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Find out moreOur Home & Garden section provides inspiration for your next DIY or gardening project. Whether your looking to start designing your garden, or looking for the latest and trendiest homes to take inspiration from, have a look through the books we have on offer.
June 2011 Non-Fiction Book of the Month. An inspiring book for both gardeners and cooks, which brings Italy to your table by growing your own produce. Simple gardening advice and delicious recipes. Whether you have a balcony, a patio, or space for a full kitchen garden, Sarah provides a wealth of easy-to-understand instructions and advice - tried and tested in her own garden. This is the perfect book for anyone who loves Italian food and would like to know how to grow it - even on a small scale.
I’ve hijacked this book for the Gardening section as I couldn’t bear to miss Mirabel Osler’s new book. She starts and ends with gardens and throughout plants, trees, fragrance and gardens are much in evidence so I feel I am somewhat justified. She is looking back on life, sorting through accumulations of letters, diaries and photographs with that sadness that comes from knowing that one day who will know that person in the photograph, their story and history. We are introduced to places and people, her beloved husband Michael who sadly died just before her classic A Gentle Plea for Chaos was originally published, her children, her friends, the places where she has lived – and loved. A jewel of a book. Like for Like ReadingA Little History of British Gardening, Jenny UglowA Gentle Plea for Chaos, Mirabel Osler
A natural boffin, Dave Hamilton’s cheery book is the outcome of his quest for free-as-possible food. And growing food the “free” way is good for your purse and good for the environment as you recycle, reuse, scrounge and make-do. Beside the hundreds of tips and ideas, there is some very good advice to be had on soil, compost and fertiliser in particular. It’s fun to read with useful tables and quirky step-by-step diagrams, the projects achievable, that almost free food eminently possible. Like for Like Reading The Self-Sufficient-ish Bible, Andy & Dave HamiltonThe Thrifty Gardener: How to Create a Stylish Garden for Next to Nothing, Alys Fowler
Following her theme of the Pure Style, Jane Cumberbatch presents a book of living, eating and gardening simply and stylishly. Arranged by season, the book is a great pleasure to read. Jane’s personal reflections and her ideas on living extend the cooking theme. To take one example, the Rose; there are excellent recommendations of what to grow and how to look after your plants, how to use flowers in cooking through to making pot-pourri and pressed flowers. It’s a very well-rounded look at the place of food in life, how you can cook well but simply, how to make your house into a home. Like for Like ReadingSarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook, Sarah RavenThe Kitchen Diaries, Nigel Slater
The son of two passionate gardeners, Antony Woodward was born with chlorophyll running through his veins. Unfortunately, growing up with Latin plant names took its toll, and he was ingrained early on with a profound loathing of both gardens and gardening. Buying Tair-ffynnon, a derelict smallholding 1,300 feet up in the Black Mountains of Wales, changed everything. Hooked by its beauty -- when not buried in cloud -- Woodward battles to meet the strict requirements of the famous 'Yellow Book' in this unlikely terrain. He finds himself driven by apparently inexplicable compulsions: wood chopping, hauling a 20-tonne railway carriage up a mountain, even beekeeping. Soon, his voyage along the rocky path to his own patch of paradise takes on a more personal tenor as he unearths the deep roots linking gardening and his childhood in this warm, funny and unlikely memoir. Beautifully written and effortlessly engaging, 'The Garden in the Clouds' is a compelling read for anyone who has ever gardened -- or ever dreamt of doing so.
Aimed at those looking to navigate the maze of gardening advice and sort out the imperative jobs from those that can wait, this guide is perfect for new gardeners or those looking to make their time in the garden really count. This invaluable gardening guide shows you how to care for your garden month by month. From large-scale ornamental gardens to pot plants on your patio The Gardener's Year Made Easy will take you through the essential tasks to keep your plants in tip-top condition. Find out the most important jobs to do each month for all aspects of your garden, from vegetable plots to lawn care and large trees to herbaceous borders.
