I’ve seen books recommended in forums, they looked interesting, I want to collect them in this thread. I’m missing a ton, put your recommendations here!
Trees of power, Akiva Silver
Enduring Seeds, Gary Paul Nabhan
Also I personally recommend everyone read:
Megan G
2022-08-16T07:00:00Z
In a similar vein to Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson, but focusing on seeds, food, and culture.
Dan illustrates the loss of biodiversity in our food systems, and ultimately our cultural identities, through global seed stories. Landrace varieties in local communities are a prevalent theme as well as genetic diversity. It’s a great read for those interested in food history.
Michael M
One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka
If you have not read this book, then I highly recommend it.
[comments: unanimous agreement]
Super awesome book. On my re-listen list.
by Mark Schatzker
(I’m listening to it) and it has some overlap with Eating on the Wild Side. Lots of information on how we’ve bred the nutrition out of our crops, from produce to chickens. I’ll update once I’m further in, but for anyone who is into the nutrient density topic, you will enjoy this. The same author also wrote The End of Craving, but this book is more relevant to nutrition and breeding so far. Audible
By the same author and also a must read if you are into nutrition and obesity.
2022-05-18T07:00:00Z
Breed your own vegetable varieties.
The resilient gardener.
The Tao of vegetable gardening.
2022-05-11T07:00:00Z
Navazio, John - The Organic Seed Grower - A Farmer’s Guide to Vegetable Seed Production - Chelsea Green publishing. The best book I’ve read on seed production, collection and processing, with detailed notes on how to get the best seed from most crops.
Ashworth, Suzanne - Seed to Seed - seed saving and growing techniques for vegetable gardeners - Seed Savers Exchange Inc.
This is the standard text on small garden seed saving, with great information. While we don’t really care very much about isolation distances, the very large isolation distances cited here seem to be based on broad acre commercial farming concerns rather than backyard gardening. The are probably ‘conservative best guesses’ - I’m not sure there is much published research on many of these crops.
Read less
The Seed Garden, by Lee Buttala & the Seed Savers Exchange
Steve Solomon’s Growing Food in Hard Times and Water Wise Gardening.
David the Good’s Free Plants for Everyone and Grocery Row Gardening.
All the other gardening books by those authors, too.
A book that you might find interesting, especially if you are in America.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/buffalo/garden/garden.html
Thank you! I have been generally familiar with Deppe’s work but I have never read her books. They came up in the Landrace Lettuce thread as well. I don’t have access to the print books in the library, but although I could ask for an interlibrary loan, I have found all three available electronically for one-hour and 14-day loans through the Internet Archive.
That’s cool. I have them on my kindle.
A Small Farm Future, by Chris Smaje.
I second the suggestion of Carol Deppe’s books, and Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden.
Any suggestions for summer reading? I recently read ‘The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth’ by Zoë Schlanger. It was a fun read and helped me imagine a little better a plant’s perspective:
Thanks, I just ordered it from the library 
For general plant knowledge I cannot recommend enough the books by Linda Chalker-Scott. Probably one of the research horticulturalists that have done the most mainstreaming science in English-language gardening communities today.
A good one to start with is How plants work.
I am currently reading this book, and I’m really enjoying it so far:
I hugely respect Jane Goodall, and when I saw she had written a book about plants, I was like, “Oooh, what does she know about plants?” It turns out, a lot! And her book is so loving towards the plant kingdom, so beautiful.
Earth Restored by Natalie M Fleming
I think this is the one that pushed me over the edge to save as many as my own seeds as possible
A collection of stories about the importance and joy of saving seeds
(Really want to reread!)
And my absolute favorite even though its not really about gardening but I do think there is so much value in it
The story of a man in Ireland living without technology for one year and showing how absurd some of the things are we do today. Inspirational to get back to the land
They both look great.
Another book worth looking at for seed production
‘The Seed Farmer’: a complete guide to growing using and selling your own seeds" Dan Brisebois, New Society Publishers, 2025.
I have been an avid reader since childhood; soaking up information is just second nature to me. Here are a few books that have deeply shaped my approach to gardening and plant breeding. The last ones on the list might surprise you in this context, but they definitely belong here. (Some of these have probably been mentioned here before, but I wanted to bring them all together to show the bigger picture.)
The books by Carol Deppe resonate with me deeply. Her second and third books, The Resilient Gardener and The Tao of Vegetable Gardening, were translated into Czech. However, I have to translate her first book, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, all by myself. (I am honestly struggling a bit with the appendix “801 Interesting Plants” due to the chaos between official and folk Czech plant names.)
Joseph Lofthouse’s Landrace Gardening is another masterpiece that criminally lacks a Czech translation. Reading this “revelation” by the founding father himself meant I had to translate it for myself as well (Pěstování krajových populací). Now, I am eagerly waiting to see if he decides to release his “cookbook.”
On the bright side, James Wong’s Grow For Flavor did get a Czech translation. It is fantastic, and I highly recommend it. He beautifully combines a human approach with scientific facts in a very accessible way. He has written more books, and they are equally interesting.
When it comes to Sepp Holzer, his two books (Der Agrar-Rebell and Sepp Holzer’s Permaculture) were merged into a single volume in Czech, titled Zahrada k nakousnutí (An Edible Garden). The author’s land is located in the Austrian Alps at over 1,000 meters above sea level. He uses various microclimate techniques, including “sun traps,” to grow crops you would never expect to thrive there. Unfortunately, the Czech translation cut out a lot of crucial details—talk about saving money in the wrong places! 
So now, I have to dig through the full English version of his second book to get the real deal.
Geoff Lawton has not written much, but I hope you will forgive me for mentioning his videos (just check his Wikipedia page). Similarly, Alan Kapuler has not published any easily accessible books, but his wisdom is shared through the pages written by the “blessed” Carol Deppe.
And finally, Dave Asprey and his work on biohacking. I apply his principles both to myself and to my plant breeding. Books like Super Human or Game Changers have been incredibly useful.
