Good but slighly flawed

No one (apart from the late, great Geoff Hamilton) does gardening books for beginners like Alan Titchmarsh. Plenty of practical, common sense advice delivered in an encouraging but non-patronizing tone to reassure the total novice. Clear text together with a good 'directory' of fruit & veg make this ideal for the newcomer to the veg patch. This book could have been improved by fewer photos of Titchmarsh and more clearly captioned pictures of gardening tasks/pests & diseases/plant cultivars etc. I was also irritated by his statement that organic matter such as manure or compost is insufficient to maintain healthy soil without the addition of a general purpose fertilizer. This is total nonsense & an irresponsible statement from a celebrity gardener who claims to be organic. I was also disappointed by his advice to store rainwater for use 'during hosepipe bans'. Again, I would expect an 'organic' gardener to be encouraging the maximum use of rain & 'grey' water at all times. But apart from these minor quibbles, this book would be an ideal companion for the first time veg grower. (Those with more experience will probably prefer Joy Larkcom's Grow Your Own Veg book instead.)

Essential Reading

An essential guide for everyone who is a gardener who wants to preserve their own produce.

It's okay...

If, like me, you need an allotment book which assumes you know v little, but have already made the decision to work an allotment, don't necessarily put this book at the top of your list. i didn't need a chapter telling me why people have allotments. i didn't need recipes. i didn't need to know that someone has been labeled"the queen of herbs" by jamie oliver. i didn't need a page on bees. i need a book that allows me to look up raspberries, rhubarb, potatoes, courgettes, or whatever, and be directed to a page with everything i needed to know about those fruits/vegetables, plus a section that outlines everything i need to plan for each season. the latter section is here, and it is *almost* acceptable, but it assumes too much prior knowledge. if, like me, you didn't pick up a lifetime's worth of gardening tips from your ancient relatives, e.g. you don't know exactly how to"force" a vegetable, how to prune, etc., then this book isn't the one you need. fair play to the guy - it probably does have a large audience and it's good value for money - but it isn't being marketed at its real audience.

...

Els projectes i les idees que presenta aquest llibre trobo que tenen molt poc joc per personalitzar-los, són idees massa concretes amb poc marge de maniobra...
La veritat és que m'ha decepcionat força... No se perquè la gent li ha posat una nota tan alta...

Proper User Guide for a Veg Plot

Too many gardening authors take time out to wax lyrical about seasons and the joys of blackbirds and dew on your runner canes. Their books end up as a decent afternoon's read, but difficult to use when you're trying to work out what's going wrong with your kohlrabi.

This book is different. Veg are listed alphabetically with clear sections on selecting varieties, planting, looking after, harvesting and cooking, with a troubleshooting guide covering disease, pests, storage and the like.

No nonsense, everything you need and easy to find.

from novice to experienced -worth it

Bought this book 2 plus yrs ago. Brilliant. I admit was initially sad by lack of colour pictures!! but as time has gone on and have now managed to dig most of my veg. plot (rather than stare at it in hope) and made time to plan, this book has been invaluable. There's loads of info. on the web (some a little confusing and a little conflicting) but Ms Larkcom's info. is steadfast and logical and is my first and sometimes, only, port of call. It's a valuable reference for both new and experienced allotment keepers. I've given away my glossy, pretty, fairly useless allotment books and kept to hand this superbly informative and helpful reference. Cheers Ms Larkcom, it was worth every penny.

How to grow your own food

This delightful book is a practical guide to enjoying the growing as much as the eating of your own food. It clearly presents a week by week guide to sowing, planting, nurturing and harvesting your own crops, plus some veggie recipes to further enjoy the fruits of your labour. Along side this are notes to engender closer observation of the wildlife encountered while in the garden or allotment and historical background to the food grown. It would be a stimulating book to encourage a beginner but being informative on many levels it is a really rewarding read for all who are willing to get their nails dirty.

A good stocking filler for a keen gardener

This is a neat and compact little book full of hints and tips from 25 National Trust Head Gardeners, plus staff from the Parks and Gardens Department at the Trust's headquarters in Swindon. Between them all there must be decades, if not centuries of gardening expertise at our disposal.

The National Trust looks after 200 historically important gardens of varying sizes and types, including internationally important ones such as Stourhead and Hidcote. All are managed on a shoestring of permanent staff, aided and abetted by an army of volunteers. So whilst the scale of the gardens on the whole are the stuff of our dreams, the day to day problems and garden care they face are the same as any of us have.

The book is divided into 3 key sections - Planting and Maintenance, Fruit and Vegetables and Green Gardening. Each contributor takes a specialist topic, usually of particular relevance to the garden they look after, within these sections. Care has been taken to ensure the advice and expertise is relevant to any garden.

