 BOOK
REVIEWS
The
Gourmet Gardener
Bob Flowerdew
Kyle Cathie
Distributed by Reed
$NZ65
Reviewed by Graeme Rainey
BRITAIN'S Bob Flowerdew
has made a name on his home turf as an organics advocate. He appears
on British television programmes like Muck and Magic, on
radio gardening panels and has written several books espousing organics.
His latest offering is
a stylish repackaging of old wisdom between new and trendy covers.
He writes with panache, drawing on his own wide experience to detail
specific tips for growing veggies from garden to table. As the title
suggests, freshness and taste -- not just size or quantity - is
the aim of gardening.
The author's golden rule
for veggie growing is to give every plant "a very generous amount
of space" before answering "the needs, and tricks" of each vegetable
to make the difference between a good crop and an excellent one.
Besides veggies, fruits
and nuts and berries, herbs and salad offerings and oddly, given
the title, perfumed flowers are covered chapter by chapter. He weighs
up favourite varieties while a final chapter gives various methods
of preserving produce.
There are some useful
tips as well as eccentricities. Readers may judge for themselves
which category using snails as recyclers in a similar way to worms
falls into. The preponderance of pictures of Bob must be testament
to his British popularity (but some may find a full-page portrait
of the author biting into a peach less than appealing).
Much of this rather pricy
book's content will be second nature to WG readers.
Weekend
Gardener, Issue 183, 2005, Page 37
Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH
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