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Reviews of: The Kitchen Gardener: Grow Your Own Fruit and Vegby Alan Titchmarsh
Reviews Fabulous book for the beginner or more experienced grower I have been after this book for quite a while (at the right price!) and when it arrived I was not disappointed. Alan sets out the rationale for growing your own and from there gives advise on design, planning, growing in pots, crop rotation, sowing seeds, watering and then, an extensive A-Z of veg and fruit covering ease of growing, how to grow and harvesting. Everything you need to know. The thing I particulalry like about this book, is it covers both veg and fruit, whereas others I have looked at have only covered one or the other. I agree with other reviewers on the absence of companion planting and organic methodologies, but is a large tome, even with these things absent. As an introduction to growing your own your food, it gets a thumbs up from me. Once you've started and have a bit of experience, then look at the other areas. But don't wait, buy this book and get going!! 2008-12-25 Very thorough Because this book is a bit on the large side and has some fantastic photos it seems to double as a coffee table book and an instruction manual . Its an excellent book and Alan Titchmarsh is at his best here . The first sixty or so pages is concerned with what Alan calls the ground rules and you get advice on everything from planning and design to feeding and composting . The rest of the book contains the directory where you get a run down on all the common fruit veg and herbs found in most gardens . Now this is pretty comprehensive so expect a little information overload . But personally I think its great to have all this info under the one cover . Definitely a book I will continue to refer to again and again . 2008-12-02 A great book! I was given this book as a gift and thoroughly enjoyed it. I concur with other reviewers so won't waffle on about how good it is. Why only 4 stars? There's nothing on the importance of companion planting when using organic methods and without this, my veg patch wouldn't survive. This info can be researched elsewhere, so other than that, I would recommend this book, especially for a beginner. I'm just about to buy another copy for my best friend who is just that! 2008-10-05 Good but slighly flawed No one (apart from the late, great Geoff Hamilton) does gardening books for beginners like Alan Titchmarsh. Plenty of practical, common sense advice delivered in an encouraging but non-patronizing tone to reassure the total novice. Clear text together with a good 'directory' of fruit & veg make this ideal for the newcomer to the veg patch. This book could have been improved by fewer photos of Titchmarsh and more clearly captioned pictures of gardening tasks/pests & diseases/plant cultivars etc. I was also irritated by his statement that organic matter such as manure or compost is insufficient to maintain healthy soil without the addition of a general purpose fertilizer. This is total nonsense & an irresponsible statement from a celebrity gardener who claims to be organic. I was also disappointed by his advice to store rainwater for use 'during hosepipe bans'. Again, I would expect an 'organic' gardener to be encouraging the maximum use of rain & 'grey' water at all times. But apart from these minor quibbles, this book would be an ideal companion for the first time veg grower. (Those with more experience will probably prefer Joy Larkcom's Grow Your Own Veg book instead.) 2008-08-05 A Fruit and Veg 'Bible' An absolute pleasure to browse through and a thorough 'how to' guide. Clearly laid out. Doubt it could be bettered! 2008-08-01 |
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