Recommended Gardening Books

[andrewo]

well thats an interesting combination..ever tried rhubarb schnapps????....

Ooooh yes, make it by the bucket load or are we going round in circles. Should I start smuggling the stuff to you all?

[Berr]

Does that mean there are organisms in North America that perform the functions in their soil that worms do in ours? I wonder what they are. And are they unique to N. America?
Bags me the recipe for rhubarb schnapps.

[Nicos]

Berr - take a look at the schnapps thread under 'juicy gossip' for the recipe! It's one Lottie and Andrewo both use. I thought from your diverse reading wish list you'd be into something like that!! I haven't tried it yet...need to wait a few more weeks.. but it looks fantastic from what everyone is saying ...what to do ( instead of half fill the freezer!) with spare rhubarb
Andrewo - yes please!!!!

[andrewo]

John Seymour

I want to suggest the following book as a recommended read, it's not just about gardening but the lifestyle, the needed acreage etc.
New Complete Self-sufficiency: The Classic Guide for Realists and Dreamers by John Seymour (without him there would never have been Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...ink%5Fcode=xm2
Will start on the rhubarb smuggling caper later in the year!

[plot 11 pam]

i agree about joy larkcom and i also dip into bob flowerdews organic bible.

[Berr]

As veg. growers, I think Joy Larkcom et alia are excellent technicians and first-rate teachers of the practicalities, but Flowerdew's an artist and a writer of passionate, inspirational prose.
( I THINK I know what I mean!).
Talking about commercial chemical fertilisers, in particular N,P,K:
"These used to be thought of as plant foods replacing the elements taken away by the crop. And while these elements do exist as similar chemicals in the soil solution, it is not natural to have them in very high concentrations as in conventional fertiliser granules. This simplistic chemical idea is a bit like feeding your kids cooking oil, sugar, and flour; they'd do better with it cooked and mixed with other things. Well, we can make feeds from natural ingredients that provide a proper feast for our plants rather than just a few elements." From "The Gourmet Gardener". I like that!
From the same book: "To eat a ripe peach comfortably, you should need a bib. Such a degree of sweetly perfumed but near-liquid pleasure can be obtained only from a fresh sun-warmed fruit eaten immediately right beside the tree!" Sensuous stuff from a bloke in love with his subject, I think! Due back to the library tomorrow but I think I'll have a look on eBay!

[Jaxom]

Compost by Clare Foster

Compost by Clare Foster is an entertaining book, fascinating and enlightening about a subject that doesn't normally inspire any such adjectives in many peoples world apart from us gardeners. Nominated for the Garden Writers' Guild's Practical Book of the Year Award 2002 this is a good book to have on your shelf.
This book takes some of the fear out of making compost. A compost pile does not have to be a slimy pile of rotting vegetable matter at the bottom of your garden. It can be a thing of beauty, which restores order to your garden and also helps to cure some of the problems that build up over time in garden soil. Think of well made compost as being a bottle of natural antibiotics for Mother Nature.
This book is easy to understand and follow the guidance. There is no gobbledegook in it and all the science contained has been explained in a clear manner. There are diagrams to help you build various types of compost bins and wormeries so there is something for all gardeners who wish to start making their own “Black Gold”
The book can be found on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...951932-7027063 If the customer review looks at all familiar thats because I wrote that too
Jax
Having said that we should remember that help and advice with compost can be found by reading Geordies posts.

[nick the grief]

I think "Geordies bit" is the best read so far .... it's free!!! then you can spend the money you would have on seeds & fruit bushes

[Jaxom]