Each mini-section is a just few pages long, but is packed with information and has a highlighted Tips section at the end. Unfortunately there are no illustrations, but the short-section approach goes a little way to overcome this drawback.

A pocket sized book that not only has a lot of information, but also provides an insight in the role of the National Trust in looking after those gardens we love to visit.

Totally inspirational

A completely invaluable book for anyone who likes to grow food. The thing about salad is that even the tiniest spot can be made to produce something (look at Dowding's discussion of microleaves for windowsills...) But the big advantage of this book is the brilliant month by month sections containing detailed suggestions and growing instructions for salads that will flourish at different times of year. Forget sowing the same thing over and over again, says Dowding. Instead, choose seasonal plants - mustards and rockets in winter, soft watery leaves in summer - which will flourish, needing less care and getting less pests, because they are growing at just the right time for them.

This book made me get out the seed catalogues and start ordering more unusual varieties - this winter I've grown red mustard and lambs lettuce which are both really sharp and tasty, and which I probably wouldn't have been brave enough to try without Dowding's ever-encouraging book. Really, at the price of three supermarket mixed bags of leaves, it's a book that we should ALL have a copy of!

Anyone can cram enough time into their week to grow vegetables!

So many people take an allotment plot on with great intentions - then realise the commitment and aren't able to keep it up. This book provides all the information that could be needed to manage your plot in minimum time. This means it's not necessarily for everyone - those who are able to spend long days on their plot may not feel that it's applicable to them. But I'd suggest that the book still contains plenty of hints, tips and advice on how to get the best from your plot.

Fabulous Little Book

I bought this book in 2007. It inspired me immediately and I bought several copies for friends and family. After visiting my cousin in Oct 2007 I sent her a copy too. She phoned me to thank me and said that she had only got to page 20 and was up, around and clearing.

Since that time I have also bought 'Sink Relfections' by Marla Cilly and by combining ideas from both of these I am making head way in my fight against My Clutter. I went off the boil a little while ago, but then picked up the books and off I was again.

Recently I was inspired to get rid of my old record collection, which I have been itending to copy to CD. However, the collection was over 200 strong and in my heart of hearts, I knew I would never get through all those, even if I did have a player to put them on. I sold some gave the rest to charity shops. It feels great. I realise now that there are many things in my life that are performing no useful function towards the life I intend for myself. My clutter has been preventing me from enjoying my life, so out it goes!

If at first you are not enamoured with this book, then please put it to one side and have a think about your clutter and how much time you spend on it, compared to how much time you really enjoy your life, then get the book out again and rethink.

Happy Clearing

Doesn't live up to the standards of the TV programme it is based on

I'm an admirer of Monty Don and I enjoyed the TV series this book is based on. But the book is far too sketchy to be satisfying; there's simply not enough material here, not enough photographs, too few insights.
If this is an Around the World trip, it's one of those lightning coach tours full of camera snapping tourists ("If it's Tuesday it must be Paris").
Worth a read, but not worth the asking price. As someone has commented before, just borrow it from the library; the publishers have let Monty down with this one.

A superb guide to intensive organic vegetable growing

A highly productive vegetable garden that involves no digging, written by a man with no formal horticultural training, and organic to boot? You may be permitted a certain cynicism.

However if that cynicism stops you from reading this book then you will have missed out on a treasure.

This book is now my first port of call when I am looking for a gardening solution. As a beginner and non-scientist, I found his style easy to understand packed with useful tips and coherent in that it took me from an uninformed start to considering quite complicated seasonal planning without loosing the plot or throwing my hands up in confused despair. The results at the Domaine de Montrouch are looking promising- if the wild boar don't decide they fancy a salad dinner one night.

The perfect present for the classy gardener

Diana Ross's is not like your usual gardening book: no glossy pics, no informative diagrams, just twenty chapters, each describing a long day spent in the company of one of Britain's most interesting gardeners, written up almost like short stories.

Diana Ross goes off to find her interview"victims" as she calls them and then spends hours in their company, looking round their gardens and working out what makes them tick. You've got names respected and loved by every serious gardener in Britain: Beth Chatto, Dan Pearson and Roy Lancaster. There are also unusual choices like Richard Mabey (of"Food for Free") Hugh"Wine Atlas" Johnson and James"Gaia Hypothesis" Lovelock. And the lovely evocative details she puts in just bring her subjects to life. It's not about their gardens, it's about how they have lived their lives in relation to gardening. And if you enjoy knowing things such as which CD Roy Lancaster sings along to on the motorway and how Richard Mabey arranges his library, this is just the most delightful book.