(I had a chance to take a short week off over the holiday, and have just gotten back. Sorry for the break in discussion.)

---

One of the things I am considering in the format, is how easy it would make it for someone to go to the eventual hard copy book, and thumb through it, so they can easily identify a unknown plant. That's one of the reasons I want the entries to have alot of pictures if they can. So I see the first major section as a way to do that, with various subsections to further explain.

How about this?

BASIC IDENTIFICATION:

- Common name, followed by Scientific Name, then (any) Alternative Names:

 - Header Photo

- General Description of the Plant:

- Why We Grow This? (common uses):

- Historical Facts and Quotes:

- Can Be Confused With:

- Cautions and Hazards:

---

Common name is pretty obvious, same with Alternative names. Scientific names are important, since they cross languages. There's a good description about Scientific Naming here:

https://www.thespruce.com/why-we-use-botanical-nomenclature-2131099

The Header photo should be of the mature plant. For food plants that have exposed fruit, the picture should show the fruit when its ripe. For flowers, include full blooms. Root and tuber type plants should show their mature plant with a close up of the ripe tuber. Trees and bushes, would need to show the tree trunk for bark type, and perhaps a closeup of the leaf.

General description might be a bit vague to quantify on what we should say. I don't want to get too tied up in particulars, since I think we can cover those later. I suspect we'll get the hang of what we want to include as we work up the number of entries.

I was leaning to putting Historical facts before Why We Grow, but decided that was more important. This would be your subsection about "Uses: Food, Medicine, Dye, Craft Use (which would be Tools and Furniture), etc."

Then Historical facts, because nothing makes a scholar look like a real scholar than being able to quote history, lol.

I was going to put the last two subsections in their own sections but that might get too detailed. First would be any plants that look very similar and can be confused with the main plant, followed by specific cautions and hazards. Is the fruit eatable but the leaves poisonous, wear gloves when harvesting because of thorns,etc.

I think this initial section would give a curious green wizard enough info to pretty confidently identify a plant that was brought to them or they found.

---

Now the next sections, I absolutely love the way you organized the Cultivation and Harvesting order.

CULTIVATION:

- Popular Variations and Cultivars

- Starting: from seed; from cutting; by rootstock, rhizome, bulb, grafting; other

- Bedding Out: plant spacing, soil temperature, soil amendments, best rotation cycle.

- Best soil type: Loamy, moist; Sandy, well-drained; Mineral-dense, clay

- Sowing Season & Habits: Annual, Perennial, Biennial, self seeding, self pollinating, dioecious

- Plant Health maintenance: diseases, pests, treatments, cold shelters, interventions

- Companion Planting

HARVEST

- Signs of ripeness, over- and under-ripe

- Gathering tips. Gloves, techniques

- Preserving and Storage

- Post-harvest soil care and compostable wastes

---

I would put Popular Variants, Cultivars, Hybrids and Heirlooms, in its own subsection though, as the start to the Cultivation section. One thing I would like to see in the Replies to the main post of each plant, is a separate post with details on some of the variants of each plant. Like tomatos. One main post on general info, then specific replies for say Cherries, Determinate and Indeterminates and such.

The other change I would make is to give Companion plants its own section, since the list of what is good to plant with, and what isn't can be long. Otherwise I think you did a great job, thanks.

---

But I do think Cooking and Eating deserves its own section, lol.

Cooking and Eating:

- Nutitional Information:

- How to prepare before eating:

- Useful recipes and cooking hints:

- Historical dishes and meals:

This might be omitted if the plant was a non-eatable plant. What would we put here for say a tree we grew for its good wood?

---

Then as a final section.

OTHER INFO

- Green Wizard forum links

- Outside Links

- Helpful Books

- Contributors

I added books because I suspect we are all slowly building up our library. Any book that someone finds really good on growing a particular plant could be included, with perhaps a book review in a reply. I added a line for "Contributors", which will be anyone who posts info about the plant. Eventually these entries will make it into a hopefully print book, and we won't be able to add the discussions or comments we get on the forums.

---

Thoughts and Opinions anyone?

In the "Introducing "Green Wizards Grimoires"", GW member gkb posted this:

---

I have started a spreadsheet for weeds with these data column headings.

Alpha Latin    RecNum        Family/Clade    English Name    Latin Name    Alt-Names
Edible Parts    Medicinal      Cautions    Season    Habit    Nutrient-Binding
Soil    LeafType    Flower Info    Other    Family, Latin
Concentrates Heavy Metals?    Compostable?

---
My question is, are there other topics you would find useful, or are there some in my list that you think can be discarded or consolidated?

and in that there is a lot of good advice and helpful hints. By doing a initial post with a common format, and some basic information widely available, I'm hoping from that, I can begin to slowly go back thru the older posts and link what is said in them, to the posts here in the Plant Book.

As has been mentioned before, the search function in this version of Durpal, the forum software sucks. I'm looking to get us newer software soon.

Right now, my free time schedule has kind of flipped. I used to have all weekend free to post here, but since I've begun working on my sister's backyard, Fridays and Saturdays are shot. I do have the morning free now after I get home from work. My hours are down to about 45 or so, which means I'm home much earlier.

And some of my reasoning to do this, is because my garden is really teaching me quite a bit, that I wanted to share.