-EP255 The Best Gardening Books New & Old What Sits On My Book Shelf

Unlock the secrets of timeless gardening wisdom and discover how vintage insights can transform your garden today. Join us on this week's Master My Garden Podcast as we stroll through the pages of iconic gardening books and explore their lasting impact on modern horticulture.  We'll also touch on Mary Reynolds' compelling "We Are Ark," a call to action for creating wildlife sanctuaries within our own backyards. Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just beginning, this episode promises to enrich your gardening journey with historical perspectives and fresh ideas.

Our journey continues with a spotlight on home gardening and no-dig techniques that are reshaping the way we cultivate our crops. Bailey Van Tassel's "The Kitchen Garden Living" leads the way with its rich illustrations and practical guides, followed by insights from the renowned DG Hessayon's "Expert" series. We'll delve into Charles Dowding's influential teachings on no-dig gardening and Richard Perkins' transformative work in "Regenerative Agriculture." To wrap up, we're excited to share our top book recommendations for gifting, including Jimmy Blake's "A Beautiful Obsession" and TJ Maher's exquisite take on garden color harmony with his book "Grounded in the garden" These selections are sure to inspire and captivate any garden lover, providing a bounty of knowledge and a feast for the eyes. Be sure to tune in next week for a special recap of our most popular discussions from the past year!

Chapters

• 0:14 Gardening Books
• 9:58 Home Gardening and No-Dig Agriculture
• 25:36 Gardening Books Recommendations

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

how's going everybody and welcome to episode 255 of master, my garden podcast. Now, this week's episode is it's a kind of a follow-on from the Christmas Gifts from Gardeners one a couple of episodes back and we chatted on that podcast about a couple of different gardening books and they've come up quite a lot. So I'm just going to cover kind of books that I regularly return to or ones that have caught my eye and I suppose ones that are. A lot of them are old books, they're not new. I don't even know if some of them are still in publication and some of them are new. Some of them are from Irish gardeners or Irish growers and they all have. They're all books that I kind of would regularly dip back to and I mentioned, you know, several times now that I think gardening books are still. They're still probably one of the few gardening books that people will, or one of the few books that people will buy and if it resonates with them, they'll leave it on their coffee table. They'll regularly dip back in and out. Of it resonates with them, they'll leave it on their coffee table. They'll regularly dip back in and out of it. You know, we've heard on the podcast people talking about books on cut flowers and how you know they always sit on the coffee table or on the potting bench, and that you know people dip in and out of those regularly, and I suppose I have a couple of those books as well, ones that I would often, you know, delve into for a little bit of insight on something or other, and there's some of the books that I suppose are inspiring, some of them that are give great practical tips. Some of them are, you know, from a, from the look. They're aesthetically beautiful, and then there's others that are just very good, kind of manuals of of whatever, whatever it is that you're going to be doing. So there's a whole list of them.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Interestingly enough, though, um, I came out here well over an hour ago to to sort of drop this and to start recording it, and I've spent pretty much the last half hour looking through, so I have in my hand for any of you that are watching on youtube, I have in my hand a whole collection of little magazines uh, some of them dating back to 1960, so they're a little bit old at this stage, but they're there's. There's five or six of them that are. They're a little bit old at this stage, but there's five or six of them that are basically a magazine that was brought out when I live, near Carlow Town. There was a sugar factory there and this magazine was brought out as part of the sugar company and they were distributed among farmers in the area back in the 1960s. And so I have some here from 1960, 1966, 67.

Speaker 1: 3:11

And really interesting now to look back and to read. You know certain parts of it. I suppose around that time was when you started to see synthetic fertilizers coming to the fore. Time was when you started to see synthetic fertilizers come into the fore and there's kind of a big push across the publications for interest-free loans encouraging farmers to use this synthetic fertilizer and and increased yields and so on. And on the flip side of that there's then some really interesting articles on growing your own food, on growing certain types of vegetables, on soil, health and things like that. So I'll probably cover this again on another, on another time and read some really interesting passages from it, really interesting passages from it.

