Keith Smith’s Classic Vegetable Catalog

Did you know that all carrots were once purple?

This up-to-date catalogue includes:

• descriptions of over 600 varieties of vegetables
• a key to where you can obtain the seeds
• cultivation notes based on age-old growing methods.

Keith Smith’s Classic Vegetable Catalogue celebrates the ‘feate’ of gardening. It tells the story of our classic vegetables, their origins, how they came to be selected and shaped by generations of gardeners, plant breeders, seed suppliers and scientists – and how they hitched a ride to Australia on the ships of the First Fleet in 1788.

‘Once you grow your own vegetables,’ says Keith Smith, they are no longer simply mashed potatoes on the plate, puréed spinach, or a wedge of pumpkin wrapped in plastic. You begin to find an amazing variety of odd shapes and sizes, brilliant flowers and subtle colours!’

Sit back and enjoy reading this unique and fascinating book about plants like the Scarlet Runner bean (with its vivid flowers), Lacy Lady pea (bred for its tendrils, not its seeds), the squat Hubbard squash, blunt-nosed French carrots like Chantenay and Nantes, broad beans such as Egyptian Ful or Aquadulce, and the uniquely Australian strain of grey, hard-shelled pumpkins (including Ironbark, Jarrahdale and Queensland Blue).