‘Until now, there has been next to no information available on how to make the best use of a polytunnel. The Joyce and Ben Russel team have filled that gap, showing us in clear, precise detail how to erect and manage polytunnels, and above all, what to grow in them.’ Joy Larkcom The Polytunnel Book is the most comprehensive, practical month-to-month growing guide to polytunnel gardening available. Whether you are a complete beginner, or a more experienced grower, this book has got what you need including information on: Preparing the site How to get the best from each crop Identifying and coping with pests Making a hotbed Composts and organic feeds Month-to-month planting plans for year-round growing But at the heart of this book is Joyce Russell's experienced hand guiding you through each month of the year. It tells what to do and when to do it, in order to grow the best fruit and vegetables all-year-round. 300 colour photographs illustrate the wealth of practical tips and techniques as well as celebrating what can be achieved. 'A polytunnel offers a relatively cheap and simple way to tend crops undercover. And Joyce Russel tells exactly how to do it.’ Kitchen Garden Magazine

A comprehensive guide to all aspects of polytunnel usage, from planning your purchase to harvesting the rewards. A polytunnel, high tunnel or hoop house, can be used as an affordable, low-carbon aid to growing your own food all year round, from crispy salads and fresh vegetables in the dead of winter to juicy melons and mouth-watering grapes in high summer. But once you've decided to invest in a polytunnel, there are many questions to be answered... Do you need planning permission? What are the different sizes and types you can buy? Where should you put it, and how do you put it up? What can you use it for, how do you look after it, and what are the likely problems? The Polytunnel Handbook looks at all aspects of using a polytunnel, from planning to harvesting. The book features a step-by-step guide detailing how polytunnels are put up and maintained, and also detailed instructions on building a polytunnel from scratch for DIY enthusiasts. There are also chapters on developing healthy soil and preventing pests, and a jargon-free guide to the range of often mystifying accessories that many tunnel retailers offer. Learn how to keep your polytunnel productive in every season with this brilliant guide

The UK's leading no-dig gardening expert, Charles Dowding, draws on his years of experience to show how easy it is to start a new vegetable garden. Any plot - whether 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. The book takes you step-by-step through everything - from planning, clearing the ground and the early stages of starting a vegetable garden, to growing in polytunnels and greenhouses. There is also helpful guidance on how to use mulch, ways to minimise digging, and planting/sowing tips across the seasons. Filled with labour-saving ideas and the techniques that Charles uses to garden so successfully, How to Create a Vegetable Garden is illustrated throughout with photos and tales from Charles's first year in his new vegetable garden.

An easy-to-follow, practical guide to growing crops year-round in your polytunnel. Are you using your polytunnel, also known as high tunnel or hoop house, to its full potential? If so you'll be harvesting fresh crops all year round – sweet potatoes and late celery in November; winter radish, baby carrots and celeriac in early February; salad leaves right through the winter. Even in the 'hungry gap' you'll have a choice of new potatoes, pak choi, peas, tender cabbages, beetroot and more. How to Grow Food in Your Polytunnel has all the information you need to make the most of this precious covered space, including a detailed crop-by-crop guide to the growing year, dedicated chapters on growing for each season, including the 'hungry gap', and a handy sowing and harvesting calendar to help with planning.

The Mother Earth News Guide to Vegetable Gardening is a must-have volume packed with time-tested information, photographs, and charming illustrations for home gardeners everywhere. For years, millions of readers have turned to Mother Earth News for trusted advice on growing vegetables and fruits. The Mother Earth News Guide to Vegetable Gardening harnesses decades of wisdom, bringing together all the indispensable techniques, complete growing guides, helpful tips, useful photographs, and inspiring illustrations for which Mother Earth News is known. Plan for self-sufficiency with a garden focused on edibles! Choose from a variety of plans for kitchen gardens, browse strategies for small space gardening, or up your gardening game by installing and maintaining permanent beds. Soil concerns? Get the dirt on building fertile soil, soil pH, compost, vermicompost—even biochar. Longtime gardeners are sure to find something new, from vertical gardening to plans for extending the seasons. That’s right, garden through the seasons with dozens of vegetable-and fruit-specific growing guides. Start with your favorites or learn to love something new (Asian greens or fruit trees, anyone?). In slower-growing or more challenging seasons, Mother Earth is there to help. Whether you need to know the best vegetables to grow in the shade or the top gardening tips for soil health in winter, this book has it all.

