I sometimes think I should be providing you all with clear and concise instructions on how to grow stuff. But you can find those same instructions in five minutes in any half decent gardening book, or in 30 seconds on the internet, or immediately if you just turn the seed packet over and look at the back. So I won't waste my time and yours by plagarising somebody else's work and presenting it as my own, which is what plagarising means, sorry about the tautology but I rather liked the way that sentence read . Instead I'll just tell you where to look:-
Internet
Garden Organic - This is the web site of the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA). It is a very well designed site with easy to find facts on all aspects of organic gardening. I particularly recommend the "what to do in the garden now" section which is an excellent guide to what you should be sowing, planting out, digging up, building or eating on a monthly basis - an excellent site to look at on the evening before a day on your plot.
BBC Grow Your Own - The BBC website for growing your own. What can I say, it's a BBC site and is therefore easy to navigate and packed with information.
RHS Grow Your Own Veg - I have to say I found this site a little frustrating, particularly their concept of alphabetical, and I didn't loiter very long, but it is the Royal Horticultural Society, and I've heard they know what they're talking about.
Books
Grow Your Own Vegetable, by Joy Larkom - Apparently Joy Larkom is Britain's most respected vegetable gardener. Unfortunately I have yet to get into the rankings so if it's accurate gardening advice you need get this book. It's an absolute bargain on Amazon, and about half the price I paid for it.
Anything by Dr D G Hessayon - I suspect Dr Hessayon is third in the list after Bill Gates and that bloke who owns Ikea. The.......Expert series are the most ubiquitous horticulture book I am aware of, and for good reason too. They are well laid out, full of good advice with clear illustrations, and despite the title you don't have to be an expert to use them. There is however a sinister aspect to this series of guides. Although the good Doctor asserts his rights as the author of these books on the inside front cover, I can find no evidence of his existence outside the Expert series. Nothing on Wikipedia, nothing in Who's Who (that's a guess, I'm not prepared to pay the subscription), he's never been a panel member of Gardeners Question time and even Interpol don't have a file. How, and perhaps more importantly why, has such a successful author been able to keep his real identity secret for so long? What does he have to hide? Some brief exerts from the series could perhaps yield a few clues..."Plums are the most popular of the stone fruits", "the fan method of training gives high yields and is often recommended for the less vigorous hybrids" and the most alarming "A sheltered spot is required". If anyone can give me some information on Doctor Hessayon I would be more than happy to pass it on to the authorities.
That old bloke on the next plot who make you feel slightly inadequate.
Don't be intimidated, he's actually a rather jolly old fella and he's been cultivating his plot since rationing started. He can tell you what will grow well and what won't grow at all in your soil and introduce you to new (ancient) and successful techniques for keeping everything healthy and properly fed. He is quite possibly the best source of information on growing fruit and veg on your particular plot. He really doesn't want to intimidate you. What he wants to do is talk to you, to pass on all his knowledge to be carried forward for future generations. If you remember half of what he tells you your allotment will bloom like never before. One thing to bear in mind while chatting with (listening to) him, particularly if there has been a lot of rain, move your feet regularly to ensure the mud does not dry around your boots, trapping you until the next rains come.
I will make you aware of other valuable sources of information as I find them. At the moment I use the sources listed above and my vast wealth of experience, built up over the last two years, which I will furnish you with at the appropriate time. As you can probably guess I've not made it to the allotment for a couple of weeks. I have a fresh tranche of shed related anxiety to deal with due to the recent high(er) winds which I will have to overcome before visiting this weekend, following my birthday celebrations. I will report back soon.
Mogg wrote...
If you bothered doing a modicum of research then you would learn that D G Hessayon refuses to appear on television, eschews semi-colons and doesn't do book signings. He comes from a world where the World Wide Web is something to keep out giant spiders and digital has something to do with gardening gloves. He is dangerous because his success has been built on rejection of a multimedia world which practically everyone else thinks is essential for success. He is the most successful author of the 1990s after the novelist Catharine Cookson. He was reared in Salford but now lives in Essex. Forty million of his books have been purchased worldwide. One of them - The House Plant Expert - has totted up 11 million in sales and is claimed to be the best-selling reference book of all time apart from the Bible.
Dr Hessayon has carefully propagated the individualism that propelled him into publishing his first book on his own after the company he worked for (and later became chairman of) rejected it. Even now he doesn't have an editor. He hates the monotonous side of gardening - the mowing, the digging and the weeding - and thinks Capability Brown was a "bloody vandal" destroying villages by filling them with water. He absolutely detests herbaceous borders and gardens that flower for 10 minutes and are barren for the rest of the year. Instead he declares himself to be a shrub man: "You know where you are with a shrub," he declares. Maybe one does. Either way he sounds born to shatter the tranquility of Gardeners' Question Time. But, true to his counter-cultural instincts, he has never appeared on that programme either. The media, it seems, is not always the message.
He also has some interesting views on the role of the "housewife", not to mention his insistence on using the unPC synonym for the red cabbage variety "Red Drumhead" well into the 1990s.
SuperDave replies...
Thank you Lord Mogg for this delightful update on the movements of Doctor Hessayon. I can't say I blame him for his move to Essex, being reared anywhere can only be an unpleasant experience.
SuperDave update...
Frankly Lord Mogg I am shocked. Having now bothered to do a modicum of research I have just discovered the above passages on the Guardian Unlimited website. Having assume the words above to be your own it upsets me to realise you are a plagariser. A man in your position should know better, in fact it was only last week that you were giving excellent advice on correct referencing to a certain Mr Turkey Tyson .
Sort your self out man! And good luck with the marathon, I salute you!
Posted by: Mogg | January 25, 2007 1:59 PM