choosing a gardening method – organic, biodynamic, rotation beds, companion planting, greenhouse, multi-level, potager, cottage garden, and so on. The ideal gift for the green-fingered gardener or budding botanist in your life, Allotment Handbook shows that you are more than capable of growing delicious and thriving fruit and vegetables at home!

He rebelled from academic life at Oxford (Hons degree in English) to start a gardening career, progressing to the Crown Estate at Windsor Great Park and thereafter employed as a head gardener in private service (initially for J B Priestley and Jacquetta Hawkes, who encouraged early potting-shed writing projects). You'll also find easy projects such as making a simple compost bin and planting a fruit tree and tips to attract wildlife along with simple, delicious ways to enjoy your produce. There are quite a few, and many seem to overlap: can anyone suggest the best one for my specific situation? This book testifies the new vibrancy of allotment culture, and provides all the knowledge needed to turn a patch of soil into a lifelong adventure.

Allotments are sanctuaries for growing, often on the fringes of suburbia, where life is getting ever more stressful and expensive. Allotment Handbook is an inspiring and innovative guide to making the most out of your gardening space so you can grow deliciously organic fruit and vegetables in abundance, at home! A key common reason for taking on a plot, whatever the private social or therapeutic motivation might be, is the deep sense of achievement when you harvest your own food. From an overgrown suburban plot to the productive veg beds we have today – Taking on a Plot, the first book in the three-book series, Lost the Plot, is an inspirational guide about a family’s pursuit of fresh, guilt-free, organic fruit and veg.

A new edition of the bestselling guide to making the most of your allotment, with seasonal advice, essential to-do lists, and more than 60 fruit and vegetable crop planners. In-depth crop planners show you when to sow and how to cultivate more than 60 herbs, fruit, and vegetables, including potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, strawberries, and apples. With the cost of living so high, cultivating a plot on an allotment is an ideal source of organic fruit and veg. Really useful book not just for people setting out with allotments, but for people growing their own veg at home. So many people give up in their first year because it is too much or they don’t get the results they hoped for.Andy Clevely captures the essence of the allotment, showing how it is a relaxing a socialble way to garden. As both John and his daughter Cara are into self-sufficiency the book also covers the economics of keeping poultry at home and raising chickens for the table. It's really motivating to know when content has been helpful, and I try to reply to as many comments as I can. The proven physical and mental health benefits gave gardening a central role in therapy and rehabilitation programmes, as well as making it an effective way to escape from the stress and highly organized structure of modern society – for many, working on their plot became a kind of declaration of independence, an emancipation from uniformity. The global garden Although still firmly rooted in its tradition of individual land access and cultivation, the modern allotment now thrives in a more diverse and stimulating cultural context.