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The Pip Book
Keith Mossman offers the benefit of his considerable experience in growing the more familiar and the more unusual plants - the seeds of which can very often be salvaged from your rubbish bin - giving precise instructions on how to go about raising anything from an avacado and a peanut to loquats, kumquats and kiwis.
All you need is a pip and patience.
All you need is a pip and patience.
- GenresGardeningNonfiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 23, 2025
The Pip Book is charming, the way only pre-21st century gardening tomes can be. I picked it up for about fifty pence in a charity shop, having grown tired of most modern offerings (the kind which are 95% photos, 5% captions that feel like they've been copied direct from instagram and probably started life as a blog), it almost seems an insult to say it was worth every penny.
Text-rich, suffused with the kind of knowledge that only comes with decades of trial and error, this little volume won't be for everyone, but it was absolutely the thing I needed to revive my enthusiasm for what should be a life-long hobby. Mossman has an engaging, anachronistic style which blends the formal and informal, while at times I found myself reading it in conservative RP like a BBC presenter from the 50s, I also laughed a great deal, some particular highlights were:
'The Avocado or Alligator Pear - Persea gratissima to those who like to know these things'
'There appears to be no reason why the tops of swedes and turnips should not be sprouted in the same way, but one has to draw the line somewhere.'
'The pruning can be done with sharp scissors, preferably small and pointed, or with a razor blade. The latter can make a very clean job but must be handled with care to avoid removing more than intended - including small portions of oneself.'
An unpleasant side-effect of changes in publishing styles around the time The Pip Book was first printed is that many gardening, fishkeeping, or natural history books feature a number of poor-quality black and white photographs where their predecessors from prior decades would have been illustrated, but happily that isn't the case here. The Pip book is filled with beautifully simple line-drawings, mainly to serve as references for those who forget to label the contents of their propagators rather than any sort of step-by-step guide.
Naturally, it will find its way onto the top of my stack of gardening books to be picked up again and again for reference, but I still have a strong impulse to shelve it between The Wit of Harold Wilson and my Yes, Minister boxset, its humour would be wasted on the Gardener's World crowd.
Text-rich, suffused with the kind of knowledge that only comes with decades of trial and error, this little volume won't be for everyone, but it was absolutely the thing I needed to revive my enthusiasm for what should be a life-long hobby. Mossman has an engaging, anachronistic style which blends the formal and informal, while at times I found myself reading it in conservative RP like a BBC presenter from the 50s, I also laughed a great deal, some particular highlights were:
'The Avocado or Alligator Pear - Persea gratissima to those who like to know these things'
'There appears to be no reason why the tops of swedes and turnips should not be sprouted in the same way, but one has to draw the line somewhere.'
'The pruning can be done with sharp scissors, preferably small and pointed, or with a razor blade. The latter can make a very clean job but must be handled with care to avoid removing more than intended - including small portions of oneself.'
An unpleasant side-effect of changes in publishing styles around the time The Pip Book was first printed is that many gardening, fishkeeping, or natural history books feature a number of poor-quality black and white photographs where their predecessors from prior decades would have been illustrated, but happily that isn't the case here. The Pip book is filled with beautifully simple line-drawings, mainly to serve as references for those who forget to label the contents of their propagators rather than any sort of step-by-step guide.
Naturally, it will find its way onto the top of my stack of gardening books to be picked up again and again for reference, but I still have a strong impulse to shelve it between The Wit of Harold Wilson and my Yes, Minister boxset, its humour would be wasted on the Gardener's World crowd.
January 11, 2010
The Pip Book, by Keith Mossman, is essentially a practical guide to germinating and growing on pips and seeds that don’t come from seed companies and hence don’t come in a little foil packet or with a money-back guarantee. The problem with germinating these free treasures is that, if it fails, you don’t know whether there was a problem with the seed or whether you did something wrong.
This is where Keith Mossman steps in. With some generalized advice about growing seeds indoors, followed by detailed cultivation instructions for each species and a realistic review about the chances of successful germination and the likely results, he sets you up to try your hand at growing over 30 different free plants.