This book is ideal for beginners, improvers and those serious about growing tasty, healthy organic fruit and vegetables. It will empower readers to grow food for a family, and help work out how to get the best results. Many books give sowing and growing instructions for a multitude of crops, but few give space to the techniques and tips that make gardening easier and that help anyone to grow healthy, sustainable food. Some of the techniques are developed from Joyce’s own trials and observations; others are classic techniques that are still useful now. With a bit more detail, and a step-by-step project, a technique becomes much easier to follow and understand. There’s something here for everyone: whether you grow in a small back yard and want to know how to raise salad in buckets, or if you have a large allotment where you want to improve pollination, or make your own liquid feeds. The book makes several promises to its readers. Firstly, by following its advice you will grow great fruit and vegetables. Next, the knowledge you gain will save you time as well as money. Third, you'll enjoy the gardening journey and the discoveries made along the way. Fourth, you'll find greener and cleaner ways of doing things, and you'll improve your skills, methods and habits. Find out how to rotate your vegetables so they stay healthy and well-fed, to preserve choice crops for the freshest taste, to improve the soil organically and sustainably, and to produce home made fertiliser from the leaves of your comfrey crop.

Charles Dowding, the UK’s leading no-dig guru shows how to grow a year's worth of healthy, organic crops while preserving the soil's integrity. Using seasonal checklists and expert no-dig advice, this month-by-month journal helps you plan bumper harvests the no-dig way. From tomatoes to basil, carrots to coriander, follow simple steps to find success with growing more than 35 vegetables and herbs. Start a no-dig vegetable plot on virgin or dug ground, improve the soil and become an expert mulcher and weeder, as well as learning the techniques for intercropping, companion planting, seed viability and crop succession. This easy-to-follow step-by-step guide by one of Britain's top gardeners is illustrated with photos to help you learn how to plan a vegetable garden, construct a raised bed, sow seed indoors and outdoors in spring, grow on young crops, protect plants from the weather and pests through the season and, finally, celebrate the joy of harvesting. Organised monthly from January to December, this journal is full of key dates for sowing, staking, harvesting and storing, as well as time-saving monthly checklists to help ensure a successful no-dig harvest.

Fall in love this Christmas with Sunday Times bestselling author Veronica Henry's delightfully heartwarming festive read... 'Utterly heartwarming' JENNY COLGAN It's going to take a Christmas miracle... Emilia promised her father that she would keep the doors of his beloved bookshop, Nightingale Books, open after he passed away - but she's down to her last few pennies. It would break Emilia's heart to shut up shop, especially when the villagers have become like family to her (and have more stories to tell than the books on the shelves!). Lady of the manor, Sarah, is definitely keeping a secret, single dad Jackson is always on the hunt for a new story for his son, and she's sure that shy chef Thomasina has a crush on a man she met in the cookery section... Yet with only a few weeks until Christmas, Emilia knows that she has her work cut out if she's to save her family legacy - will she find a way to restore it to its former glory, before it's too late? *** Your favourite authors love Veronica Henry! 'A blissful escape' SARAH MORGAN 'The most uplifting getaway' LUCY DIAMOND 'Veronica Henry writes like a dream' JILL MANSELL 'Irresistibly romantic. I adored it' PHILLIPA ASHLEY 'A delicious, dreamy, joy of a book' LIBBY PAGE 'The perfect weekend read' FANNY BLAKE

'A wonderful book - an invigorating revelation ... An essential collection of prose poems from across the globe, by old masters and new, reveals the form's astonishing range' Kate Kellaway, Observer 'A superb anthology . . . it is hard to know how it could possibly be bettered' Daily Telegraph This is the prose poem: a 'genre with an oxymoron for a name', one of literature's great open secrets, and the home for over 150 years of extraordinary work by many of the world's most beloved writers. This uniquely wide-ranging anthology gathers essential pieces of writing from every stage of the form's evolution, beginning with the great flowering of recent years before moving in reverse order through the international experiments of the 20th century and concluding with the prose poem's beginnings in 19th-century France. Edited with an introduction by Jeremy Noel-Tod

'An essential book for every kitchen and garden.' NIGEL SLATER 'The number one book for anyone who loves salads.' ANNA PAVORD 'Charles is a passionate and accomplished gardener'. RAYMOND BLANC An updated edition of the definitive guide to salad leaves, with everything from sowing and growing leaves to delicious salad recipes. Salad leaves can flourish in a range of settings – whether on a windowsill, in your garden or on the allotment. This compendium of practical methods will inspire you to grow a wide variety of salads throughout the year, including lettuce, spinach, cabbage, beets, endives and chicories. Beautifully designed with colour photos throughout, Grow Organic Salad Leaves and Greens includes detailed information on how to grow micro-leaves using organic and permaculture principles, enabling you to enjoy fresh salad while also lowering your carbon footprint. Written by the guru of no-dig, Charles Dowding provides an overview of all you need to grow productive, healthy and tasty salads. He shares vital knowledge and gardening tips, from advice on indoor propagation to coping with slugs and other pests. The guide also includes delicious and imaginative recipes by Stephanie Hafferty, exploiting the fantastic flavours, colour and vitality of home-grown salad leaves. Learn the subtleties of salad seasons and the virtues of different leaves throughout the year with this practical guide.