Speaker 1: 4:05

But it's just so interesting to see you know little little brochures from 1960 and how you can kind of see how I suppose the, the growing and the, the face of gardening, has been somewhat shaped over the years from from that point in time and, as I said, some really interesting stuff in it. And then I have another set of little booklets from the Department of Agriculture, again from the same period of time, and they were little sort of magazines or textbooks, I guess, really really small things, but they were on compost and how to create compost, vegetables growing, diseases and pests in adult bees Some interesting ones here methods of propagation in the garden, and again these are dating back to the 1960s, the cultivation of mushrooms and onion growing are some of them. So it's a whole little collection of booklets, as I say, going back to the 1960s, and there's some really really really interesting stuff in that. Um, not a book not relevant to this episode per se, but I guess, um, as I say, I came out here a good while ago and I'm after spending the last half hour rooting through those to I suppose I was just I started looking at them and then something caught my eye and I went further and further down the rabbit hole. But, yeah, very interesting to look back on those things. So they look at some books that are, as I say, ones that I dip back into regularly or that have some huge benefit. As I say, some of these may or may not still be in print, I don't know. I'll put the list into the show notes anyway, but they're all, yeah, all interesting in in some form or other.

Speaker 1: 5:47

First one is one that I got a year ago. I recently only recently started looking at it and it's called we are arc and it's by mary reynolds. So many of you in ireland will know mary reynolds. She was formerly a garden designer, won a gold medal at Chelsea, and a couple of years ago she sort of changed tack and she now basically builds what she calls ARCs, and ARCs are havens for wildlife in the garden. And her book is called we Are ARC and it's about returning your garden to nature, giving back to nature, providing habitats for nature, and it's all along those lines. Now, mary sort of advocates now all in terms of anyone that is interested in, I suppose, creating habitats for wildlife in their garden. It talks about things like creating ponds, about creating wild areas to allow bugs to thrive. It talks about trees, in particular the oak tree, and how that oak tree supports so many species all to itself and it's just a really, really interesting read. I'll definitely message mary and see if there's any chance of getting her on the podcast. She, this book is definitely goes against what I suppose a lot of you know current garden centers would, would be, would be advocating for. But there's always interest in you know, and there's a conversation to be had around this and for sure there's loads of really, really interesting things in the book. And if you have any, you know, interest in creating areas within your garden that in encourage wildlife, support, biodiversity, then it's a brilliant, brilliant read and some lovely snippets in it, some lovely photography in it and, just as I say, a really, really good, really good read. And that's we are ark by mary reynolds. So, yeah, really good book.

Speaker 1: 8:02

The next one is is one that I've had the author on the podcast before. It's Jennifer Jewell, what we Saw, and it's basically about the significance of seeds and the culture and the importance of seeds and the stories behind them. And, as I say, we've had Jennifer on the podcast before her, her own podcast, I think it's um cultivating, cultivating essence, I think was the name of it, but it's, uh, the. The book itself is really good about the importance of seed, the significance of seed, about, you know, the control of seed and how it's important to kind of be aware of the channels and the avenues in which seeds take. And you know that seed sharing is important and keeping old varieties in circulation, not just becoming reliant on a set, on a small number of seeds that are controlled by, you know, at the real top end of it, controlled by big companies, and to sort of support niche growers of seed or producers of seed that you know native, that are, I suppose, open pollinated, you know native, that are, I suppose, uh, open pollinated, you know, to keep the system open so that you can share seeds with your fellow gardeners, that you can breed seeds in certain areas that build up resistance to our suitability to certain climates and that we're not all just stuck with the one sort of narrow seed diversity. And it's a really, really good book and really important book. Not sure what episode of the podcast that was, but it was a really good episode and definitely a book that's really, really worthwhile.

Speaker 1: 9:58

Another book that I got recently I'm not actually sure if it's even published yet, but I do. I am due to speak to the author in the springtime and it's the kitchen garden living and it's by Bailey Van Tassel and it's it's a beautiful book. So it's a book all about you're a home garden, growing your own food, seasonal living, making herbal teas I suppose becoming somewhat self-sufficient from from a garden and it's done in a way that looks really good and there's lots of really good recipes in it, lots of talk about family and including your family in in the growing process, and it's just a really really nice book. Some really good practical information in it, but also inspirational stuff in it as well and yeah, as I said, due to speak to Bailey in the springtime, but it's a beautiful book. As I say, I'm not sure if it's actually published yet, but it's due to be published soon. If it's not out already, some recipes towards the back and it's just to be published soon. If it's not out already, some recipes towards the back, and it's just a beautiful book that incorporates everything that you'd want to grow your own food and, I suppose, how to enjoy that and to be mindful of being able to grow your own food and be mindful while, while, I suppose, taking part in that process. So it looks like a really, really beautiful book and one that I'm looking forward to chatting to Bailey early next year.

