than a lot of other people. I am more at the stage of enjoying sharing information. And a lot of what I share isn’t just personal experience, it’s nuggets of learning gleaned from gardening books.

So here we are still in winter. There is so much snow on the ground that I have no idea what my hellebores are doing or my snow drops! I can see some of my camellias are starting to bud, and my pussy willows can’t decide if they are going to pop or not, and some of my yellow native Witch hazels are blooming a little.

Spring will arrive when she’s ready. We all might be sick of snow where I live but I keep reminding myself it’s really good for the garden now and it’s the right time of year as opposed to a killer spring frost.

Tell me what you are garden dreaming of. What gardening books are you perusing? What is your favorite gardening book new or old?

Happy virtual (for now) gardening 🧑‍🌾