Garden Wisdom/Allotment Gardener's Cookbook

[SueA]

I just bought 2 really good little books at the weekend from 'The Works'-one of those book clearance places. 'Garden Wisdom' by Charlie Ryrie for £2 (should be £12.99) & 'The Allotment Gardener's Cookbook' by Ann Nicol for £4.99 (should be£9.99). The Garden Wisdom one has lots of useful advice on lots of different topics from the weather to how to make natural pest & disease controls, cosmetics, remedies, companion planting, how to tell what soil type you have, make compost etc. It's really useful for beginners & has useful tips for the more experienced especially if organic or into herbs & plant folklore. The Allotment Cookbook has lots of tasty looking recipes for fruit & vegetable based dishes to use up your produce with preserves, chutneys, courgette teabread,soups,salads & tarts.Have a look if you're ever in 'The Works'.

[Hazel at the Hill]

Just nipping out to get a paper, and spotted your post Sue, so I'll be sure to nip into the Works whilst I'm there!

Thanks for the tip!

[madderbat]

Hi Sue A
I picked up the Allotment Gardener's Cookbook from Wyevale when we were passing about a month ago. It was reduced then £4.99 from £9.99 so I picked it up without really examining it. I've not posted about it here, because it hasn't really grabbed me.
The first bit about Preserving, drying herbs, flavoured vinegars and freezing is moderately interesting, but there are too many pictures and the pages are quite hard to turn for an elderly, arthritic crone like me.

There are nearly 100 pages of desserts (which we eat very rarely) before the vegetable recipes. These have been listed in alphabetical order, so asparagus comes first, and winter root vegeables last. Unfortunately the recipes are not listed in the contents, and there is an index, but it's very hard to find, so unless you know you want to make 'something with celeriac' you have to painstakingly turn over all the pages to find anything.
This book will obviously suit many people, but sorry, it doesn't do it for me. Having said that, there are one or two recipes - courgette tea bread for instance which I will log and possibly try at some point.

[SueA]

Hi Madderbat, sorry you don't really rate the cookbook, but it wouldn't do if we all liked the same things all the time would it? I see what you mean about the pages, I liked it though because it's ringbound & you can open it & lay it flat while you're cooking without it closing itself up! I must confess I'm more into baking than cooking so I love all the dessert recipes & fancy trying the gooseberry & almond torte if I manage to get any gooseberries on the bush this year instead of growing gooseberry sawfly larvae as usual!

[madderbat]

Apologies, SueA

I was a bit caustic, wasn't I? Didn't mean to put it down quite so hard, some of the recipes look lovely, but the design and layout irritate me (and my arthritis was playing up). I do find it awkward to turn the pages for some reason, and there are too many 'artistic' pictures for my liking - give me the facts and I'm happy, but some of the photos don't even show what the dish ought to look like (which is what I thought cookery photography was about!) If I want art I go to a gallery or paint/draw/photograph my own!

Probably something to do with the time of the month and me getting a year older last week! Had an attack of the grumps last night. Sorry.

I'm glad you like the book and concede that some of the recipes sound great. I will probably try some too.

[SueA]

Don't worry Jane. I know the feeling! Have a look at the other book 'Garden Wisdom' if you see it, you might like that as it is more along the 'mind ,body,spirit' line that you appreciate. It might be a bit lightweight for you though as it's not very 'in depth' but is more of a taster suited to a dabbler like me! Sorry about your arthritis playing up, you look far too young & healthy to have problems like that (before you say it you're only a few years older than me & I'm still claiming to be a youngster!)

[dexterdoglancashire]

I've got a copy of "the allotment gardener" by ann nicol and its not too bad; pretty similar to other allotment books, though OK for the price. DDL

[dexterdoglancashire]

A good friend of mine bought me the "Allotment Gardeners Cookbook" from Tatton Park a few weeks ago - good I thought, plenty of good ideas and I liked the way the recipes were in veg and fruit order. For £4.99 a bargain methinks! Bernie