Val Bourne - The Ten-Minute Gardener: A month-by-month guide to growing your own

Val Bourne has been a fanatical organic gardener since the age of five. In her twenties she had a lowly post in vegetable research, and she has always grown her own fruit and vegetables. She has a large allotment, and fruit and vegetable patches amongst her extensive flower garden in the high reaches of the Cotswolds.

Val also serves on several RHS panels, judging flower trials, and shes an Ambassador for the Hardy Plant Society. She lectures in this country and abroad and writes regularly for The Daily Telegraph, Saga, the English Garden, Garden Answers, Amateur Gardening and for the Crocus website.

Her book The Natural Gardener won Practical Book of the Year from the Garden Media Guild in 2005 and her latest book, The Living Jigsaw, explains how to have a lovely garden without using chemical props, something shes pioneered.

Val was has won multiple awards and was Journalist of the Year in 2014.

The Natural Gardener

The Winter Garden

Seeds of Wisdom

Colour in the Garden

The Living Jigsaw

The Ten-Minute Gardeners Flower-Growing Diary

The Ten-Minute Gardeners Vegetable-Growing Diary

The Ten-Minute Gardeners Fruit-Growing Diary

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

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Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

Originally published in Great Britain by Bantam Press as The Ten-Minute Gardeners Fruit-Growing Diary and The Ten-Minute Gardeners Vegetable-Growing Diary

This combined and revised edition published 2018 by Bantam Press an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright Val Bourne 2018
Cover design and illustrations by Beci Kelly/TW

Val Bourne has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473566323

ISBN 9781787631069

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

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To the Best Beloved, for his helpful marginalia

Thank you to Susanna Wadeson and Lizzy Goudsmit for their enthusiastic help and support, without which I would have gone under!

Thank you to Brenda Updegraff for her very necessary, eagle-eyed editing. Thank you to Andrew Davidson for the cover illustration and to Patrick Mulrey for the illustrations inside.

Thank you to Tom Poland and to Philip Lord for the design.

And thank you to my family for their patience over the long months.

GROWING YOUR OWN is a passport to paradise, because anything that goes straight from plot to plate to palate within a short time is a world away from shop-bought produce when it comes to flavour, texture and vitamin content. Health issues aside, few things in life are as pleasurable as picking sun-warmed, perfectly ripe strawberries in June, or podding peas for a summer supper. So growing your own feeds the inner hedonist in us all and thats important to our mental well-being as well as our body. On a practical note, growing your own will also save you money, and more people should invest in growing fruit, because its one of the most expensive things on the supermarket shelves. If space is tight, you can use containers or small raised beds.

This easy-to-read handbook explains how and when to plant, what to plant and how to grow it and, whether youre an experienced gardener or a complete novice, theres plenty of expert information in this handbook. There are fruit and vegetable tasks each month, and the information on varieties is up to date. There are solutions to common problems and lots of fascinating information, so this isnt a dry book. Its meant to be a good read!

The techniques described are mostly organic because, with fewer chemicals available to gardeners of today, we all have to be greener. In any case, a no-chemical approach seems completely sensible because were feeding ourselves, our families and our friends and we want our food to be as healthy as it possibly can be.

Whether youre aiming to grow a few strawberries or planning to feed your entire family, this book will explain how. I write from first-hand experience, having grown my own fruit and vegetables for well over 40 years. Over the years Ive made plenty of mistakes, so the advice I pass on to you is really relevant. I hope you will find this book helpful and that you gain as much pleasure from gardening and eating fresh food as I do.

Happy gardening.

Val Bourne