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About Melons For The Passionate Grower
Product Description This year's heirloom tomato is a melon! Acclaimed gardener Amy Goldman, known to viewers of Martha Stewart and PBS, is a dedicated seed saver working to preserve fast-disappearing varieties of heirloom melons. Her book, Melons for the Passionate Grower, is a celebration of the speckled, bumpy, oh-so-sweet world of the melon—from Minnesota Midget and Georgia Rattlesnake to Ali Baba and Sweet Siberian. Here she profiles more than one hundred varieties, each showcased in a full-color photographic still life recalling eighteenth- and nineteenth-century botanical paintings and engravings. Goldman also offers expert advice on cultivating and selecting your own melons, as well as the rudiments of seed saving. Amazon.com Review Your local market probably carries only honeydew, cantaloupe, and watermelon, but it's the heirloom melons of the world that contain both remarkable succulence and the critical germ plasm that may ward off future plant diseases. Amy Goldman's tribute to the magnificent family of melons, Melons for the Passionate Grower is both a celebration of the rich gifts of these fruits and a cautionary tale of how many of these treats nearly went extinct. Before you get too caught up in the gorgeous photos and fascinating histories of these gems, note the seed company list at the end of the book--you can try to grow all the plants you read about. The introductory section includes detailed instructions on hand pollination, ripening, and a few recipes like watermelon salad with onion, pepper, oil, and vinegar in addition to the sweet melon. The pages that fall in the middle are mini temples devoted to individual melons. Often romantic histories are included next to the glossy photos--who can resist tales of the Hungarian noble who wrapped her beloved sweet melons in her furs? With varieties like the slender, crunchy Snake and the astonishingly sweet Bidwell Casaba, learning about these glorious fruits will keep you fascinated for the rest of your gardening days. --Jill Lightner From Publishers Weekly There's more to the world of melons than just the cantaloupe and honeydew, but this may not be true for long: many varieties are "on the brink of extinction," according to cultivator and collector Goldman. This handsome volume documents unusual types of melon like the Collective Farm Woman (originally from Ukraine) and the serpent-shaped Snake melon with lavish color photos and playful descriptions. Goldman also instructs readers on how to pollinate, grow and harvest these plants; includes a list of commercial sources; and throws in a few recipes and plenty of trivia ("the Chinese grow more watermelons than anyone else but... they eat the seeds and often discard the melons"). Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Goldman is an acclaimed gardener with a special interest in promoting and preserving heirloom varieties, non-hybrids whose seeds have been saved and handed down from one generation to the next. In Melons, she writes about seed-saving and preservation, growing, pollination, harvesting, and how to determine when a melon is ripe. She even includes several recipes. The heart of the book, however, consists of descriptions and illustrations of the melons themselves: Charentais, Emerald Gem, Santa Claus, Collective Farm Woman, Cob, Queen Anne's Pocket Melon, Blacktail Mountain (watermelon), and nearly 100 others. The many outstanding color photos are by photographer Schrager, whose other works include The Bird Hand Book. Browsers enticed by the eye-catching photos should also enjoy reading about melon history and lore, while serious gardeners will be motivated to try their luck at growing some of these exotic and nearly forgotten heirlooms. A resource list identifies sources for purchasing seeds of many of the melons described. Recommended for public libraries and for horticultural collections in academic and special libraries. (Index not seen.) Will
