What better way to spend rainy or cold weather than inside paging through a book on plants or flowers or whatever gardening passion you may have. You may say, well, you can find it all on the internet -- and that's true; but sometimes you just want to go through an actual book and find something unexpected, a beautiful flowering plant, a landscape design that is perfect for you, a solution to a gardening problem you didn't know you had. And what about recipes for all those tomatoes, zucchini, peaches and apples that you have to preserve? If you aren't sure how you want to use them, the internet can take a lot of searching.

Young: Master Gardener
Young: Master Gardener

A book can be very helpful in all of these cases. And how do you find books for these problems, or books that you may eventually decide to buy because you always want to have that book to keep? The obvious answer is to go to the library.

If I had grandchildren, I would start them going to the library early in life and hope (and assume) that the experience would be so pleasing that this would turn into a lifelong habit for them.

My own children didn't have the experience of the beautiful children's room at Guthrie Memorial Library in Hanover with the large window to look out on the train tracks although they did use the library. In fact, until I took a tour of the new library and looked out those windows I didn't realize that the train tracks run on both sides of the library. That is a visual memory to make a person think of how important trains are and were to Hanover.


Hanover's Guthrie Memorial Library has always been for me either a place of first resort or last resort, but it has always been there; and over the past years of renovation and enlargement it has always gotten better. Remember the narrow staircase to get to the second floor and those narrow aisles to look for books? That is a thing of the past, but with all the discussion and letters to the editor it has made me remember those 'olden' days. Perhaps hiring a consultant or marketing person to smooth the way to this transition would have been a better use of the money that is now being used to renovate the library back to a less friendly space.

Back to the gardening books in the library: I did search the internet (because it's Monday and the library isn't open). There are 23 books on gardening including several children's books.

There are specific titles on pruning, landscaping, even fiction, and there are several books on general gardening. One book is titled "Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets for companion planting for successful gardening," by Louise Riorte. This book was written in 1975 and revised in 1998.

It has proved an enduring testament to the practice of finding vegetables that work together by discouraging pests and/or improving the soil. Here is a reader's complete reference as to which plants nourish the soil, which keep away bugs and pests, and which plants just don't get along. Considering what is planted where is important. For example, you should not plant peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes close together or in the same container. These vegetables are related and planting them close together inhibits growth. Maybe you're interested in greenhouse gardening, landscaping, or organic gardening -- there's a book on all those subjects.

There are several garden encyclopedias that give information on every possible garden subject.

I was impressed with the guest column by Molly Krichten in the Sunday, Sept. 22, issue of The Evening Sun. Her knowledge and background in libraries makes her the ultimate authority to pinpoint so many of the decisions that were made without proper research and justification.

One would wish that she had been consulted before decisions were made and that all decisions had been made after proper input from the public.

Gardening is like a library -- you fill the building full of books to enjoy; you fill the garden full of plants to enjoy. Once you start taking the books out of the library it is just a building; once you start taking the plants out of a garden it is like a desert -- or in plant terms -- it is weeds.

Adams County Master Gardeners present their Fall Craft Series 6:30 to 8 p.m. Mondays in November. Register by calling 717-334-6271 or stop by Penn State Extension Services, 670 Old Harrisburg Road, Suite 204, Gettysburg.
