A book review-- Plants for a future

"Plants for a future---edible and useful plants for a healthier world"

Its written by Ken Fern, published by Permanent Publications, it cost me £16.95.

This book is so useful I don't know how I could manage without it.

Ken has pulled together lots of edible plants , trees and shrubs and bunched them together in different catagories.

Such as trees and shrubs, woodland plants, walls and fences, hedges, screens and shelterbelts.

He tells you what the plant is good for , whether he has ate it or has heard of it being eaten. He gives the common names and the latin names too, which is so useful if you are tryng to trace down a plant that you know will make allthe difference to your garden.

Personally I'd go to extreme lengths to find plants that I've heard or read are good.

Byreading this book I have now generated a hit list of plants that I want to get and try, such as :- p88 garlic chives, p87 nodding garlic and daffodil garlic, p91 C. versicolor (which is a mediterranean daffodil witha very edible bulb ), p109 good king henry ( which is a native perenial plant giving vegetable leaves) and finally p147 quamash ( grows about 50cm tall. It has an edible bulb that makes very pleasant eating when cooked. This bulb grows well in short grass and does well in the light shade of trees so long as the soil is not dry. It grows well under apple trees. It flowers in late spring and early summer and then disappears completely until the next spring.)

Wow I can't wait to find me some quamash. I don't suppose that any of you readers would have some laying about the garden ?

There was one more plant waiting to go onto my list and I'd left the book pen so I could find it again, but, oh woe is me, someone else has closed the book and so I now have to find it again. Ack well such is life for us forgetful types.

This is a well thought out, researched, and thought through book. It just reads very well, and I always appreciate a book that reads well.