Melons for the Passionate Grower

This year's heirloom tomato is a melon!

Acclaimed gardener Amy Goldman, known to viewers of Martha Stewart and PBS, is a dedicated seed saver working to preserve fast-disappearing varieties of heirloom melons. Her book, Melons for the Passionate Grower, is a celebration of the speckled, bumpy, oh-so-sweet world of the melon—from Minnesota Midget and Georgia Rattlesnake to Ali Baba and Sweet Siberian.

Here she profiles more than one hundred varieties, each showcased in a full-color photographic still life recalling eighteenth- and nineteenth-century botanical paintings and engravings. Goldman also offers expert advice on cultivating and selecting your own melons, as well as the rudiments of seed saving.