Fruit and Nuts: A Comprehensive Guide to the Cultivation, Uses and Health Benefits of Over 300 Food-Producing Plants, by Susanna Lyle. Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2006. 480 pp. $59.95. by Paula Szilard My first purchase at the new Tattered Cover Bookstore location on Colfax Avenue, this book is an incredible discovery. It is an encyclopedic discussion of tropical, subtropical, and temperate food plants, particularly fruit and nut trees, but also other plants bearing fruits, such as pineapples, monsteras and melons. The author includes many plants that have never been commercialized or that are of marginal economic significance for which information is scarce but which hobbyists, collectors, and indeed all experimentally-oriented gardeners find interesting. The author lives in New Zealand and holds a PhD in plant and soil science from Exeter University. For instance, if you looked for information on papaya, you would find a photograph of the fruit and a description of the leaves, flowers, and fruit including the fact that most varieties available have male and female flowers (dioecious) and both sexes are required for fruiting. The monoecious varieties have bisexual flowers and fruit can be obtained with only one plant (like the one in Robert Koch’s greenhouse!) There is also information on nutrition, medicinal properties, and cultivation including location, temperature, water, soil, nutrients required, growing in containers, planting, pruning, propagation, and pests and diseases. The major cultivars are also listed with brief descriptions. The citrus section is fairly extensive (about 20 pages) and covers grapefruit, pummelo, lemon, lime, orange, and citron including Buddha’s Hand. The book even discusses the hardy trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata) which can be grown in USDA Zone 5 (unfortunately, it’s not really edible). The section on bananas, on the other hand, is much less extensive. If bananas are your focus, you can do a lot better if you just get the book, Bananas You Can Grow by James Waddick and Glenn M. Stokes. It is available from Stokes Tropicals. Surprisingly, the book even devotes two pages to the native American pawpaw, Asimina triloba. Hardy as far north as southern Ontario. It is very difficult to grow this Cherimoya relative in our dry climate. Believe me, I have tried. There currently is an effort to commercialize this interesting fruit which is backed up by a research and breeding program at the University of Kentucky. I had contemplated planting some sea buckhorns after tasting the juice at One Green World Nursery near Portland. On reading the section on this plant, I found out that it was actually drought tolerant once established, an important fact for gardeners in the high desert, but that I would have to find a sunny spot since they do not tolerate shade. Although they tolerate a range of soil pH values, they do best in acidic soil. If only I had the book before I ordered my natal plum a couple of weeks ago, I could have avoided a major mistake. I ordered only one plant thinking they were self-fertile. Now I know that, although the flowers have both male and female structures, to get a reasonable amount of fruit you need at least two plants. The one feature of the book that is not up to snuff is the index. An index in the back of the book list plants by genus and species. At first, I thought there was no common name access at all but I finally found a common name index on pages 7-8. In my opinion this practice does not make sense. It's totally counterintuitive for people to go to the front of a book for an index. Instead of the two indexes, it would have been best to create one single index with both common and scientific names. The book was first published in New Zealand. When it was published in the United States, more could have been done to make it more useful to American gardeners. For instance, the hardiness information is given in degrees Celsius instead of USDA Hardiness Zones. This is not a serious defect because you can always look at a thermometer that can be read it as either Fahrenheit or Celsius. Nonetheless, it will be a deterrent for some. In spite of these shortcomings, the information in this book is invaluable and difficult to find. It is highly recommended for subtropical, tropical, and temperate zone fruit growers especially those who prefer to grow the more unusual fruits. And although it’s fairly pricey, the price per page is only 12.5 cents. If you compare it to a lot of coffee table gardening books without any real content, it’s still a good buy!

Fruit and Nuts: A Comprehensive Guide to the Cultivation, Uses and Health Benefits of Over 300 Food-Producing Plants, by Susanna Lyle. Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2006. 480 pp. $59.95.

by Paula Szilard

My first purchase at the new Tattered Cover Bookstore location on Colfax Avenue, this book is an incredible discovery. It is an encyclopedic discussion of tropical, subtropical, and temperate food plants, particularly fruit and nut trees, but also other plants bearing fruits, such as pineapples, monsteras and melons. The author includes many plants that have never been commercialized or that are of marginal economic significance for which information is scarce but which hobbyists, collectors, and indeed all experimentally-oriented gardeners find interesting. The author lives in New Zealand and holds a PhD in plant and soil science from Exeter University.

For instance, if you looked for information on papaya, you would find a photograph of the fruit and a description of the leaves, flowers, and fruit including the fact that most varieties available have male and female flowers (dioecious) and both sexes are required for fruiting. The monoecious varieties have bisexual flowers and fruit can be obtained with only one plant (like the one in Robert Koch’s greenhouse!) There is also information on nutrition, medicinal properties, and cultivation including location, temperature, water, soil, nutrients required, growing in containers, planting, pruning, propagation, and pests and diseases. The major cultivars are also listed with brief descriptions.

The citrus section is fairly extensive (about 20 pages) and covers grapefruit, pummelo, lemon, lime, orange, and citron including Buddha’s Hand. The book even discusses the hardy trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata) which can be grown in USDA Zone 5 (unfortunately, it’s not really edible). The section on bananas, on the other hand, is much less extensive. If bananas are your focus, you can do a lot better if you just get the book, Bananas You Can Grow by James Waddick and Glenn M. Stokes. It is available from Stokes Tropicals.

Surprisingly, the book even devotes two pages to the native American pawpaw, Asimina triloba. Hardy as far north as southern Ontario. It is very difficult to grow this Cherimoya relative in our dry climate. Believe me, I have tried. There currently is an effort to commercialize this interesting fruit which is backed up by a research and breeding program at the University of Kentucky.

I had contemplated planting some sea buckhorns after tasting the juice at One Green World Nursery near Portland. On reading the section on this plant, I found out that it was actually drought tolerant once established, an important fact for gardeners in the high desert, but that I would have to find a sunny spot since they do not tolerate shade. Although they tolerate a range of soil pH values, they do best in acidic soil.

If only I had the book before I ordered my natal plum a couple of weeks ago, I could have avoided a major mistake. I ordered only one plant thinking they were self-fertile. Now I know that, although the flowers have both male and female structures, to get a reasonable amount of fruit you need at least two plants.

The one feature of the book that is not up to snuff is the index. An index in the back of the book list plants by genus and species. At first, I thought there was no common name access at all but I finally found a common name index on pages 7-8. In my opinion this practice does not make sense. It's totally counterintuitive for people to go to the front of a book for an index. Instead of the two indexes, it would have been best to create one single index with both common and scientific names. The book was first published in New Zealand. When it was published in the United States, more could have been done to make it more useful to American gardeners. For instance, the hardiness information is given in degrees Celsius instead of USDA Hardiness Zones. This is not a serious defect because you can always look at a thermometer that can be read it as either Fahrenheit or Celsius. Nonetheless, it will be a deterrent for some.

In spite of these shortcomings, the information in this book is invaluable and difficult to find. It is highly recommended for subtropical, tropical, and temperate zone fruit growers especially those who prefer to grow the more unusual fruits. And although it’s fairly pricey, the price per page is only 12.5 cents. If you compare it to a lot of coffee table gardening books without any real content, it’s still a good buy!