Product Description

Charles Dowding, one of the pioneers of vegetable box schemes, shares the philosophy, tips and techniques which have enabled him to run a successful organic garden supplying local restaurants and shops for over 25 years: 1. Forget the rules: received wisdom about gardening is surprisingly inaccurate. Understand what is going on in your own garden and climate, and work out your own methods 2. Respect and encourage life as much as you can, chiefly by spreading good compost or manure 3. There is no need to dig in compost and manure just spread it on top and let worms take it in 4. You only need to weed about once every ten days. Based on his experience of a system of permanent slightly-raised beds, Charles takes you through a delicious variety of fruit and vegetables: what to choose, when to plant and harvest, and how best to avoid pests and diseases. The book includes recipes to inspire you, with your fresh-picked produce, and 32 pages of full colour photographs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5246 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
One of our most respected vegetable growers . . . Now ordinary gardeners can benefit from his years of practical experience, growing great vegetables in harmony with Mother Earth. --Joy Larkcom, author of 'Grow your own vegtables'

Charles is a passionate and accomplished gardener, who grows vegetables of amazing flavour. --Raymond Blanc

From the Back Cover
In Organic Gardening, Charles Dowding shares the philosophy, tips and techniques which have enabled him to run a successful organic garden supplying local restaurants and shops for over 25 years.
Forget the rules: `received wisdom' about gardening is surprisingly inaccurate. Understand better what is going on in the soil and with your plants, in your own garden and climate, and work out your own methods instead.
Respect and encourage life as much as your can, chiefly by spreading good compost or manure.
There is no need to dig in compost and manure - just spread it on top and let worms take it in. Digging can harm soil structure, and is not helpful to plants.
You can reduce weeding to a little hand-weeding or hoeing every ten days.
Based on his experience of a system of permanent slightly raised beds, Charles takes you through a delicious variety of fruit and vegetables: what to choose, when to plant and harvest, and how best to avoid pests and diseases. The book includes recipes to inspire you to culinary heights with your fresh-picked produce.

About the Author
Charles Dowding has not dug, except to clear perennial weeds and
turf, for twenty-five years; he started growing organic vegetables
commercially in 1982 and has farmed in both Somerset and France, and had a
programme of Gardener's World devoted to his farm. He now crops almost an
acre on intensive raised beds, runs courses, and sells salad bags and veg
boxes from his farm. He contributed to The Complete Manual of Organic
Gardening (Headline 1992), and writes for RHS magazine and Blackmore Vale
Magazine. He lives in Shepton Montague, Somerset

Customer Reviews

A Must For Any Vegetable Grower
This is a gardening book of the old school, one that is based on proven, tested experience and not the ususal unsubstantiated platitudes so easy to find in most books on the subject published these days.

Light on pictures and full of accurate information this is now my most valued book on vegetable growing, and would be useful to any allotment or home grower of food. In fact the book's title sells it short, as much of the book would be helpful to an organic 'digger' or even a non-organic grower.

If you grow vegetables, fruit or herbs than you should read this book.

A superb guide to intensive organic vegetable growing
A highly productive vegetable garden that involves no digging, written by a man with no formal horticultural training, and organic to boot? You may be permitted a certain cynicism.

However if that cynicism stops you from reading this book then you will have missed out on a treasure.

This book is now my first port of call when I am looking for a gardening solution. As a beginner and non-scientist, I found his style easy to understand packed with useful tips and coherent in that it took me from an uninformed start to considering quite complicated seasonal planning without loosing the plot or throwing my hands up in confused despair. The results at the Domaine de Montrouch are looking promising- if the wild boar don't decide they fancy a salad dinner one night.

A life changing book!
My husband used to spend every minute from March to May digging and re-digging his veg patch. We put in raised beds and followed Charles Dowdings advice and we have had much better veg and he now really enjoys his gardening... we have a greenhouse full of young seedlings and another exciting year in store!