As a total nerd, I’ve spent most of the winter reading up on vegetable growing and garden planning. Luckily, most second hand bookstores, as well as the public libraries, have plenty of gardening and allotment books.
I’ve listed a few that I found especially helpful, and reviewed what I appreciated about them. I’ve also listed some of my favourite garden websites.
Books:
Allotment Handbook (Simon Akeroyd)
This book gives lots of details about setting up your plot and planning your first few growing seasons. I loved that it gives lots of alternative options for most projects and often includes recycled/re-purposed options. For example, in the chapter on soil preparation, it lists types of commercially available compost bins (tumblers, stacks, “daleks”) but also mentions recycled pallet builds and builder’s bags. There is also an overview of crops, with a two page spread dedicated to the more common ones. This entails growing instructions, tips and tricks, and also a few recipe ideas.
Allotment Through the Year/also sold as Allotment Month by Month (Alan Buckingham)
This book provides a wonderful timeline, especially useful for me as a novice. Every month comes with in-depth portraits of seasonal crops and a list of tasks to be completed this month on the plot (split into “sowing and planting”, “jobs around the plot” and “harvest and store”). The book also has a chapter on pests and how to combat them. All in all a great, well-structured source of information.
Grow Your Own Veg (Carol Klein)
This book is a structured a little differently from the two reviewed above. It first has a lot of background on vegetable growing techniques, then a seasonal task list, and then a detailed overview of vegetables, but grouped not by season but by the groups of crop rotation. This was helpful to me, because we’re also grouping our beds by these principles. The chapters are a lot more wordy and also include slightly more editorial articles. This makes the book a lovely evening read as well as a good source of information.
Websites:
A very comprehensive site by the Royal Horticultural Society. Great information and growing tips. I like the monthly overview of tasks, and their vegetable A-Z.
The website of Grow Your Own magazine. A big GYO forum, and lots of articles and information.
Batman has an Allotment! 