When I saw news of a popular new garden book called “The Heirloom Gardener,” I thought it would be about growing vegetables or flowers of old-time, open-pollinated varieties maybe. You know: of heirlooms. But John Forti's latest book is about much more, about not just traditional plants, but traditional practices, too, that serve to connect us to the environment and to one another.  





John Forti is a garden historian and heirloom specialist and ethnobotanist, and a longtime leader in the slow-foods movement. He's currently the executive director of Bedrock Gardens landscape and sculpture garden in New Hampshire.