Just to be absolutely clear, this book covers only vegetables. It does not attempt to offer help for fruit or herbs. It was first published in 2007 to accompany the BBC2 six part television program "Grow Your own Veg". The price of this book varies enormously. Currently (2008) on Amazon they are selling it at £12.99 plus delivery costs. We bought our copy for £5 at W H Smith, so shop carefully!

This is a great book for the beginner because it covers all aspects of growing vegetables in a non-technical and very easy to read fashion. If you are an experienced veg gardener it's also a great help as a reference book. Unlike many books of this type, the pictures are truly helpful and relevant. They are not there just to decorate the book. Especially good are the pictures of the recommended varieties. Remember this book when you are choosing your seeds in late winter or early spring, the variety pictures will be a great help.

The first part of the book covers setting up a vegetable plot. Special attention is given to growing vegetables in a smaller garden. raised beds are also covered in great detail.

The second part of the book covers 42 vegetables in all. Sowing, planting care and pest / diseases are all covered. We applied our "asparagus test" to this book and it passed with flying colours. For the test we look at the asparagus section in detail and see how ell it is covered. This is one of the few vegetables that covers growing asparagus from seed (the cheaper option) as well as growing them from crowns.

Two minor points we would make. the planting and sowing dates assume the average in the UK. No mention is made of warmer or colder areas which have different dates. The second point is that the book is a bit light on pest and diseases. But these are minor criticisms of an excellent book.

Published By: Mitchell Beazley
First Published: 2007
Author: Carol Klein
Title: Grow Your own Veg
ISBN: 9781845332938
Price: Recommended price £16.99 but we bought for £5.00 at W H Smith
Number of pages: 224

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