Speaker 1: 11:35

The next one is a series of books, a collection of books, and again this will be one that I would reference back to quite a lot. I have four here in my hand. It's the expert book by DG Hesham there's. I don't know how many of these there is altogether. There could be 10 or 15. The ones I happen to have in my hand but I have more over there on the shelf are flowering shrub experts, the rock and water garden experts, the lawn expert and the tree and shrub expert. The rose expert I know is over on the shelf as well and I have a good few of them, but they're a really good book. Again, I don't know if they're still in publication. Actually, on the back you can see there is 5, 10, 15, there's at least 17, there's probably a few more. So there could be 20 odd books in this collection and they're old. They're, I'd say some of these I probably have, you know, heading for 30 years now at this stage and they're just really good reference points, kind of simple manual type books with practical information around plants, what will grow well, where, I suppose, the different sizes, dimensions of, of trees. Some of the trees and shrubs might be a little dated at this stage. You'd know they're from you know a long time ago, but there's so much great information in it and really really simple and kind of one, like I said, that you would dip in and out of over time. Next collection of books is something similar and these are collection of books from charles doubting.

Speaker 1: 13:06

Charles, again, has been on the podcast, the. Everyone knows him in terms of no dig gardening so he's a huge advocate of no dig gardening and he's, I suppose his YouTube channel and his you know social pages. He posts so much content on you know, helping people to grow your own food, to grow your own garden in a no dig situation. Trials, no dig. He operates a you know fully, a fully functioning market garden and then obviously, you know all of these courses and so on. But these are collection of books. So it's no dig gardening course one and charles dowling skills for growing and know that charles doubting's vegetable course. So really good, really good books. One that you would again kind of dip in and out of and does talks a lot about trials and different, different kind of, as I say, trials, maybe a dig bed and a no dig bed and shows the results of that and has been advocating no dig gardening for a long, long time and I suppose pretty much has the answers to any question you might have on no dig and would be the real driving force of no dig over the last number of years. You know people from all around the world will be familiar with him and it's actually the most popular podcast. We'll be talking about that next week. It's the most popular podcast episode ever was Charles Dowding's one.

Speaker 1: 14:39

But his books are one that sit on my shelf and I would regularly dip into them Not all the time, but I would regularly dip into them and they're beautiful, beautiful books, well put together and lots of great information on this other one next one I have here is a little bit of a crossover. It's not really, um, it's not really a gardening book as such. It's regenerative agriculture and it's a practical, a practical book based on systems to make small farms work. And, yeah, it's richard perkins book. It's huge for anyone watching on youtube. It's, I don't know. It's five, six, six hundred pages in it. It's, um, an absolute treasure trove of information. So there's a huge amount of stuff in it.

Speaker 1: 15:30

There's, you know, lots of things in about keeping hens on a on a larger scale, about producing beef and pork and chicken on a larger scale, but there is a huge portion of the book is about market gardening and the reason I was interested in the book was all around the subject of soil health and building soil health. So this farm it's based on rigid farm, which I think is up in sweden, and it's you know, it's a. It's a farm that only has sort of warm enough temperatures and long enough day or enough daylight hours for a small number of months, but it's usually productive during those months and they have to have everything, have the soil absolutely working brilliantly, and that's, as I said, that's the reason I would regularly dip into. This goes into things like producing your own biochar. As I say, soil health matter, all of those things and basically is a real handbook on how to create proper working, driving, healthy soil in your own garden. So that's one. As I say, it's a bit of a, it's not one I would be recommending everyone go out and buy. I find it really useful and again, again, I would dip back into that regularly.

Speaker 1: 16:51

Next one I have is teaming with bacteria again, jeff lonefels. Jeff would have been on the podcast um a couple years back now and his episode was really good and jeff is phenomenal. Anyone that's into organic growing would be very, very familiar with je Jeff's books and what actually a lot of the you know the organic growers would reference Jeff as being, I suppose, their go-to person in terms of soil health. So those two, those two books the Richard Perkins book and this series of books by Jeff Lonefeld are ones that your organic gardeners would rely on quite a lot. And they rely on it a lot because, as I said before, you're building a healthy soil and that is the cornerstone of growing healthy crops up on top. And it's an episode I forget what episode of podcast it was, but it was a really good episode but it's not one that actually features and we talk about that next week. It's not one that features quite highly in the you know, the most popular episodes of the podcast ever, which is interesting because I did think you know it was along the lines of dr elaine ingham's, one which has, has and still is hugely popular, and that the one with jeff was really good as well, but for some reason it doesn't rank that terrible high. And but his books for anyone that is teeming with bacteria, team with fungi, all of those books to teaming with microbes they are. If you're interested in soil, if you're growing not necessarily on a garden scale, but if you're growing on a slightly larger scale, these books are a source of knowledge that is second to none, to be honest with you.

