Not the bestThis is one of five books I purchased in order to get started growing organic veg in a polytunnel. I was hoping it would give me some good pointers on beds and rotations.
In actual fact it is a very small book, with a severe lack of useful information. There is very little on organic methods, and really nothing I could not find in five minutes online.
excellentwhat a great book for gardening in raised beds or small areas. Gives advice on closer spacings for veg to get a larger crop of smaller sized veg.With advice from which bed system to use to individual veg advice
A book for our gloomy timesI had this book initially as a pamphlet. As I lost the original, I'm so glad it has been republished. It's A4 and relatively thin, but it tells you how to space your veg to maximise the growing space to hand. as such it's invaluable. All your seed packets assume that you will grow veg in long rows with big spaces in between the rows- just as you would on a agricultural scale. Pears has worked out how to plant in short offset rows- you effectively sow or plant in triangles, so you can fit the maximum vegetation in to a small area. You can also control the size of your crop by variations in spacing- smaller veg in tighter areas. The really important part of the book is the 8 pages near the end which describe this spacing- and you really want laminated copies to have by you when you are sowing outside.
Improving on the original pamphlet, we have nice colour throughout and a section on parterre design- you don't have to have just plain long beds- you can do what your ancestors did for veg growing in the medieval period and jolly it up a bit. There's also sections on choosing your path material to suppress weeds and pests (don't do like Julie did and use loose bricks as it just makes a slug heaven), and companion planting.
It's not the most exhaustive vegetable growing book in the world, but I can assure you that you will find it inventive and inspirational.
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