"Gaia's Garden," by Tony Hemenway. It's about using permaculture systems to make your garden stronger, and the new second edition is full of drool-worthy color photos. I love "Farm City"! I got it just before Christmas and I'm already re-reading it. Another great farm book is "Little Heathens," by Mildred Armstrong Kalish, which reads like the Little House books updated for the 1930s. :) Seymour is amazing. I constantly re-read his "Self-Sufficient Life" book--the illustrations are magical--and I just got "Self-Sufficient Gardener" for the first time. My chicken book of choice is currently the incredibly charming "Keep Chickens" by Barbara Kilarski, but if we actually take the plunge this spring (we're thinking about), I suppose we'll get the Storey guide to keeping and raising chickens.

I"m doing the test panel this year. They ran out of the bi-colored rose before they sent this far north so I'm getting a non-test surprise instead. I do have Jacelvet, Jacdrama, and Jacsammy and so far they seem to be waking up pretty uniformly, but barely waking up. I was a little disappointed since the one I was looking most forward to was the bi-color they're out of. Thanks for the heads up on "april in paris" it was a rose I had been contemplating on getting.

Speaking of books, since we're in a tomato forum, I have a question for everyone: Do you know of a really comprehensive book on tomatoes? By that, I mean one that covers everything about tomatoes that a tomatohead might want to know. I have looked at the following, none of which (it seems to me) is quite what I have in mind: 1. Tantalizing Tomatoes , ed. by Karen Davis Cutler (New York 1997) 2. The Tomato in America, by Andrew Smith (Columbia, S.C. 1994) 3. The Great Tomato Book, by Gary Ibsen (Berkeley 1999) 4. The Great Tomato Book, by Sheila Bluff (Short Hills, N.J. 1999) (the last two books have the same title and were published in the same year; rather remarkable) 5. In Praise of Tomatoes, by Steven Shepherd (New York 1996) 6. Exploring the Tomato, by Mark Harvey, Steve Quilley and Huw Beynon (Cheltenham, U.K. 2002) 7. All About Tomatoes, by Walter L. Doty (? 1981) 8. Terrific Tomatoes, by Mimi Luebbermann and Faith Echtermeyer (? 1994) 9. 100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden, by Carolyn J. Male (New York 1999) (by far the best of the lot - :)) What I do have in mind is something broader, that would cover at least the following subjects: 1. Biology and cultivation (including different species and cultivars), 2. Genetics and genetic modification (e.g., sad story of the Flavr Savr gene), 3. Origin and evolution (your cousin the tomato), 4. World-wide diffusion and subsequent history (how did the tomato get to India and China, anyway? The English? The Portuguese? The Spanish? One author suggests early sea contact with Peru) 5. Adoption and use in different food traditions (e.g., how do tomatoes fit in with the powerful religious aspects of Indian food tradition?), 6. Health aspects (e.g., effect on prostate and lung cancer, macular degeneration, sun damage to skin), 7. Commercial and economic issues (do they really eat 200 pounds per person per year in Egypt?), 8. Connections with famous people (e.g., Ronald Reagan), 9. Film and literature (nobody should miss Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or its sequels), 10. Myths (e.g., the Robert Gibbon Johnson story) and misconceptions, 11. Tomatoes and sex (no misconceptions there, and no conceptions, either, I suppose [smile]), 12. Enthusiast organizations and festivals (the most spectacular is in Spain), 13. Etymology of popular and scientific names (where did the name lycopersicum -- Wolf Peach -- come from?), and 14. Home growing and cooking (somewhat). I know of course that there are many books on how to grow tomatoes, and many recipe books, but what I am thinking of is something broader, one that would not only contain quite a lot of information about tomatoes, but also use tomatoes as a lense to look into some of the things mentioned (history, biology, even cosmology: for example, without supernovas, tomatoes could not exist). Do you think there is a significant market for such a book? Would you buy it? At Amazon prices? As is probably obvious by now, I am considering writing such a book, and in fact already have prepared an outline and introduction. But before I put a year's work into it, I would very much appreciate any opinions anyone may have on the subject. Thanks very much, Jonathan

Great article! Thanks, Warren, for providing some good reading to get us by until spring. Hey, why is my User name all of sudden in lower case instead of EvanTN as usual? Oh well.