"British food" by Mark Hix

It’s March 2006 and we have worn our daffodils here is Wales for St David’s day on the 1st. On the 17th it will be the turn of the Irish and St Patrick’s day will be here with its vibrant celebrations in pubs up and down the UK. Shamrocks will be out and the Guinness will flow. Here in my home we will be eating Boiled Bacon with white cabbage and steamed potatoes. Due to my families very mixed British heritage we are a lively mix of Welsh, Irish and Scots, so Haggis neaps and tatties, Faggots and peas are regular features on our dinning table along with the wonderful Champ in summer.
February 28th this year was Shrove Tuesday and Pancakes were the order of the day. I bought the maple syrup and this is where I started to think how food in Britain has evolved over the last forty years. Here in Wales as a child Pancakes were not served with maple syrup but lemon and sugar. I was twenty-one before I discovered putting dried currants in the soft batter in the pan at the start of cooking is a very typically Welsh and Scottish way of making pancakes. In London when I made a batch of Pancakes I was not prepared for the commotion a few dark speckles of dried fruit would make to my party guests one Shrove Tuesday.
These days Tandori Chicken and Duck in Hoi sin sauce are as much a part of mealtime as sun dried tomatoes and a stir of Pesto in boiled pasta. This diversity at mealtime is the result of two major things. The first is the migration to Britain of so many people from around the globe; the second is the advent of supermarkets making ingredients from round the world so easy to buy. My father was a merchant sailor so introduced my mother to Indian and Chinese food before I was born. Ethnic diversity of food has always been most welcome when it comes to mealtime in our home; especially if someone else was cooking as my mother just had no interest in cooking at all.
Here in Britain we have not always had so widely available access to cooking ingredients. Food used to be cooked in the season it was available fresh from the gardens and farms where it was grown. Most homes here in Wales espied to own a pig to make the year a little easier on the family. The pig used to eat all the kitchen waste that we now use on our compost piles and then provide wonderful manure for growing fantastic organic vegetables the rest of the year.
So my question is this. What do you think traditional British Food would be like if we removed all the pasta, pizza and curry from our cupboards?
If you are looking at rather emptier store cupboards in your mind's eye and wondering what you are going to feed the family? May I recommend a book called British Food by Mark Hix? Here is a book that brings together a whole host of typically British food. Mark Hix has put together 120 recipes that show how easy and tasty British food can be. Among the selection in the book are snacks, soups, meat and fish dishes as well as traditional puddings. Each recipe has a colour photograph to entice your taste buds.
The book starts off with an introduction and guide to ingredients that is typically British in origin. The seasonal availability of ingredients is covered and a list of game birds in date order ends this introduction.
So far I have made Pan Haggerty, Drop scones, Scotch broth and Spotted dick. The next thing to make on my list is Cornish pasties. Each recipe is simply laid out and easy to follow. This book is quickly becoming a firm favourite in my home. So the next time you stand in front of the kitchen cupboards and ask yourself what to cook for tea or dinner, may I suggest you cook something British and in season. The book can be found here,
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...951932-7027063

[Lesley Jay]

Where curry is concerned my Mrs Beetons cookery book from 1878 has plenty of curry recipes in it and pasta in the form of macaroni. Seafood and game are still seasonal. I think where it has gone wrong is with the vegetables and fruit. There are still a few vegetables that are more or less seasonal. Brussel sprouts, parsnips, swede and also corn on the cob are sold in season. But as long as people want to eat tastless tomatoes and bullet like strawberries the supermarkets will keep on stocking them.

My recommendation for two excellent cookery books are The River Cottage Cookbook and if you ever spot it The Dairy Book Of British Food.

[Jaxom]

Where curry is concerned my Mrs Beetons cookery book from 1878 has plenty of curry recipes in it.

found this on the net.
‘curry’ was rapidly adopted in Britain. In 1747 Hannah Glasse produced the first known recipe for modern ‘currey’ in Glasse’s Art of Cookery and by 1773 at least one London Coffee House had curry on the menu. In 1791 Stephana Malcom, the grandaughter of the Laird of Craig included a curry recipe she called Chicken Topperfield plus Currypowder, Chutnies and Mulligatawny soup as recorded in ‘In The Lairds Kitchen, Three Hundred Years of Food in Scotland’. the whole artical can be read at http://www.menumagazine.co.uk/curryhistory.html
and I have also found a claim that it is a Welsh word the writer claims that in India the word curry would be meaningless, and that it's a Welsh invention derived from the term for gravy - doubtless a subject for HOT debate! see http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/ilovewale...od/curry.shtml i can't find anything in my Welsh Dictionary that leads me to bielive the Welsh claim?
Jax

[nick the grief]

