Hands up if you’ve been planting potatoes this weekend. Here’s a photo of ours from a couple of years ago.
If you’re looking for a bit of veg growing advice, here’s a beautiful new book from Kew, and a great guide from the no-dig genius, Charles Dowding. Both available to order for home delivery.
£12.99 Hardback. Create your best vegetable garden ever with a few packets of seed and some fertile ground. In this book Kew’s Kitchen Gardener, Helena Dove, combines practical elements with inspiration and beauty. She shows how to grow some of the most popular staple crops such as tomatoes, potatoes, radishes and rocket, and also some more unusual exciting choices such as oca, tomatillo, seakale and yacon. She gives easy to follow instructions on how to be a successful vegetable gardener, plus 12 exciting projects to try throughout the year including forcing rhubarb, creating an asparagus border and growing in raised beds.
£14.99 Paperback. Charles Dowding draws on his years of experience to show how easy it is to start a new vegetable garden. Any plot – a building site, overgrown with weeds or unwanted lawn – can be turned into a beautiful and productive vegetable area. Charles’s no-nonsense and straightforward advice is the perfect starting point for the beginner or experienced gardener. With step-by-step guides to Planning and early stages, Clearing the ground, Mulch, Minimizing digging, Sowing and planting across the seasons, Growing in polytunnels and greenhouses, this book is filled with labour-saving ideas and the techniques that Charles uses to garden so successfully. Illustrated throughout with photos, and tales from Charles’s first year in his new vegetable garden.