Very interesting book from The Digger's Club.
Written for Australian gardeners, Clive Blazey discusses heirloom vegetable varieties and how they compare much better than believed against the producer strains commonly available now.

Good advice on how to grow many vegetables, how to find etc.
The chapters also have CSIRO test results from their years of growing. These results compare different growing methods as well as comparing the yields and performance of the heirloom varieties vs today's plant varieties.

The heirlooms do really well, which seems to prove his point that it wasn't for lack of hardiness or yield that these varieties stopped being distributed. Instead it was because they didn't fit the 1950's+ trends for for producers for uniform appearance and commercial growing in volumne.

It's convinced me, especially the extensive tomato chapter! Next spring I'm heading to their historic garden in Heronwood, VIC to view their plant displays and to buy some seeds and seedlings.

My only comment is that although it's an interesting topic, this book didn't 'hold' me as much as some other gardening books have. I don't know exactly why unless it's that reading this in the middle of a drought (and with bushfire news) meant that it was hard to move away from my pitiful garden thoughts to planning for making next year's garden more successful. Or maybe it was the (admittedly few) descriptions of heirloom gardenening in other countries. If I'm trying to plan for my own garden in Victoria, reading about a successful kitchen garden restaurant in the USA didn't really help. (The enthusiasm was nice though).

Regardless, as this was a library book (now returned), I plan to buy my own reference copy. ( )