The Edible Garden - Alys Fowler

[scarybex]

I really love this book, it's one of the nicest I've read on the topic of gardening/self sufficiency in vegetables. The idea of this book being that you can grow vegetables and plants together in harmony to enrich both the look and the food productivity of your garden. Gone is her neat lawn, and the architectural vegetables and sprays of flowers create a back garden that truly earns it's keep! Alys lives in a terraced house in Birmingham, the results she has in her own back garden are both amazing and achievable. It has a section on growing seeds, and adapting a species to your own environment via seed saving. There is a section on growing the individual plants, both the usual and the unusual, with recommendations for attractive varieties that will add interest to the look of the garden. It tells you what plants will grow with what and the supports and containers she uses are upcycled bits and bobs. The back of the book has some lovely and unusual recipes for using and preserving your crops, making teas etc. Overall you get a sense of the harmony in which Alys lives with her crops and flowers, and the joy she finds in spending time looking after them and reaping the rewards.