The Ever Curious Gardener

Unleash your inner geek and let this irreverent romp through the wonders of the garden yield practical results.

• The author has a PhD in horticulture from the University of Maryland and has over 40 years of experience in horticultural and agricultural research
• He is a former USDA agricultural scientist
• He has been a garden writer for over 35 years and is the author of seven previous books.
• He has several books on gardening and had a syndicated gardening column with Associated Press for 25 years
• He blogs at www.leereich.com/blog
• This book helps readers understand and use natural science concepts to grow a prettier, healthier, more flavourful and nutritious garden
• The ideas make gardening more fun and interesting
• The reader will find themselves becoming a "perennially young gardener" always learning and growing

Audience

• Gardeners of all skill levels
• Curious and experimental types
• Life-long learners

International Market

• Written to have universal appeal to gardeners, no matter where they live
• Presented in a lovely 19th century fashion by recognized master gardener
• Excellent for gardening, natural history and gift market

Unleash your inner geek and let this irreverent romp through the wonders of the garden yield practical results.

Curious why caressing your cucumber plants will help them bear more fruit? Or why you should grow oranges from seed even if the fruit is inedible? Or why trees need to sleep and how to help them?

Join acclaimed gardener, scientist, and author Lee Reich on a journey through the delights of your garden in this laugh-out-loud treatise on the scientific wonders of plants and soil. Offering eye-opening insight and practical guidance, coverage includes:

• How to maximize both flavor and nutrition in your garden bounty
• Helping plants thrive during drought
• Outwitting weeds by understanding their nature
• Making the best use of compost
• Tips on pruning and orchard care
• Why the dead language of Latin can make you a better gardener.

The Ever Curious Gardener is an irreverent romp through the natural science of plants and soil, ideal for newer gardeners moving beyond back-of-the-seed-pack planting to experienced gardeners whose curiosity at the wonders of cultivation grows deeper and stronger with each season.

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Propagation and Planting
   • A bit of deception helps me get some seeds to sprout that under natural conditions would wisely stay asleep
   • Burial in tundra might be ideal for seed storage but I choose more practical storage for my vegetable and flower seeds
   • Electricity temporarily suffices when access to sunlight is lacking
   • In which the pre-plant toughening up of seedlings is shown to be necessary, but with a gentle touch
   • Plants exhibit all sorts of changes, some sought after, some not, as they go through puberty
   • A recommendation to plant citrus from seed even if fruit is improbable or not worth eating
   • Containing some of the ways in which I use a few or many plant cells to conjure up whole new plants
   • I revisit totipotence, using stems again, this time joining them to existing roots
   • Neither monstrous nor scary, but often beautiful - yes, real chimeras may be in our midst
   • Knowing that a bulb is, essentially, a stem lets me multiply them with the same "pinch" that makes stems branch

Soil
   • In which we watch the progress of water traveling through soil, with methods to, at the same time, speed it up and slow it down
   • A common sense recommendation that turns out not to make sense
   • Contains a description and an opinion of hydroponics
   • In which I pay homage to humus, even though it may be a misnomer
   • Wherein I check my ground's acidity and then tweak it, as needed
   • On my ostensibly occult practice which turns out to be good gardening
   • How I manage to tame nitrogen's comings and goings for my plants
   • Even without squealing like hungry pigs, my plants can tell me if they're hungry, and for what

Flowering and Fruiting
   • Sex is introduced and its sometime importance is emphasized
   • In which I make right the products of plants' sexual excesses
   • Describing the importance of night for coaxing blossoms, and a gardener's trickery
   • In which a small gas molecule has a big effect on flavor
   • Contains a question and an answer: is hybrid always high-bred?

Stems and Leaves
   • In which my thumbnails, pruning shears, and branch bending coax plants into bushiness, lankiness, or anything betwixt
   • Wherein I make designs with the traceries of my fruit plants' branches
   • Questioning the advice to put the brakes on tree growth with summer pruning
   • On the genesis, reason for, and propagation of weeping trees    • A comfortable seat in a sunny spot gets trees and shrubs ready for winter...
   • In which it is demonstrated that buds are not boring
   • How buds become burls and witches' brooms
   • On entreating and helping trees to stay asleep
   • About a quick and easy way to hasten spring
   • Sunlight is important but sometimes shade offers improvement

Organizations
   • Wherein families migrate together around my garden, and for good reason
   • How plant families got put in order
   • On Latin being a foreign tongue but providing a useful understanding of plant relationships
   • Making up a new category name, fortunately, does not ruin flavor or appearance
   • Relating a true story about how my plants broke the law

Stress
   • On steps, human and otherwise, to avoid the havoc of icy cells during frigid temperatures
   • In which hot days bring on a tug of war between hunger and thirst, in plants
   • No water, no matter - because I take these steps for drought
   • A very local search for congenial weather
   • Seedlings' transition to the garden is helped along with tough love, timely and not in excess
   • Unwanted plants - that is, weeds - are best understood before they are outwitted
   • A sometime threat that straddles the fence between living and nonliving
   • In which is clarified a name as a sign, rather than a symptom, of disease
   • Fire blight, first noted not far from my home over 200 years ago, has the honor of being the first plant disease to be caused by bacteria

Senses
   • In which I elucidate, abet, and alter the color of leaves, vegetables, and flowers
   • An Italian who tied together plant growth, art, and other things too innumerable to mention
   • Here I make sense of scents, equally so for insects and humans
   • The touch here is that felt by the plants
   • And finally, the efforts I take to grow the best tasting fruits and vegetables

Epilogue: The Scientific Method
Index
About the Author
About New Society Publishers