The Royal Horticultural Society The Half Hour Allotment (first published in 2005) has been a best-selling gardening title for many years. This new edition re-presents the classic in a fresh new illustrated format with hundreds of new photographs and a bright new cover design. The book shows you how to manage your allotment and enjoy fresh vegetables through the year on just half an hour’s work a day with weekends off. It combines expert advice from Lia Leendertz and the Royal Horticultural Society and time-saving ideas for planning the most effective use of your time and energy, giving you something to eat fresh every day of the year and ensure bumper crops in summer! Lia Leendertz, the best-selling author of The Almanac, is an organic gardener with a great sensitivity for the environment so the book is a gentle and thoughtful read as well as being a bible for productive and time-starved gardeners.

This practical and inspirational handbook is aimed at the new generation of gardeners who want to enjoy the taste and health benefits of growing their own food, but who have little time to spare. Expert advice and innovative techniques show you how to grow the right quantities of the fruit and vegetables you love, and enjoy the satisfactions of tending an allotment or vegetable garden without becoming a slave to your plot. Tested by fruit-grower Will Sibley and author Lia Leendertz on their own allotments, these methods will enable you to get the best results in half an hour per day, or even less. The book covers all aspects of allotmenteering and vegetable gardening, including the practicalities of obtaining and maintaining a site, choosing what to grow, designing the plot and advanced projects such as building paths and shelters. A section on harvesting, storing and cooking shows you what to do when your crop is ripe and ready.

'Every time he appears on the programme we feel that life is worth living. He has that power to lift your spirits.' ? Jeremy Vine Terry Walton has kept an allotment in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales for over fifty years. He started when he was four, helping on his father's plot on the side of the mountain, cutting bracken and collecting sheep manure to feed the vegetables. He was farming his own plot at eleven and he went on to build an allotment empire, selling his vegetables and flowers to local customers. The proceeds paid for his first car, a canary yellow Ford Popular, when he was just seventeen. Then, in 2006, after half a decade of happy gardening, Terry's allotment was adopted by the Jeremy Vine Show and he became an unlikely media star. In this absorbing and entertaining memoir, Terry documents how the valley has changed over the years, his own conversion to organic gardening, and the colourful characters he meets; interspersing his anecdotes with topical tips, family recipes and quirky line drawings. My Life on a Hillside Allotment is the perfect read for gardeners, allotmenteers and anyone who loves the great outdoors.

Allotment Gardening For Dummies is a lively, hands-on guide to getting the most out of your allotment. Whether you're interested in eating fresh, saving money, getting exercise or enjoying wholesome family fun, this is the guide for you. The step-by-step advice takes you through all the stages in the process, from securing an allotment and preparing your plot, to choosing what to grow and enjoying the benefits of abundant fresh food and a sociable and healthy hobby. With over 50 handy line drawings, plus information on how to grow organic and advice on storing and cooking the food you grow, this guide really does have it all! Allotment Gardening For Dummies includes: Part 1: Getting to Grips with Allotment Gardening Chapter 1: What Are Allotments All About? Chapter 2: Getting hold of an Allotment Chapter 3: Getting Started Part 2: Preparing for Allotment Success Chapter 4: Deciding What to Grow, When Chapter 5: Preparing Your Plot Chapter 6: Keeping Your Soil Healthy Chapter 7: Keeping Your Plants Healthy Chapter 8: Growing Organic Part 3: Growing a Few of Your Favourite Vegetables Chapter 9: Going Underground Chapter 10: The Staples Chapter 11: Growing Leafy Greens Chapter 12: Planting Peas, Beans and Other Pods Chapter 13: Growing More Exotic Veg Part 4: Extending Your Allotment Repetoire Chapter 14: Growing Wholesome Herbs Chapter 15: Growing Fruitful Fruit Chapter 16: Nurturing Flowers on an Allotment Part 5: Getting the Most Out of Your Allotment Chapter 17: Involving Children Around the Allotment Chapter 18: Hobnobbing with Allotment Society Chapter 19: Growing Giant Veg Part 6: The Part of Tens Chapter Chapter 20: Ten Common Accidents and How to Prevent Them Chapter 21: Ten Ways to Revive a Flagging Allotment

A new edition of the bestselling guide to making the most of your allotment, with seasonal advice, essential to-do lists, and more than 60 fruit and vegetable crop planners. Grow fresh, seasonal produce in your allotment or kitchen garden all year round with the bestselling guide from Alan Buckingham. Allotment Month by Month takes the uncertainty out of your harvest with clear, reliable gardening advice for every month of the year. In-depth crop planners show you when to sow and how to cultivate more than 60 herbs, fruit, and vegetables, including kale, rhubarb, spinach, strawberries, and apples. Month-by-month alerts help you guard against the season's garden pests and diseases to ensure a top-quality harvest. Prioritise key garden tasks, learn crop rotation techniques, and try step-by-step garden projects, such as sowing peas in guttering and making your own compost bin. This new edition has updated recommendations for the best varieties to grow and all the latest advice on pesticide use. Ideal for both urban gardeners and seasoned allotment owners, or as self-purchase or gift for first-time vegetable growers, Allotment Month by Month has everything you need to know to make the most of your plot.

Inspiring and practical, this is a lovely resource for anyone looking to grow fruit trees or start an orchard, whether in your garden or as a community project. For centuries, orchards have been a compelling and important part of our landscape. The sight of a fruit tree, blushing in blossom in the spring, and then laden with fresh fruit in the summer and autumn, can be truly enchanting, inspiring folklore and art. Not only do orchards provide bountiful fruit for families and communities, they are also attractive to pollinators such as bees, and make a wonderful habitat for birds. There are many ways of incorporating orchard living into your lifestyle, no matter how busy or short of space you are. Written by esteemed horticulturalist Naomi Slade, this gloriously illustrated resource illuminates the possibilities and enables you to make it a reality – whether you have a few fruit trees already or have always wanted an orchard of your own. An Orchard Odyssey shows you how to plant and care for your trees and suggests fruit trees suitable for different spaces. It also covers the benefits of orchard for conservation and biodiversity, orchard heritage, and the role of fruit trees in garden and landscape design. The guide promotes the 'five trees' principle of orchards, and encourages the reader to embrace the orchards in a way that is personal to them. Packed with practical ideas and inspiration, let this delightful book encourage you to re-engage with tree fruit in new ways: look at it the right way and everyone can have an orchard.