KG Bookshelf: January 2012

Growing organic – made easy and fun

Growing your own vegetables can seem a daunting prospect to the uninitiated – serious, hard work and complicated. Chas Griffin’s latest book dispels these ‘myths’ and takes a refreshingly different approach that not only promises to show his readers an easy way, but keep them smiling all the way too.

Using the same style and humour that made his original Scenes from a Smallholding so popular, Chas Griffin follows it with Scenes from a Vegetable Plot and shares the delights of learning to grow organic vegetables with the help of one little book and ‘a dollop of common sense’.

A combination of practical instruction and earthy and irreverent humour accompanied by Ken Guy’s superb cartoons, Chas’s mission is to push his reader out the back door and into the garden and having taken the leap himself many years ago he has plenty of experience as back-up.

Scenes from a Vegetable Plot by Chas Griffin is published in paperback by The Good Life Press Ltd, priced £12.99.

ISBN 978-1-904871-93-4.

Who is it for?

Anyone who wants to get down and mucky in the vegetable plot.

★★★★

Potatoes and tomatoes from garden to plate

Two charming little National Trust books are dedicated to two humble favourites from the garden – the potato and the tomato.

These Kitchen Garden Cookbooks may be small (reminding you of the children’s ladybird books but thicker) but they pack a mighty punch in that they contain everything you need to know from garden to plate and including some simple but delicious recipes.

Handy guides in an attractive, easy read format, they not only contain full instructions on planting, growing and harvesting but are also packed with fascinating facts and history and illustrated with nostalgic images.

Author Jane McMoreland is the author of For the Love of an Orchard and The Tiny Garden as well as three books in the long established Teach Yourself series.

Kitchen Garden Cookbooks are published by National Trust Books in hardback and priced at £8.99.

Tomatoes: ISBN 978-1-907892-01-1

Potatoes: ISBN 978-1-907892-02-8

Who is it for?

Gardeners who love to cook what they have grown.

★★★★

Now for something completely different...

If you would like to put your gardening skills to growing something other than your usual fruit and vegetables, take a look at a new book on growing edible tropical plants in your home.

Growing Tasty Tropical Plants shows the reader that we don’t have to live in the tropics to grow and enjoy exotic edibles, which if properly chosen will thrive in containers set in sunny indoor locations whatever the weather is doing outside.

Experts Laurelynn Martin and Byron Martin, who own Logee’s Tropical Plants in Connecticut, provide the reader with a practical guide to selecting and caring for tropical plants that bring beautiful foliage, lovely fragrances and luscious fruits to every climate.

From coffee or chocolate to cherries, grapefruit to guava and pepper to pineapple, they promise it will be easy, fun and rewarding.

The book is practical, user-friendly and full of colourful photography to tempt you down the ‘exotic’ path.

Growing Tasty Tropical Plants is published by American Garden Publisher, Storey, in paperback, priced £13.99.

ISBN: 978-1-60342-577-3

Who is it for?

Gardeners who want to branch out and try their hand at something more exotic.

★★★

Guide to traditional skills

Alan Titchmarsh shares his love of the countryside in this illustrated guide to the old traditions, crafts and customs of British life. The book includes such treasures as how to sweep a chimney and make your own walking stick as well as how to brew beer, bottle fruit and make jam and chutney. There is also a section on creating a kitchen garden and gardening with wildlife. In the gardening section a piece on old wives’ gardening tips recommends using horsehair, feathers, human hair and nail-clippings as natural fertilisers.

This book is packed with fascinating facts and although it may not be in great depth it can provide a good starting point for anyone wanting to keep livestock or grow their own food and maintain their land.

The Complete Countryman A user’s guide to Traditional Skills and Lost Crafts by Alan Titchmarsh is published in hardback by BBC Books and priced £25.

ISBN: 978-1-846-07393-9

Who is it for?

Anyone who enjoys the countryside and its heritage.

★★★★

Grow with Yorkshire’s finest

Joe Maiden has been a professional gardener in Yorkshire all his working life and for 40 years has co-presented his own gardening programme on BBC Radio Leeds, a show which attracts massive audiences each week. Of course readers of KG will know him as a regular contributor and he was recently awarded the accolade of Best Practical Writer by the Garden Media Guild for his work in the magazine.

After much persuasion Joe was persuaded to put his advice into book form and the result is Grow with Joe, a hardback book filled with great first-hand advice on everything from growing fruit and veg to creating a rock garden or taking care of the lawn.

As you might expect from this Yorkshire gardener, the advice is tailored to northern plots and is one of the few books to do this, however the advice Joe offers is applicable to anywhere in the UK and beyond.

There is an extensive section on vegetables dealing with popular crops such as peas and beans, root vegetables and greenhouse crops, plus a section answering some of the many common fruit and veg growing questions that Joe is asked during his radio programmes and the dozens of talks he gives around the region every year.

Of course woven into the essential info are plenty of the anecdotes and top tips that Joe has become famous for.

Grow with Joe by Joe Maiden, ISBN: 978 1 905080 793, and has a cover price of £14.99. Signed copies costing £18 including p&p are available direct from Joe by calling 01423 734286.

Who is it for?

Anyone looking for down-to-earth advice. It will also be popular with Joe’s many fans.

★★★★★

A story of life on the plot

Spade, Seed and Supper tells the story of Martin and Jenny Spice as they realise a lifelong dream to own an allotment. From the long and tense wait for their ideal plot on their ideal site to clearing the ground and equipping it with recycled fruit supports and raised beds and gathering the first harvests. Packed with amusing stories told in an easy style, many of the trials and tribulations that the couple meet on their journey to allotment success will be familiar to anyone who has been in the same situation.

It will be especially familiar to any beginner who has felt daunted when confronted by a piece of open ground for the first time and wondered where to begin. However in Martin and Jenny’s case, the characters that take care of the surrounding plots soon make themselves known, make the newcomers feel welcome and are on hand with great advice to ensure that they succeed. As a bonus the book contains some lovely illustrations by Mel Narongchai which punctuate the text.

Spade, Seed and Supper is published by Earthworm Press and costs £8.99 plus £1.50 p&p. It is available from www.earthwormpress.com

ISBN: 978 0 9570695 0 3

Who is it for?

Anyone looking for a light read and a giggle after a hard days weeding.

★★★★

For more reviews, see this months issue, available to buy online!