Speaker 1: 18:35

Next couple of books are actually ones that I think belong to my mom originally. The first one is garden guides. It's ronnie garden and it's shrubs and trees and it's a small little book, must be a little bit, must be a little bit old. It was when it released first, it was five pounds 99. It's um, it's a small little book talking about trees and shrubs and it very much uses the trees and shrubs in this are very much used as sort of specimens or as creating structure within a garden. So there's flowering shrubs in it, flowering trees in it. There's trees and shrubs for autumn interest, there's trees and shrubs for shaded areas, trees and shrubs for small gardens and so on and so on.

Speaker 1: 19:23

But all, even though it's an old book, all of the trees and shrubs that are in it are yeah, it is actually my, my mom's signatures on the inside of it. Um, but all of the books and trees that are in it, even though it's an old book they're all, because they're all kind of specimen. They're still very, very much ones that are hugely popular still today. So you're looking at things like magnolias and maples and all that sort of thing, but it's a really good book. And again, I don't know if this one is still in print, but it's a really good book for I suppose if you're looking for a specific tree or a shrub for a certain area, it's a really good book as a reference point to that.

Speaker 1: 20:07

And uh, yeah, actually, looking at the inside in the book there is a little brochure from board gloss which is hedging options and see if there's a date on it. It's certainly, it's certainly old. Don't think there's a date on it, but it's written by Jerry Daly. And here at the back there's a little slip of a of a newspaper and it is. Again, there doesn't seem to be a date on it. No, there's no date on it, but it is a piece of a newspaper. So it's certainly not one that is recent. It's certainly an older book anyway. So that's Trees and Shrubs a really, really interesting one.

Speaker 1: 20:56

Here's a great book for most gardeners, especially if you're interested in propagating your old plants. Really interesting one. Here's a great book for most gardeners, especially if you're interested in propagating your old plants. This is an old book but I'm pretty sure that it's still in. You know it's still in print and it's the rhs the royal horticultural society propagating plants, the fully illustrated plant by plant manual and practical techniques of plant propagation. So it goes through everything from sowing seeds to taking cuttings, to layering, to division, to dividing tubers. You know all of the ways that we can multiply and create new plants, including pond plants and basically every sort of plant. So root cuttings, as I said, division, air cuttings, all of that sort of thing. So root cuttings, as I said, division, air, air, air, air cuttings, all of that sort of thing. So any way that you have of producing another plant, this book has it and it's a very, very practical and sort of picture by picture, slide by slide guide to to all of that. And definitely this version is superseded again, it could be 30 years old but it is certainly a book that's still in publication or still in print and it's by the rss. So it's propagating plants, the fully illustrated plant by plant manual and practical techniques. So super book really, and again, one I would dip back into regularly, you know if you're going to. Super book really, and again one I would dip back into regularly, you know, if you're going to take cuttings or find some way of propagating a plant brilliant, brilliant book.

Speaker 1: 22:27

The next set of books I have, I've mentioned on the podcast several times the little trio of books from Klaus Leitenberger, and it's Vegetables for the Irish Garden, it's Fruit and Veg for the Polytunnel or Greenhouse and the Vegetable Growers Handbook. Vegetable Growers Handbook is a small book with kind of little pocket sized information on various crops. I actually don't dip into that one too much. The Vegetables for the Irish Garden is is a brilliant, a brilliant book. Really practical information goes through each kind of crop that you can grow here goes through the good varieties, sowing dates, sowing spacing, when to sow, when to harvest, how much you should harvest, how much you should sow, so it sort of gives an indication of if you have x amount of plants, this is the amount you're going to harvest from it. So really really kind of good guide as to how much you should sow, how much you should plant, spacings, everything like that. So really, really, really good book and one I would dip into regularly. And then the final one in that trio of books is fruit and vegetables for the polytomino greenhouse and again that's one I would dip into quite regularly and a really, really good book. They're definitely all still being produced, being printed. Klaus is still sells them from his own website, so definitely still available those ones.

Speaker 1: 23:56

Next one is a good one as well, again an old book. It's the castell encyclopedia of gardening and the foreword of this is by alan titch march. I don't think he has written the book per se, but this is a really good book. Kind of covers anything that you would want in gardening, so everything from planting up a container to hanging baskets, to growing veg, to designing a flower bed, to creating a perennial border, to laying a patio. It has all of that in a very kind of practical manual type way. So it says the. The wording on the front says it's a definitive silk single volume guide to garden plants and gardening techniques and, as I say, it's a really practical guide to basically all garden plants. And yeah, it's a brilliant, brilliant book has great photography in it. You could see at this stage it's not as old as some of the other books and the photography is getting better. There's great charts in it's shown timing periods or flowering periods and so on, and it's one that you would kind of dip back into quite regularly. Um, predominantly based around plants. But there is, you know, there is other, yeah, there's other kind of yeah, brilliant book, as I said, predominantly based around plants, and it's the castell encyclopedia of garden definitive single volume guide to garden plants and gardening techniques and a brilliant, brilliant one, one again that I would look at quite a bit if it's looking, if you're looking up a specific plant, I delve into that quite regularly.

