Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Fantastic book for those looking to start saving seed

Customer Rating:

I have gotten so much use out of this book, even long before trying to save seeds. It is very detailed and a wonderful resource of information on various veggies (also includes some other plants). When choosing what seeds to order for my garden, this book was constantly at my side. Now, I am confident in its clearness, user friendly style, and wealth of information and am ready to make saving garden seed a regular gardening task. Very happy with this book!

Great book	Customer Rating:
This book is great. It covers everything you could need to know about saving seed and when to plant for your area. I highly recommend it!

Seed to Seed

Customer Rating:

This is perhaps the best book on the subject of raising heirloom plants and then harvesting the seed. It explains in detail procedures for timing, protecting from undesirable cross pollination, and harvesting seed. I would recommend to the author that at the end of every plant type (genus) that a summary chart that is easy to identify be placed. Large plant groups like beans, for instance, had all of the information I needed but sometimes it was difficult to locate quickly. This summary could also list more concisely other plants that might appear to be questionable as companion plants but are actually safe options. For instance the tomato section talks about the potato leaf varieties being okay to mix with others, as there is little chance of crossing but specific names would clarify which is which. Nonetheless, I have gleaned huge amounts of information from this book and it is an exceptional resource for the seed saver.

great resource even if it's not exhaustive

Customer Rating:

When I was growing up, my family and extended family bought vegetable and flower seeds every year. I always wondered why we didn't keep any of the seeds to plant the next year instead of buying more. I didn't realize that the seeds of these hybrid varieties would not germinate and produce plants. It's hard to be self-sufficient and self-reliant when you are dependent on seed companies for next year's harvest. Seed to seed is the answer to the question of self-sustaining food production. This book provides instructions on how to grow vegetables from seeds, control pollination (and avoid unwanted cross-pollination), harvest and preserve seeds from the garden plants, and how to store those seeds for future gardens. Keep in mind that there is no information on how to obtain fertile seeds from plants raised from seed company seeds. In order to practice the principles taught in this book, a gardener must use seed from open-pollinated varieties. Such seeds are available from seed banks or seed exchanges--like Seed Saver's Exchange, the book's publisher. I'm sure that this book does not discuss every plant (and does not discuss flowers at all) that gardener may want to grow, but the principles are sound and can be applied to plants that are not found in the book. All in all this is an excellent reference that will help produce self-sufficient gardeners.

Major Reference Book for the Gardener	Customer Rating:
This is a major reference book to keep on the gardener's bookshelf. Also, tells me why I should think about open pollinated vegetable plants. I spend easy a hundred dollars a year to get my garden in top form. Using the information in this book, could easily cut the cost down by one half.