Superfoods from the Garden is the latest - and most important - book by Michael van Straten, the best-selling author and one of the most respected names in the world of complementary medicine and natural health care. A lifelong believer that good health comes first and foremost from the food you eat, here Michael brings together his three passions - spreading the word on good health the natural way, organic gardening and producing fantastic meals from freshly harvested food. With chapters devoted to each fruit and vegetable family, Michael begins by detailing the different health benefits of each food - for example, did you know that a generous serving of fresh peas supplies all the vitamin B1 you need for a day, or that leeks have a strong antibacterial effect and offer protection against stomach cancer? Once you have decided which crops to grow, Michael explains how to cultivate and nurture your plants. As a dedicated organic gardener, Michael offers tips, techniques and shortcuts to help you to achieve the best harvest ever. Finally, each chapter concludes with a collection of recipes, all devised to capture the goodness of the ingredients.
Whether you're lucky enough to have your own garden, run an allotment or only have enough room for a few pots and containers, you can successfully grow your own fresh vegetables to feed your family. John Harrison's practical guide gives you all the information you need to prepare the soil and start sowing your seeds. Learn all about: preparing the vegetable patch; getting the most from your land; tackling weeds and pests; benefiting from greenhouses and polytunnels; making your own compost and organic fertilizers; successional growing; and, saving and sowing your own seed. It includes a month-by-month guide to help you plan your gardening year. The Complete Vegetable Grower contains, in one comprehensive volume, all John's tips and tried-and-tested methods for successful vegetable growing. It includes an indispensable A to Z guide to vegetables, month-by-month advice to help you plan your gardening year, and an easy-to-follow sowing and harvesting chart. And, for the first time, his practical advice is illustrated with hundreds of beautiful colour photos.
Devotees of The Morville Hours will need to be patient for the sequel, there is one coming but for now we have the bonus of The Morville Year, a collection of Katherine Swift’s columns from The Times. Taking us through the seasons, a gorgeous bran tub of a book that goes beyond gardening into the delights of land, the plants that make up a garden, the people, animals and insects that visit. Just about the ideal bedside book for any gardener, a chapter of Katherine Swift’s meditations on Morville and its garden will sooth even the most savage breast. Like for Like ReadingThe Morville Hours, Katherine SwiftThe Jewel Garden, Monty Don
When Kay Sexton becomes the proud holder of an allotment, she hopes it will be her first foray towards self-sufficiency for her family. Instead, she finds herself in a strange and hostile world of arcane rules and regulations, and hosepipe standoffs. She finds her mud-caked Wellingtoned feet and successfully navigates her way through allotment-keeping: battling Biblical-scale pest invasions; learning the dark arts of the competitive vegetable grower; and, practising ninja-like disappearing acts to avoid yet another free cucumber from a neighbouring gardener.
An ideal introduction to the delights of gardening for fragrance, I found this guide very useful as it gives suggestions for scented plants in every season even in the depths of winter there can be fragrance in the garden. It’s easy to use and quick for reference, every plant illustrated in colour and beginners will find all the planting, care and propagation tips they need. Alongside the obvious – the roses, honeysuckles and lavenders - there are more unusual plants – and trees to try and I, for now, am on the hunt for an Eriobotrya Japonica a tree that flowers from November to March and has “extravagantly scented blossoms” just what’s needed to get through a long winter. Like for Like ReadingThe Rose, David AustinFlowers in the Garden: A Practical Guide to Planting for Colour and Fragrance All Year Round, Andi Clevely
In this revised and updated edition of her book The New Kitchen Garden, bestselling gardening writer Anna Pavord tells us all we need to know about growing fruit and vegetables.
Whether you’re a ‘look at the pictures and see how other people do it’ kind of person, a “that’s a nice flower, I wonder what it’s called?” type, or a ‘well-worn gloves and boots, all-weather, green-fingered gardening guru’ (or a bit of all three for that matter), then there’s something for you here in our lovingly tendered gardening section.
There are books for reference (the RHS’s ‘A-Z Encyclopaedia of Plants’) books to help inspire: winter gardens, summer gardens, spring planting, urban gardens, small gardens, (Small Garden by John Brookes) kitchen gardens and allotments (A Taste of the Unexpected by Mark Diacono), and gardens that support wild life (Fragrant Plants by Lucy Summers). There are books about famous gardens (Bunny Guinness’s ‘Highgrove, A Garden Celebrated’). And when you just want a good read by the fire after a long day in the potting shed, there are the more anecdotal tales of ambition, achievement and planting passion (‘Spade, Mightier than the Sword: The Story of World War Two’s “Dig for Victory” Campaign’ by Daniel Smith).