The Whole Organic Food Book written by Dan Jason is an excellent introduction to both organic and heirloom gardening. While the book takes something of an introductory approach, it also has plenty of material to offer more experienced gardeners as well.
Dan Jason is a certified organic gardener, seedsman and food guru. He is the owner of Salt Spring Seeds in Canada, a supplier of heirloom seeds. This book is a complete instruction book on what to do with the seeds he sells. The book takes you from gardening and growing the plants, to harvesting and seed saving then cooking the harvest. It explains how his clever threshing box works to help with harvesting.
This book helps you rediscover foods that have become unavailable. For example consider the soybean. The soybean we can buy in the store now is yellow, hard and tasteless. Just like heirloom tomatoes, there is a whole world of soybeans out there all with different and special tastes. Wheat is another example, something that is easily grown in a home garden. There are many different kinds of wheat, and you can do many more things than just make bread with it. Wheat can be cooked as wheat berries or sprouted. This book is full of recipes and examples.
Also included in the book is information about food politics, and the state of GM contamination in our food supply.
Readers of the book living outside of Canada may be unable to purchase seeds directly from him, because his primary market is Canada. If you are interested in growing seeds mentioned in his book, and you are unable to find another supplier, please contact me via email or leave a comment, and I will try to help out.
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