Speaker 1: 25:36

Next to are two that were featured on the christmas gift for gardeners, two brilliant books, um, first one is jimmy blake's. I spoke about this at the time. It's a book that is very practical and it's also very inspirational. So jimmy's garden hunting book garden is, and the book is essentially based around plants that are in there and it's called a beautiful obsession and so, for people who don't know, jimmy is probably one of the, I suppose, most recognized plants person in the country, is one of the largest private collections of plants in ireland.

Speaker 1: 26:14

Phenomenally good gardener, does lots of things that you know typically people wouldn't be doing in gardens. You know, like he grew bananas up in Wicklow, um has a brilliant eye for color, brilliant eye for his garden, I suppose has has a bit of everything, so it has the. You know, when you enter you're hit with a blaze of color, very good structure plants through it. Then you go into the woodland so you're into deep kind of foresty area and a lot of interesting plants in there in that woodland type planting, lots of unusual plants, rare plants in there. You come up out of there. For anyone that has been, it's a, it's a place of. There's a really beautiful energy about it, especially down that woodland. There's a really beautiful energy there. Hard to put your finger on it, but just a place where you can just really feel relaxed. You come up out of there and up the back then there's a wildflower meadow and that's a huge part of the garden as well and it's just. It's a phenomenally good garden.

Speaker 1: 27:21

But the book itself is beautiful. So it's really has all the inspiration. But it also has the practical steps. So it names the plants, it talks about how to sow, there's propagation tips in it, there's, you know, lots of practical stuff in it. So it marries the, the beautiful and the practical quite well together and that book is definitely still in print. I saw there was a new delivery of them recently and it's a beautiful obsession by jimmy blake, and a really good one.

Speaker 1: 27:50

And the last one I have here on the table is another former guest of the podcast. So so, tj Maher I mentioned this when I had TJ on the podcast this is probably the book with the most beautiful garden pictures or plant pictures that you're going to see. Genuinely, I don't think you're going to see your pictures within a gardening book as nice as this, or at least a collection of them all from the one place. So TJ is an artist and on the podcast we spoke about the artist wheel and how he marries colors together and it's just sensational. The coloring, the picture, the variety is sensational and it's a sensational book.

Speaker 1: 28:37

It's slightly different to Jimmy's one in that this one is very much about color and how to match color. You know colors together. As I said, tj talked about the color wheel, the artist color wheel, and where you match colors together and how you match colors together, and he brilliantly does it probably better than anybody else that I've I've seen, to be honest. So he brilliantly marries them together and then obviously, all these photographs capture that in a brilliant way. So it's a. It's aesthetically, as I say, one of the most beautiful gardening books you will ever pick up, and his garden itself is a beautiful place to visit as well but a brilliant book. As I say, it's different in that it's not necessarily a manual based book, but it's a. It's an absolutely fabulous book and one that is so beautiful, really, really beautiful.

Speaker 1: 29:30

So they're, you know, they're kind of a selection of the ones that are on on the shelf here there's probably four times as many over there, but these are the ones that I kind of continually dip back to, something that you'll pick up, you know, two, three, four, five times a year. A couple of them are brand new, a couple of them I'm only getting sort of into, and some of them I'll sort of delve into a little bit more over the next while. But they're beautiful books and, yeah, they're great. This is not a Christmas gardening gifts one, but it's certainly a follow on from that and something that I haven't covered before, in that I've spoken about books a lot but never actually covered a specific episode on it. So, yeah, that's pretty much this week's episode. I'm going to go away now and spend another little bit of time rooting through those magazines from from the 1960s and next week's episode.

Speaker 1: 30:24

We're doing um a synopsis of the most popular episodes over the last year and you know there's lots to talk about. There are some changes on the list from last year. Not a huge amount of change, but there is some changes. Some have come in at the top 10, some have gone out of the top 10 and, yeah, it might be interesting to see that the number one spot hasn't changed for the last couple of years. So it'll be interesting to see if the number one spot is changed for the coming year. And but that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time. Happy card, thank you.