Recommended Gardening Books

[Jaxom]

Has anyone got or read "The Heligan Vegetable Bible" I would love to know what people think about it?
Amazon says "

The Lost Gardens of Heligan are home to an impressive range of old varieties of vegetables, saved by enthusiasts from the onslaught of supermarket giants and EU regulations. This book puts the vegetables to the ultimate test: that of flavour.

[nick the grief]

I've got most of the ones mentioned (Joy Lankom etc) but I can't resist 2nd hand bookshops and have got quite a collection now on all things gardening from Fuchsias, Cacti, CHrysanths, Dahlias & Veg. I enjoy reading about the old ways, I guess it's cos it's how my dad did things.

One favourite is Practical Gardeneing & Food Production in pictures by Richard Sudell. Cost £2.50 and if ever you want to know how to disguise your air raid shelter as a rockery, I'm your man

I also got a pen & pencil set off Geoff Amos for this as I wrote to him to see if he knew how old it was as there's no publish date and It was letter of the week in Garden News !!!

[Berr]

Nick,

All I can say is.....with it at his elbow, the gardener cannot go wrong, for he is not merely told, but also shown, what to do in every conceivable circumstance.

Berr, the veriest novice.

Yep! What a weird coincidence- it's the only old gardening book I've ever owned, and when I first saw this thread I thought to mention it because it must have been an excellent book in its day, and is still worthy of respect, I think. Can't remember where I got mine but it was a LONG time ago!

[Berr]

The Richard Sudell book. My wife says that my daughter bought me it for a shilling or so at a village fair in the Carse of Stirling about 20 years ago!

[Jaxom]

Berr. If your daughter paid a shilling then it has to be 35 years ago at least. Decimalization too place in 1971.
Jax

[Berr]

Jaxom,
Yes! Struck me after I'd posted! She'd have had to negotiate from her pram. Make it 10p then! The vast majority of my books are in boxes in the loft, the shelves of my study being reserved for current interests and specials. This book is the only old gardening book represented. Since it's only one of tens of thousands, and been out of print, no doubt, for ages I thought it an odd coincidence that another gardener should also have it and value it enough for special mention.

[nick the grief]

The best bit about my copy is there was some newspaper cutting in it giving advice when to sow what. and the programme listing for the light service ! Even I'm not that old.

Who was uncle Mac.....?

[nick the grief]

PS

It also gives the costings for an allotment for the year and what the value of the produce is My wife wasn't impressed when I told her that I could save her £17 6s 4d or what ever it was.

Would be interesting to do the same comparison in todays money.

[Lesley Jay]

Nick if a little tiny sprig of redcurrants costs £1.99 at the supermarket we must have very valuable stock at the allotments.

[andrewo]

Well

Well you see how much strawberries go for...in fact this gives me an idea have a look at feeling fruity forum!

Andrewo

[Berr]

The Sudell opus.

"Mercuric chloride, a poison, is an alternative remedy for club root...."

Applied by a gentleman in collar and tie, plusfours, polished brogues, and soft hat, assisted by his wife dressed for the occasion for all the world like Sarah Raven. (presumably, flat cap = hired help?). Ah, those dear, dead days beyond recall.
I can tell you, Nick, that it was published in 1946. (air raid shelters remained, often as eyesores, for decades after hostilities ceased.)
Is there a reference to Uncle Mac in it? The only Uncle Mac I know of was Derek McCulloch who was the Uncle Mac of the BBC Home Service Childrens' Hour (daily at 5pm.) during WW2. Not that I remember, mind! (he lied.)
An amazingly comprehensive book though, and full of stuff that's still useful.

Berr.

[Nicos]

We took our alotment over from a 92yr old bloke- I bet he followed advice like that! Perhaps we should have the soil tested for heavy metals!! Makes a bit of a mockery of us trying to be organic eh? What else does it suggest?

[Jaxom]

The best bit about my copy is there was some newspaper cutting in it giving advice when to sow what. and the programme listing for the light service ! Even I'm not that old.

Who was uncle Mac.....?

Two years ago I was given a book in exchange for a tray of perennial plants I had grown from seed. The book was the “garden year” by Percy Thrower. Inside was a newspaper cutting from our local Echo. The writer was a lady who had been writing about cutting the costs of a housewife's housekeeping. Her advice earlier in the year had been to grow your own. The top of the page had been cut off but from the content of the articles on the reverse it was the year of the Drought.
1976.
I remember having to go from shop to shop to find the cheapest greens for my Aunt. This was in the days before the supermarket had taken over domination of the high street and every side road had a corner shop selling allsorts.
The lady extolled the virtues of her home crown vegetables by comparing prices of vegetables worked out by the llb and telling the reader how much a packet of seeds would have produced and what she paid for the seeds at the beginning of the year.
Looking at the prices that people were paying back in 1976 all I can say is, I hope we never have another drought or we will have to put up gun turrets on our plots and loose the patrol dogs. If I work out things correctly a llb of carrots would now set us back about £10 - £15 if we were to be charged at the level people were paying back in 1976. Talk about money growing on trees.
Jax

[Berr]

Something wrong with your arithmetic here, Jax, surely? A pound of carrots might have cost £10 in Moscow but never in Manchester, not in the last half-century anyway, I think! But there's no doubt in my mind that people are much better-off today than in the 70s, say. I don't think anybody grows their own to save money nowadays, do they? All in all a better world, in my opinion, notwithstanding our current crop of horrors.

[nick the grief]

The Uncle mac reference was a cutting used to mark a page in the book to clear that one up.

As to saving money Berr, I pay £15 for my lottie/year + the cost of seeds & Potatoes and I rekon we save hundreds if not thousands!

OK so I heat my greenhouse but I don't pay £40 a month to use the facilities of a Gym, I get my work out in the fresh air.

Just to proves it sort of works, we used to buy our spuds every week from the local supermarket, they're about £3 a bag, we haven't bought any since august last year thats 12 weeks x £3 = £36 it only cost me £6 for the seed potoates! Winner!

I just smile at the taunts of these young folk who buy there F & V each week and think ...suckers