No-Dig Children’s Gardening Book is a fun easy book to grow own organic food, without using forks or spades. Good for earthworms, stag beetles, soil and your back! This book is easy to read and packed with user-friendly information and illustrations. Although designed for children, there’s no reason why it can’t be read by adults too. The more people that embrace no-dig gardening, the better for wildlife!
Use fruit protection bags (over netting, which can trap birds and wildlife). Learn how to create gardens safe for pets (use humane slug/snail deterrents). Avoid facing indoor foliage to outdoor gardens, to help stop birds flying into windows.
No-dig gardening prepares your soil, then adds organic matter, for nature and earthworms to do the work. It improves soil health as organisms are preserved, so weeds are reduced naturally. Healthy soil therefore produces better plants.
This book begins with an overview of no-dig gardening and healthy soil. Then learn how to create a no-dig garden bed in a day, and what to plant in it. You’ll learn how and when to sow common garden vegetables, along with tips to grow giant sunflowers!
You’ll also learn of the benefits of no-dig gardening to native wildlife, and how to create a no-dig market garden in your community. Plus learn how to save your seeds for next year, so you can plant them again, without having to buy more at garden centres.
Charles Dowding has a degree in geography from Cambridge University, and grows all his own food in Somerset on his no-dig plot. Rather than using chemicals to deter wildlife, this vegetarian gardener simply shares a little of his bountiful harvest with local creatures.
He says that local wildlife often ‘wave at him’ as they go by his garden beds, to help themselves to a bit of dinner!
Raised Bed Gardens (Perfect for City Living)
As city landscapes grow more dense, finding space for gardening can be a challenge. Enter the raised bed garden, a perfect solution for urban dwellers with green thumbs. Offering flexibility and control, these compact gardens suit city environments beautifully.
The Raised Bed Book shows how to make an accessible raised bed with fertile soil, for any sized garden. Find clear diagrams, inspiring planting plans and photography, plus profiles of 8 designs from professional gardeners. Includes tips on choosing a site to designing and and plants to grow.
Raised Bed Gardening is for DIY enthusiasts, to show you not just how to plant, but how to build your own raised beds, using a few common tools. Plus find information on planting and spacing and how to harvest and store your produce.
One of the standout benefits of raised bed gardening is the improvement in soil quality. Unlike traditional garden plots, raised beds allow for better control over the soil composition, which can significantly impact plant health and yield. Use peat-free compost to protect endangered wildlife.
The height of raised beds can also deter certain pests. Many common garden pests, such as slugs and snails, prefer to crawl along the ground.
By raising your plants, you create a natural barrier that makes it harder for these pests to reach your plants. Furthermore, you can implement creative strategies like companion planting to repel unwanted insects while attracting beneficial ones.
Where to Buy Ready-Made Raised Beds
Marmax Products are suitable for gardens, schools and allotments, sold in self-assembly packs with instructions. Made from recycled plastic, these will not rot, corrode or splinter so outlast timber, and are also weatherproof. Brown in colour, they include a 25-year construction guarantee and include galvanised screws (stainless steel screws available at extra cost).
Woodblocx offer raised beds that are high enough to be accessible for people in wheelchairs. The modular system is easy to use, and they are sold with a 15-year guarantee (made from treated pine). The wood is treated with water-based preservative and dowels are made from recycled plastic.
Grow Bag Gardening shows how to grow vegetables, fruits and herbs with no heavy lifting or digging, just use eco-friendly fabric planter bags that grow easily, with minimal space and care (then just fold them up when not in use).
Ideal for rooftops, balconies and patios, these frostproof bags are easily moved to maximise sunlight. This no-weed and no-mess method of garden is a game-changer with no root circling.
A Book on Organic Veganic Gardening
The Super Organic Gardener shows how to grow food without bone meal or fish meal. Learn of the environmental and animal welfare issues in gardening, then learn how to be a super organic gardener! You’ll learn how to make natural fertiliser and compost, and share your plot with wildlife.
- Soil
- Compost
- Fertilisers
- Grow to Eat
- What to Grow/Cook
- Organic Suppliers
- Wildlife
- Animals and Gardens
If your gardening relies on slaughterhouse by-products, then you support this slaughter. If your personal ethics mean you don’t want to do this, then there is another way.
This involves making your own compost and fertilisers, letting ‘pests’ live, allowing wildlife to be wild (and even creating habitats for them). And avoid exploiting any animals to further your hobby.
Matthew Appleby is an award-winning garden journalist, who writes for many newspapers and garden magazines. He has broken numerous stories in the last 15 years including ash dieback reaching the UK and biosecurity/horticulture policy.
How to Store Your Garden Produce is an updated version of a classic book, to show that anyone with even half an acre of land can feed a family of four for an entire year. The issue is that most produce will harvest in summer and summer, so many gardeners struggle to use up all their fresh fruits and vegetables, before it spoils.
With proper storage techniques, you can enjoy home-grown food all year, while also lowering food miles, avoiding plastic packaging and saving money.
Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets. Also learn how to create gardens safe for pets.
This book is jam-packed with creative storage techniques and beautifully organised to showcase the best ways to preserve produce through dehydrating, freezing, fermenting and pickling.
Illustrated with photographs throughout, the book features a useful A to Z of garden produce. Each entry includes recommended varieties, improved storage methods and vegan recipes to make the most of your harvest. Recipes include:
- Strawberry wine
- Peach chutney
- Mushroom ketchup
- Celeriac soup
About the Author
Piers Warren grows all manner of fruits and vegetables in his garden and greenhouse, and is keen to promote organic principles of farming. He also wrote a wonderful book with his daughter: The Vegan Cook and Gardener. He lives in Norfolk.