Essential Reading

[KeithR]

I have just taken on my first allotment and am currently removing the jungle so that I can get the soil dug. I have a few gardening books but absolutely nothing specifically on allotments/vegitable growing. Could anyone recommend a couple of good books that I can get and read during the dark winter evenings when I am soaking my aching back.

KeithR

[Palustris]

Considering I have about 12 metres of shelf space of books on gardening,there are actually very few specifically on Vegetable and Fruit growing. The two we use most often are Arthur J Simon's The New Vegetable Growers Handbook. You would have to look in second hand book shops for this. The paperback version we have dates from 1975. The other basic book is The RHS Gardening Techniques.
     Phillips and Rix Vegetables is interesting to look through for inspiration as to choice of what to grow, but has no cultivation information.
Enjoy your Winter and frequent your local library!

[Wicker]

There is of course the "Expert" range of books by Dr Hessayon priced about £6 each I think and readily available from B&Q and other big outlets and you could get by with the Vegetable Expert and Fruit Expert

This range is often critcised (never really understood why) and has no "photographs" as such but lots of illustrations and drawings.  It is what it says "basic" but does give an immediate insight into pests, diseases and troubles which is very useful in the beginning, it gives planting times and harvest times (which of course will vary from area to area and year to year) but it is a good starter I think and not intimidating for a beginner - or and old hand like me!!  

Have to admit that over the yerars we have gathered quite a lot of other books which we enjoy as well.  Good luck anyway Keith.

[Hugh_Jones]

Like Eric, (although I haven`t actually measured my shelf space) the books I would recommend specifically on this subject are two oldies which would probably require some searching in the secondhand book shops:-
1. Down to Earth Fruit & Vegetable Growing by Lawrence D. Hills (1960)
2. Planning Your Vegetable Garden by Louis N. Flawn 1962

Both are, inevitably, somewhat out of date with regard to new varieties, but both also detail remedies now coming back into use as the modern chemical remedies so beloved of more modern writers are steadily outlawed by European legislation.

As an addition I would also recommend Manures and Fertilizers by R.P. Faulkner (1949) which will tell him of the properties and effects of virtually every known basic manure and fertilizer, both organic and inorganic as well as the treatment and effects of the various mineral deficiencies or excesses

[Andy H]

The Vegetable and Herb expert by Dr D G Hessayon is excellent ISBN 0-903-50546-0

and another good one I liked especially for allotment compo etc stuff and soil types is
growing fruit and vegetables by Richard Bird.
ISBN 1-84309-242-5

[Wicker]

Hi Keith, me again!! Talking to my OH this afternoon reminded me that long ago (looooog ago!!) when we put our names down for our first allotment my OH used to go to the library and get out books on  veggie growing and keeping an allotment - ones more expensive than we could have bought at the time and they were a great source of knowledge so if you don't want to spend a lot of money try that - they probably have ones which are now out of print as well or they will order in books for you to read.  Very underused the local libraries now...

[Hugh_Jones]

Wicker, the reason why the good Dr. Hessayon`s books have been so criticised is that despite the reference to "Expert", they often weren`t.
His "Be your own lawn expert" was written and published under the auspices of a certain fertilizer company and every section in it terminates with a recommendation to use that company`s particular product for the problem.

I purchased his book on vegetable growing in the 1960s and in the first chapter that I consulted I was amazed to be informed that my runner bean trench must be included in the four year rotation. Clearly he was no expert on growing runner beans.  I gave the book away to a less particular neighbour.

[tim]

Nevertheless, Hugh - they are a good fall back position for any newcomer, before they start to read between the lines?? = Tim

[Wicker]

Do appreciate where you are coming from, Hugh, - the " " round Expert was me being a wee bit sly but I still think they are a decent enough cheap starter - as Tim says a good fallback until they learn from their own experience.  Thanks anyway Hugh.

[Hugh_Jones]

tim, I suppose that if you adopt the view that any book is better than no book to start with then you`re probably right. The trouble is that once you get the idea that any book is going to make you an expert at anything it can be very difficult to accept that you`re nothing of the sort, that there are a great many lines that you need to read between, and that some of the practices you have learned are either dubious or even wrong.
There are many better books.

[Hugh_Jones]

Mega, having spent nearly 60 years reading, absorbing, and extracting the salient facts from, technical treatises of all descriptions I don`t need a photographic memory to remember the name of the book or the various reasons (there were others) why I discarded it, any more than I need a photographic memory to remember the names of the various textbooks upon which I rely, or indeed of the names of the Kings and Queens of England, the original 52 Counties and their County towns, or the date of the Norman Conquest, all of which I learned at school nearly 70 years ago.  All it requires is a little more mental effort and concentration than is apparently now customary.
 What I do remember is being told to do something which I knew after 15 years (even then) of personal experience to be completely unnecessary.  Nor is there any likelyhood of my ever forgetting it since I have seen (and contradicted) this particular piece of wrong advice quoted so many times on this and the BBC sites as "Dr. Hessayon`s book says" etc.

And no, my neighbour employed a jobbing gardener to make a vegetable patch, but after 6 months it was so overgrown with weeds that he gave it up as too much like hard work and planted shrubs on it.

[Andy H]

High! do tell...What was so contradictory in the book that you didn`t agree with?

We can all learn from it as I use that book...

Andy & Becky

[Hugh_Jones]

The seventh posting from the top, for a start.

[KeithR]

Many thanks to all I have quite a bit to make a start on and will trawl the scond hand shops and libraries.
I remember my father getting a series of A5 size paperbacks in the late 60's / early 70's specifically about fruit and veg growing. Each booklet was on a different type and cost the princely sum of 35p ( it must have been after 1971 then because that's when we went decimal). They were superb, pity one of the magazine publishers doesnt re-launch them.

KeithR

[campanula]

Lol hills, vegetable god.
Joy Larkom, readable and clear.
Philips and Rix - good pics

local library, way to go
cheers, suzy

[derbex]

I use thw Which Veg. Growing book. I also like some of Bob Flowerdews -but not enough to put my hand in my pocket as yet

For fruit there's 'The Fruit Garden Displayed', by Harry Baker, seems to be well recommended and I like it. It's out of print but still in libraries and I found a second hand copy on EBay at the first attempt.

As mentioned before try your library, find a book you like, and then try and buy a copy.

Jeremy

[Mrs Ava]

I have stacks of books at home, but I don't have one that I swear by.  I use my library all of the time and have just returned Christopher Lloyds book on growing veggies, and nice things to cook with them!

[derbex]

I read that earlier in the year E-J, might even be the same copy doing the rounds of the Essex libraries. Nice book, worth a read, I'd buy it if I saw it in a 2nd-hand shop

Jeremy

[Kerry]

and if not the library-ebay?
loads of books at cheap prices.

[Roy Bham UK]

How did I miss this thread? Thanks Jeremy for guiding me