Product Description

As the nation turns to home produce, Alan Tichmarsh's The Kitchen Gardener offers the essential secrets of a good crop.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #152 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-06
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 312 pages

Synopsis
Allotments with ten-year waiting lists; fruit and veg seeds outselling those of flowers - Britain is growing a passion for home produce and the time is right for the nation's favourite gardener to provide the definitive book on the subject. Alan's comprehensive guide will tell you everything you could possibly want or need to know about fruit and veg and how to grow it, including herbs, baby veg, salads, every-day fruits plus gourmet or unusual varieties, and how to fit them into today's stylish small gardens. As well as providing the key facts needed to yield good results and what to do when things go wrong, the text is sprinkled with Alan's personal observations, anecdotes, culinary tips and quirky historical uses.The book takes a very practical approach, starting from scratch for the benefit of anyone who's never grown their own before, but is also ideal for those with some experience who might be growing edibles in a new way - perhaps in a small space that needs to look attractive, or on a new allotment.

Lavishly illustrated throughout with over 250 photographs and artworks, this inspirational and authoritative fruit and veg bible from the UK's best-selling and most influential gardener will become a classic in the genre.

About the Author
Originally trained at Hertfordshire College of Horticulture and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Alan Titchmarsh has enjoyed a long career as a gardener, broadcaster and writer. He is the author of over 40 books about gardening, including How to be a Gardener Book 1: Back to Basics, the fastest- selling of all time in the genre. He has twice been named 'Gardening Writer of the Year' and for four successive years was voted 'Television Personality of the Year' by the Garden Writers' Guild. In 2004 he received their Lifetime Achievement Award. He writes regularly in BBC Gardeners' World Magazine, as well as being gardening correspondent for the Daily Express and Sunday Express and is also a best-selling novelist. Alan has appeared on radio and television both as a gardening expert and as an interviewer and presenter, including Gardeners' World, Points of View, Pebble Mill, Songs of Praise, Titchmarsh's Travels, The BBC Proms and Ask the Family. He has presented the annual coverage of The Chelsea Flower Show since 1983, and this autumn he will be presenting the BBC's landmark series Nature of Britain, while over on ITV he will be starting his own new daily chatshow.

Customer Reviews

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.)

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!

Fantastic Book!
I'm not a gardener, I'm someone who has a bash at growing a few tomatoes, and would like to keep her blueberry bush alive. That's about it.

This book as absolutely wonderful! The information is practical,concise and very easy to follow. There's just the right about of information - not enough to overwhelm you, and not too little that just leaves you with unanswered questions (as with Carol Klein's book). There's also the obvious bonus that this book covers fruit as well as vegetables, whereas most 'grow your own' books are vegetables only.

Alan's book has inspired me to add to my little vegetable patch this year. My tomatoes will be joined by some new ideas, and I now know how to perk up that blueberry bush!

An absolute bargain of a book. A joy to read and a pleasure to work from.