Good source of second hand & new books of all types of Gardening

http://www.keithsplantbooks.co.uk/

[Jaxom]

The Victorian Kitchen Garden (DVD not book)

The Victorian Kitchen Garden with Peter Thoday and Harry Dodson is a DVD I have recently purchased because of a fellow Grape’s post that reminded me of the BBC2 series of the same name that I enjoyed watching during its first transmission in the 1980’s.
Set in Berkshire. Retired Head Gardener, Harry Dodson comes out of retirement for a year to return to the gardening methods that were employed by Victorian Kitchen gardeners during the reign of Queen Victoria.
Kitchen Gardens during the 1980’s were firmly relegated to history due to the vast costs that were part and parcel with their hay day. Information was available in diaries and literature of the Victorian era but little was know about the actual gardening as two world wars and the advent of higher wage demands had all played their part in their demise.
Today most of us are able to go to the supermarket and buy fresh fruit and vegetables out of season as well as more exotic items like mellons or Pineapples. During the Victorian era the lord and lady of the big house expected to be able to eat such fresh produce out of season when humble mortals like our grandparents would have been eking out the winter months on a limited supply of produce.
The fact that the Lord and Lady of the “Big House” could enjoy these wonderful food stuffs was only possible due to the dedication of the Gardeners they employed as well as the ingenuity that was Victorian inventiveness.
Peter Thoday covers many aspects of interest in how the Victorian Horticulturists plantsmen and scientists worked away to improve knowledge and plant varieties, while Harry Dodson turns his hand to growing using only Victorian tools, plant varieties and techniques.
The DVD is in thirteen chapters. The first chapter covers the partial restoration of the decrepit run down walled Garden at Chilton Foliat as well as a little background information. The following twelve chapters are dedicated to the months of the year in which Harry Dodson solves many horticultural mysteries.
Today thanks to many horticultural enthusiasts we are once again able to grow some of the old vegetable varieties. There are a number of seed banks and gardeners that grow a few heritage vegetables each year just to keep the seed stocks viable and available for us “Backyard” Gardeners and Allotment enthusiasts. Back when The Victorian Kitchen Garden was filmed Peter Thoday and Harry Dodson found it a lot harder to get hold of the heritage seeds that were needed to be true to the Victorian Kitchen Garden era. Perhaps it is due to an up swing in interest by people like Jennifer Davies, the associate Producer who did much of the work to bring the Victorian Kitchen Garden to life in the 80’s, that today we can grow many old varieties of vegetables today.
I have spent many happy hours watching Harry Dodson turn the clock back to the Victorian era and would heartily recommend this DVD to anyone.
On a final note it has to be said that the quality of the copy is a little poor visually, as when first broadcast it would not have been intended for private home consumption on VHS or DVD format.
Jax

[Jaxom]

From "The Gourmet Gardener". "To eat a ripe peach comfortably, you should need a bib. Such a degree of sweetly perfumed but near-liquid pleasure can be obtained only from a fresh sun-warmed fruit eaten immediately right beside the tree!" Sensuous stuff from a bloke in love with his subject, I think! Due back to the library tomorrow but I think I'll have a look on eBay!

Berr, in the past I have always been a little surprised at how much more books cost on eBay than second hand on Amazon. The P&P cost is one set fee of Ł2.75 no matter how big the book so costs are very often cheaper than sellers wide ranging charges on eBay. Next time you miss out on a book you have bid for, compare the final sale price plus the delivery cost a seller charges on eBay with what you would be charged on Amazon.
Jax

[Berr]

Jax,
Yep. This eBay/ Amazon price-discrepancy thing is something I've only recently discovered. Frequently people pay more for gardening books secondhand on eBay than they can be bought for new from Amazon. I'd seen it before with fishing lures ,mind you.
I too have recently bought The Victorian Kitchen Garden- AND British Food, And Delia Smith's three-part course. You people are costing me a fortune!

Tell you a book I would NOT recommend: Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman. I don't have his original and famous book (the name of which I've forgotten) but this, I think, is an attempt to cash-in on the success of the first book. Not a cynical attempt- it's a decent and very readable book but it's disappointing from an information point of view. I should have bought the other one.