KG Bookshelf: May 2011

Eating from the garden every day

Here is a very practical gardening manual, with sound advice on how to sustain one's family with all year round fruit and vegetables.

'Grow something to eat every day' guides the reader through each process methodically from planning to sowing, harvesting, storing and preserving to ensure produce at all times; somewhat easier in the summer months than when the ground is frozen in winter, so storage and preservation ideas are essential.

The gardener gets a month by month account on what to sow and what you should be harvesting as well as eating from storage, plus jobs to be done in that particular period.

With helpful tips on soil types, garden space, what and where to grow, varieties, troubleshooting, pests etc, this is an excellent guide for all your gardening needs. Whether a complete novice or green-fingered expert, all will find this a very useful book in helping you produce year round fruit and vegetables.

Clear and well written in an excellent user-friendly format, the author is Jo Whittingham, the Garden Writers' Guild News Journalist of the year 2004.

Grow Something to eat every day is published by DK in hardback priced £14.99.

ISBN 978-1-4053-6227-6

WHO IS IT FOR?

Gardeners who want to put home-grown food on the table ever day of the year.

New ideas for growing food

A valuable addition to the gardener's collection, Growing Food by bestselling gardening writer Anna Pavord is a revised and updated edition of her book The New Kitchen Garden.

Informative, practical and easy to follow, this book shows how best to grow fruit, vegetables and herbs, combining them with flowers and creating a kitchen garden that is beautiful as well as productive.

It includes a number of different plans for vegetable gardens ranging from a tiny balcony garden through an alcoholic hedge to a Mediterranean courtyard and a vegetable patchwork to an exuberant potager, with simple diagrams to show the way.

As well as offering ideas for contemporary variations on the traditional kitchen garden and all the hard facts on planning, preparing, planting and harvesting, the author also provides plenty of great recipes to make the most of that harvest.

Growing Food is published by Frances Lincoln Ltd in paperback, priced £7.99.

ISBN: 978-0-7112-3140-5

WHO IS IT FOR?

Gardeners who want a no-nonsense book full of information and with plenty of new ideas.

One for the kids

A first gardening book for children from expert Jenny Hendy is a superb 256 page hardback featuring 120 exciting, sensibly arranged projects aimed at 5-12-year-olds but suitable for all ages.

With 1200 superb colour photographs, the Kid's First Gardening Book is a must for any grown-ups too who want to get children interested in gardening.

All projects are clearly laid out stage-by-stage with helpful tips and ideas.

It is a real fun book encouraging children to get their hands dirty whether growing flowers and veg in their wellies or making a birdbath or windchimes in the garden shed.

There is plenty here to keep them occupied while learning very worthwhile skills from this award winning book – The 2010 Garden Media Guild Award for Practical Book of the Year.

The Ultimate Step-by-Step Kid's First Gardening Book is published by Lorenz Books in hardback priced £16.99.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7548-1965-3
ISBN-10: 0-7548-1965-5

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