Many of the pips come from edible plants, although you cannot expect them all to provide you with food in a temperate climate. I’ve already talked about avocados, but the date palm is similar and grown for its ornamental value as a houseplant. Citrus fruits are a more viable option, and you can follow orange pips with carrot tops, coffee and sweet potato and pineapple. If you’re into exotics then how about lychees, pomegranates, kumquats and ginger?
There’s a lovely chapter on collecting tree seeds, and the following chapter is even more tempting as it explains exactly how to bonsai a home-grown oak, apple, sycamore or hawthorn seedling. There’s an illustration of a bonsai crab apple in fruit, which is guaranteed to bring on a serious case of the “I want one!“s.
All in all this is a great little book (my only complaint is that it is far too short) and will have you scouring the supermarket shelves for exotic things to sprout. And if you’ve got kids then you’re lucky because you can pretend it’s for them :D
The Pip Book is currently out of print (boo!), but seems to be widely available second hand.
This is where Keith Mossman steps in. With some generalized advice about growing seeds indoors, followed by detailed cultivation instructions for each species and a realistic review about the chances of successful germination and the likely results, he sets you up to try your hand at growing over 30 different free plants.
Many of the pips come from edible plants, although you cannot expect them all to provide you with food in a temperate climate. I’ve already talked about avocados, but the date palm is similar and grown for its ornamental value as a houseplant. Citrus fruits are a more viable option, and you can follow orange pips with carrot tops, coffee and sweet potato and pineapple. If you’re into exotics then how about lychees, pomegranates, kumquats and ginger?
There’s a lovely chapter on collecting tree seeds, and the following chapter is even more tempting as it explains exactly how to bonsai a home-grown oak, apple, sycamore or hawthorn seedling. There’s an illustration of a bonsai crab apple in fruit, which is guaranteed to bring on a serious case of the “I want one!“s.
All in all this is a great little book (my only complaint is that it is far too short) and will have you scouring the supermarket shelves for exotic things to sprout. And if you’ve got kids then you’re lucky because you can pretend it’s for them :D
The Pip Book is currently out of print (boo!), but seems to be widely available second hand.
November 4, 2012
A friend picked this up for me, as I go through phases of planting random pips and seeds from things I've eaten, to see what happens.
It is a fantastic little book from the 70s with advice about whats the best way to go about growing these things into little plants, and how to look after them. Having never sucessfully grown an avacado, I am now having another go with that, following the instructions in this book.
My sucess has been limited. I have managed lemon trees, but they all died after a couple of years. The only things I still have alive at the moment are my goji berry twiglets, which are a couple of years old and will survive any kind of winter - which is brilliant as it means I can keep them in the garden all year round.
There are all kinds of reasons for growing on these nuts and seeds. Love his reasons for growing peanuts (although as I hate this nut, it won't be one I will be trying) - "The little peanut plant is nice to have around, because it enables you to score off people who think peanuts come from a peanut tree." (p. 18)
As this is a book from the 70s, things such as goji berries and lemon grass (I hear this is really easy to do) aren't in here, but there are lots of things - avocado, peanut, dates, lemons and oranges, kiwi, pomegranate, coffee, grapefruit, pineapple, cuttings and nuts from hardy trees (including bonsai tips), ginger, nutmeg etc etc....
http://pipsandstones.blogspot.co.uk/
It is a fantastic little book from the 70s with advice about whats the best way to go about growing these things into little plants, and how to look after them. Having never sucessfully grown an avacado, I am now having another go with that, following the instructions in this book.
My sucess has been limited. I have managed lemon trees, but they all died after a couple of years. The only things I still have alive at the moment are my goji berry twiglets, which are a couple of years old and will survive any kind of winter - which is brilliant as it means I can keep them in the garden all year round.
There are all kinds of reasons for growing on these nuts and seeds. Love his reasons for growing peanuts (although as I hate this nut, it won't be one I will be trying) - "The little peanut plant is nice to have around, because it enables you to score off people who think peanuts come from a peanut tree." (p. 18)
As this is a book from the 70s, things such as goji berries and lemon grass (I hear this is really easy to do) aren't in here, but there are lots of things - avocado, peanut, dates, lemons and oranges, kiwi, pomegranate, coffee, grapefruit, pineapple, cuttings and nuts from hardy trees (including bonsai tips), ginger, nutmeg etc etc....
http://pipsandstones.blogspot.co.uk/
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews