Weeding the Web

The perfect cookbook design is...

We don't need cookery books. All we have to do is look at the Internet. At least, that's what people tell me but it'll never be a modus operandi that I'll be happy with.

Cookbooks through the years

Books are here to stay in my kitchen, especially as more, perhaps, than any other books, they tell a story. There's the Good Housekeeping my grandmother gave my mother when she got married, now held together by rubber bands to stop the covers falling off. Others hold favourite dessert recipes that I enjoyed as a child. Delia's One is Fun (now rarely consulted) went with me to Uni (isolationist that I was - still, others in my house used it too).

More recent volumes show a growing infatuation with spicy food, and a sprinkling of celebrity chefs - as well as the changes in recipe-book design. More and more pictures. Is it just me who feels there's a growing disconnect between cookbook designers and the people who use them? 

Prompted by increasing frustration, I've put together my own recipe for the perfect cookbook.

Spread from the Archers' Cookbook

The Recipe Book's Index...

...should include major ingredients as well as the recipe title. The Archers' Cookbook (a present from a relative before the BBC pushed Nigel off the roof) breaks the rule to such an extent that, back in the days when time passed more slowly, I actually created my own index. I mean, listing Buttered Caraway Cabbage under "B" means pretty much loses it for anyone wanting to spice up their greens.

Indices don't come any better than this from the Farmhouse Kitchen series

I based my own version on the best index I've ever come across - in the Farmhouse Kitchen books (remember the Yorkshire TV series from the 80s?). Recipes are listed by title, by category (desserts, cakes etc) and by major ingredients (eg beef, apple). If you have something left over in the fridge and need inspiration, a thorough index is better than a search engine.

Which takes me on to...

Cookbook layout

How do you look for recipes? Probably in the section dedicated to that part of meal. Most pan-meal recipe books begin with starter, move on to main courses, end with desserts. The Archers' Cookbook might have some leeway as a quirky evocation of village life, but it doesn't make it any easier to find Victorian Fairings when you're not sure if they garland the chapter showcasing the Brownies' Summer Picnic or The Ambridge Flower and Produce Show (and are indexed under Freda Fry!).

The Yeo Valley Cookbook suffers this malady too. It's divided into chapters such as The Dairy, The Fruit Garden, and Woods, Hedgerows, Fields and Streams, though it rescues itself through a proper Farmhouse Kitchen-style index.

Now the Yeo Valley Cookbook has a great deal going for it. It hasn't given me a duff recipe yet, and Husband's favourite dessert/cake (any time, really) is Blackberry and Brown Sugar Fingers. Besides this, I've made Poppy Seed Ice Cream and Twice-baked Goats' Cheese Soufflés to pleasing plaudits. If I'm flicking through for desserts, though, I have to search chapters back and front.

Recipe Book Illustration

Apart from dodgy divisions, they also commit another cardinal sin. Page colour. Photos have moved from helpful illustration to backgrounding the entire text. Looks great, until you realise the recipe is printed in white on an almost black background and you want to jot a note in the margin. I always note down ingredient substitutions, timings and ratings: "Good but not worth the effort" - that sort of thing. So it's hugely annoying when the only place to write visibly is across the middle of the picture on the opposite page.

A favourite recipe, close to impossible to annotate.

Which takes me on to...

Excess illustration

Few of my mother's cookbooks have pictures. Now every book is covered in them. Which is nice, if they're relevant. However, where they stray away from the actual recipes they're usually bigging up the author in some way. Yeo Valley have pages given over to life on the farm.

Spice I Am, which has some scrummy recipes from one of Sydney's leading Thai chefs, Sujet Saenkham, shows him tossing a lot of pans. OK, it adds colour, but when you're flipping through a book you just want to get to the meat of it, if you see what I mean. They're not coffee table books, for goodness' sake.

So that's it; quite a simple recipe. A decent index, photo moderation, and space to write. It's surprising how many cookbooks don't provide all three (or even one) these days.

In fact, I'm quite tempted to have a go at designing my own. I recently came across this thorough Designing a Cookbook article, while there are a few things I wouldn't mind copying from 35 Beautiful Recipe Book Designs. 

One day, perhaps. What would you like to change about modern recipe books?

A Good Weed: Digging Deep in the Garden Book II

"It's really pathetic," said a friend, "that a 5p charge should make the difference." He was lamenting the fact that, despite being a sailor, despite spending his time on the ocean, despite knowing the terrible pollution caused by plastic bags etc, it was only when the paltry tax came in that he began to remember to take a bag to the supermarket. I was reminded of this while reading the recently published second book of John Walker's Digging Deep series.

For those of you who missed my review of Digging Deep Book One when it came out before Christmas time last year, these volumes bring together John's thought-provoking articles which were originally published in Organic Gardening magazine.

An intriguing "what if?" approach runs through this second volume, a view firmly fixed on what might happen if we started to think about working together. In the fourteen chapters, I find myself in sympathy with many of John's ideas. A couple of years ago, I was struck by the difference that fenceless gardens might make and, in Waste of Space, John imagines the eco-benefits that pulling down fences might have, while making green spaces properly useful.  Or how might garden centres react  to our rejection of the packaging that often accompanies plants? How about a dedicated Freegardening extension to Freecycle? What about combating the power of supermarkets with Earth Centres, hubs of local horticultural knowledge that also pooled skills and grew community?

There's no doubt that we're a long way from implementing many of the ideas - you might not consider all of them desirable. But taking as he does a sideways look at our current problems, and publishing these articles at a time when political norms seem to be withering like a Round-Up treated weed, John encourages a clear-eyed examination of the status quo that you could find yourself applying to your own gardening activities.

Any moment now, Digging Deep Books III and IV, the final two of the series, will be published. Each in this series is a slim volume attractively presented with lovely suede-feel covers featuring photographs taken by John. All feature the wryly humorous style that made the first volume so easy to read. They'd make great stocking fillers for Christmas, or why not treat yourself to all four and catch up with some radical, earth-friendly ideas over the New Year?  Order from Earth-friendly Gardener.

 

A Good Weed: Weeds by John Walker

There couldn't be much more difference between my garden and those on either side. I'm exceptionally laissez-faire about weeds, or Interesting Plants as I describe them when defending the somewhat shaggy, overcrowded look of the beds. Meanwhile, my neighbours amble around their garden, spray bottle in hand, eyes on the exposed soil, ready to squirt anything undesirable.

Of course, some might point out their patience. Fewer weeds on my side of the fence might reduce the use of weedkiller on theirs. But...why use chemicals when you can pull something out?

And need it be pulled out in the first place?

This is definitely a question you'll be asking yourself on reading John Walker's Weeds, to be released at the end of this month. Weeds are, it quickly becomes clear, there for a reason. After all, where is soil naturally bare, and what moves in first to newly bare soil when, say, the wind has torn a tree out by the roots?

Weeds aren’t there to deliberately frustrate our gardening efforts; they are simply doing their job. Just as new skin forms after we’ve caught ourselves on a rose thorn, weeds help heal wounds in the earth. Look at it another way: it’s us who are causing the problem by insisting on bare, neat-looking soil – open wounds, if you like.

And, points out John, bare soil not only sends earthworms deeper to escape the sun, but also microscopic organisms - all of which are necessary to create good soil. It begins to be clear that in fighting weeds, we're not only never going to finish the battle, but are actually potentially doing harm.

Early chapters celebrate the success of weeds - how they spread (useful for understanding how to control them), their contribution to wildlife, what they tell us (do you, for example, take their appearance as an indicator of when it's warm enough to sow in spring?) and how we can live with them. 

An alternative title could easily have been Working with Weeds. After reading, I found myself checking through the beds, looking at weeds more closely and assessing them more carefully. Observing weeds gives us information on the soil we have. From there, it's a short step to working out what to do about it. If creeping buttercup (which I have) thrives in moist, poorly drained soil, the answer is obviously to amend the soil so that it's better drained, not labour to remove something that finds it so attractive. Other plants, of course, will thank you for the improved soil and move in, but in my experience, the better the soil, the less obnoxious the weeds and the easier they are to pull up.

Elsewhere you'll find a useful list of weeds to grow in a "bug bank", attracting pollinators to your garden, and one of edible weeds, which I intend to work my way through as I do wonder why I put so much effort into feeding slugs with lettuce when wild saladings are there for the taking.

Once past these chapters, you move into an alphabetical and illustrated directory of sixty common garden weeds, with a traffic-light warning system. John doesn't advocate complete weed freedom but rather containment and judicious choice (he has a Dutch hoe of "razor sharpness" to dispatch the unwanted) so those marked in red should have action taken against them immediately because they're serious perennial weeds, those in amber are moderately easy to control, and green, easy.

Each entry has a clear photograph of the culprit and gives details of how it spreads, where it likes to grow, its habit, and the best way to get rid of it, should you wish to. Entries also note when it's edible or poisonous.

John cleared an overgrown allotment with sheet mulching and was harvesting six months later

The final chapter is dedicated to an earth-friendly approach to preventing, clearing and controlling weeds, which by now, anyway, seem rather less threatening. If you're already familiar with John's approach, you'll know weedkiller is out.

Uprooting a weed, rather than spraying it with some synthetic chemical weedkiller, might not strike you as a profound gesture we gardeners can make to ‘save the planet’, but imagine if hundreds, thousands or millions of gardeners did it: that’s an awful lot of weeds and a mighty amount of weedkiller staying put in its bottle.

Here you'll find plenty of ideas for clearing ground of weeds while barely lifting a fork to do so, rather employing a variety of ways such as mulching, burning, or choking out. Proper attention is paid to effective use of a hoe. There's also sensible advice on how deal with undesirable weeds that are getting the upper hand in a lawn. The chapter winds up with a table of the best methods for attacking weeds in various parts of the garden with page references so you can easily refer back to information earlier in the book.

Experienced, organic gardeners  aren't really the audience for Weeds, although the weed directory is useful and you may well encounter several "I hadn't thought of that" moments. However, if you're feeling your way in gardening or if you're wedded to weedkiller, this is required reading. It makes the taming and maintaining of a garden seem much less of a chore and is likely to open your eyes, not only to a Nature that we can work with, but a Nature that, given a chance, is willing to work with us.

To Order

Weeds was first published in 2003, and this is an updated edition. Pre-order by July 31st from Earth-friendly Gardener (where you can also read an extract) and you'll receive a discount on the £15 cover price, as well as a chance to win a copy of John's excellent How to Create an Eco-Garden.

 

Books for Gardeners for Christmas

Following moderately hotly on the heels of suggestions for Christmas presents, here's a round-up of books I've reviewed over the past few years that you might have forgotten about but would also make good presents. I've enjoyed each and every one and, if you're not familiar with them already, this might be the moment to give yourself a treat.

Click on the picture to get to the original post.

Published by in 2009, this compilation of writing by my favourite garden writer is humorous, touching and a great introduction to his work. See also Green Grows the City by him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gentle, lyrical story of a Shropshire garden, packed with history, contemplation and character.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unusual and quirky as a present, but a fascinating insight into the role of the Land Girl during WW2.

 

 

 

 

 

What veg gardener hasn't toyed with the idea of keeping hens?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graham Rice is always knowledgeable, readable and brings new ideas to the table. There's also his Planting for the Dry Shade Garden.

 

 

 

 

 

Every prospective back garden fruit grower would enjoy Grow a Little Fruit Tree.

 

 

 

 

Fascinating book that spells out the science of plants and pooh-poohs some standard ways of working.

 

 

 

 

 

 John Walker's thought-provoking collection of articles, taking a closer look at gardening and our impact on the planet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you click through to the reviews, you'll find that some will then lead you to Amazon. If you prefer not to purchase from Amazon, I recommend searching for them on Hive, which offers discounts while supporting high street book shops.

 

Prize draw: Digging Deep in the Garden by John Walker

Is gardening inherently eco-friendly? Could it do better?  These questions seldom make it into the limelight in garden writing. If you do see an article that asks them, though, there's a good chance it's been written by John Walker, three times winner of the Garden Media Guild's Environmental Award.

Now I'm offering you the chance to win a copy of John's Digging Deep in the Garden, a newly published collection of fourteen articles from "Digging Deep", the series that he originally wrote for Organic Gardening magazine.

In putting the book together, a paradox struck him:

Almost a decade since ‘Digging Deep’ took root, many of the issues I explored are still getting worse – think climate chaos, pesticide pollution, profligate energy use. And yet gritty garden writing exploring such topics is still almost non-existent; we plod on under the illusion – ably propped up by an out-of-touch media – that gardening and the wild, natural world are somehow opposites, rather than being intimately interwoven.

I was lucky enough to read John's articles first time round, when Organic Gardening magazine still existed and I too contributed (in a considerably less challenging manner) to its pages. John's article was always the first I turned to on opening the mag, to see what particular gauntlet was being thrown to the ground that month.

The wide range of issues covered are still very much with us and all together they pack quite a punch.  Climate change, compost, choice in garden centres, misleading magazine articles for novice gardeners, ethical supply, and the downgrading of organic gardening are merely a handful of the subjects looked at. He looks at current attitudes (still very much current), asks awkward questions, calls people to account.

It's all serious stuff, but mitigating this is the engaging writing style, wryly humorous in places, and the rallying cries to action. Yes, we can make a difference on an individual basis, and our choices do matter. It's heartening to find someone who thinks we have clout. And it's only by individuals changing their behaviour that general consensus is shifted to a new standing.

Compared with much of the output of the gardening press, Digging Deep shows what zest can be added to our gardening reading. When the garden industry campaigns to sell as much as possible to as many consumers as possible, it's arresting to question whether you, too, could manage to ditch the wheelie-bin (yes, the black one too), or whether you really need that heated propagator.

The arguments carry all the more weight because what shines from the book is that John, not only feels deeply about the matters discussed, but, as an long-time organic gardener, has the experience to speak authoritatively. 

Enter the Prize Draw

To celebrate the publication, there are two paperback copies up for grabs. To be in with a chance of winning Digging Deep in the Garden email [email protected] with "Prize Draw" in the subject line, by the end of Saturday 14th November.

The winner will be drawn at random from all the entries.

If you can't wait for the results of the draw, Digging Deep in the Garden is available in paperback at £4.99 and as an ebook at £1.99, via John's website, Earth-friendly Gardener, where you can also catch up with the latest reviews.

Terms and Conditions:

1. This giveaway is only available to people with a UK delivery address.

2. Entry closes at the end of Saturday 14th November.

3. The lucky winners will be notified by 18th November, via email. If John has not heard from him or her by midnight on 30th November, a new winner will be drawn.

4. There are two prizes of Digging Deep in the Garden, paperback version. No cash alternative.

 

 

 

 

 

A Good Weed? How Plants Work by Linda Chalker-Scott

Clear explanations, challenges to orthodoxy. Sometimes you just know you're going to enjoy a book. If you haven't come across Linda Chalker-Scott before, then How Plants Work, The Science Behind the Amazing Things Plants Do is a great way to meet her.

Linda's credentials tell you a lot. She has a PhD in Horticulture and is an associate professor in the Department of Horticulture at Washington State University (WSU). There, she co-chairs the Garden Team, an interdisciplinary group that produces science-based WSU Extension publications for amateur gardeners. She writes educational materials for the nursery and landscape industry, certified arboriculturalists, pesticide technicians and restoration ecologists. She is published widely in scientific and popular magazines and - which is how I came across her - hosts the entertaining and informative blog, The Garden Professors, where there are some very enjoyable podcasts. Phew!

How Plants Work is her fourth book and explains just that. Unless you're particularly retentive, or are just brushing up knowledge gained at A Level and beyond, you'll probably not want to devour it in large chunks. As someone who dropped all sciences for A Level, this is a book I need to take at a steady pace, if I'm to absorb as much as I'd like to.

Linda Chalker-Scott

However, this is not because it's difficult to read. Linda has a lucid style that clearly explains the various plant processes covered. It's just that there's so much to take in.

Chapters progress from "Under the Microscope", which is a selective introduction to plant anatomy and biochemistry, through chapters such as "The Underground Railroad" (all about roots) and "Why Leaves Can Turn Red Anytime, Anyplace" to "Garden Care, Not Control" which covers ways of working with your plants, not against them.

Described like this it sounds rather dry. It's not. Linda uses plenty of scenarios and problems encountered in her own garden to introduce and explain how plants behave and the problems they, and we, encounter.

It's well illustrated with photos and, browsing through, your eye will be caught by the plentiful stand-alone pages, which either focus on a particular phenomenon (such as the heat-producing spadix of skunk cabbage) or bust a myth with scientific precision. The latter are, of course, the most fascinating. Do you reduce watering to prepare for winter dormancy, or put down sheet mulches of cardboard or newspaper? Read this, and stop. 

As people begin to think about present-giving, this is definitely one to drop a hint on. If no one's picking it up, just go the whole hog and treat yourself.

How Plants Work was provided by Timber Press for review purposes.

The Emergency Poet prescribes lines for a jaded gardener

I think we've all been there. You stare out at the garden; it's not the way you want it, you seem to have been working on it for ages and, right now, you really don't have the inclination or even the ideas to make it change for the better. In fact, it's just become a chore.

But is it the garden, or life itself that's making you feel like that? And what can you do about it, anyway?

The answer might surprise you. In celebration of Poetry Day, I asked the country's only Emergency Poet, Deborah Alma for a prescription for the ills I've just described.

Sounds odd? Well, Deborah's is a deceptively simple idea. She travels the country in her 1970s ambulance, listening to people's problems, probing preferences, and then picking the poem that offers balm for whatever ails her "patient".

With it, you'll possibly get a prescription to place the poem where you can read it often or, as with one of mine, "Take the poem once a day, ideally outside and alone and listen to the birdsong, staying outside until you can identify at least five different songs."

I mean, what better suggestion for a gardener?

Deborah usually has a chat to establish reading preferences and answers to, as she says, "other mysterious questions", but I posed her an extra challenge in that we did all this by email. What did she suggest?

I've been prescribed a cocktail. First, Postscript by Seamus Heaney. It describes, explains Deborah, "a trip out to County Clare, where there is a calm lake on one side and a stormier sea in the other. The poet stands in-between and into this limbo, or in-between space, something marvellous comes. I suppose it’s a poem of letting go and not chasing something; and so the answer, the inspiration, can be allowed in."  If you don't know it (and I didn't) it's also a beautiful description of wild landscape.

The second poem, to be placed somewhere prominent, is The Door by Miroslav Holub (another poet I'd never met before), which, as Deborah says, asks "for one small step forward, as long as something is done." It does, and it made me laugh.

I'm not reproducing them here for copyright reasons, but do click through and read them.

Meanwhile, out this month is Emergency Poet - An Anti-Stress Poetry Anthology. Edited by Deborah, it offers her choice of poetry for times when you need hope, a tonic to lift the spirits, courage, inspiration and support for life stages we all encounter. Reading it is a reminder of why poetry remains perennially popular - all life is in it, so succinctly stated.

And if you think all anthologies tend to rehash the same popular lines, then you're in for a treat. There are familiar verses from Yeats, Thomas, Tennyson, Housman and others, but equally it includes plenty of lesser known poets - not being well versed (hah!), I'm not sure if I should be ashamed of never having heard before of Derek Mahon, Kaylin Haught and Gerda Mayer, but I'm delighted now to have made their acquaintance.

This collection is a rich delight that cleverly expresses and comforts so many of our emotions. You can find out where Deborah will be visiting next on her website, but when she's too far away to meet face to face the book puts her knowledge and wisdom next to you on the shelf.   

Cards for Gardeners by Eric Ravilious from Postscript Books

Regulars will know that I'm always looking for cards and presents with gardeners in mind. Postscript has the sort of catalogue that I take to bed with me - interesting books on all sorts of subjects and extremely competitively priced (yes, that includes Amazon). New to their range is stationery and, among their cards, Gardener and Deckchair by Ravilious.

I've got a real soft spot for Eric Ravilious (1903-42), now finally regarded as one of the finest British artists of the twentieth century. His style surely influenced the dust-wrappers on books that peopled the shelves of my childhood, which were printed in a pale, limited palette with simple illustration. Back then I wasn't too impressed - they seemed dull and I wasn't a child that enjoyed stylised representations - but now I love the pared-back illustrations and restrained colours that conjure a dreamy quality, seeming to speak of a constant, rather than a passing moment.

These designs were originally created for Wedgwood in the 1930s. There were more in the series and I hope they'll make it into print too. Eight notecards cost £4.99. And, book-wise, iIf you search Postscript for "gardening", you'll find lots of tempting tomes to choose from.

Incidentally, the Dulwich Picture Gallery has a super exhibition of Ravilious' watercolours, which runs till the end of August.

For more cards, see: Greetings Cards for Gardeners and another post (imaginatively described again!) Greetings Cards for Gardeners.

A good weed? Grow a Little Fruit Tree book review

It's not often that a gardening book has me champing at the bit to get out and do something. But after reading the new book by Ann Ralph, Grow a Little Fruit Tree, I was desolate at the thought that I had missed the bare-root planting season.

Ann Ralph is a fruit-tree expert who's spent twenty years in nurseries and teaches pruning in California. What, she asks, is the point of having a large tree that produces so much fruit that much of it plummets to the ground and is wasted? Or why struggle with a tree that is too tall to pick from easily? 

Why, indeed?

Instead, she advocates a series of small trees, pickable from ground level, producing fruit in succession in reasonable quantities as the season progresses.  And so she goes all out to explain, as the subtitle spells out, Simple Pruning Techniques for Small-Space, Easy-Harvest Fruit Trees.  It makes eminent sense and, intending as I have been to have a go at creating my own espaliers, I was hooked by the whole idea.

The book is full of points that I know I'll be quoting to myself when pruning makes me timid.

Fruit trees are healthier and more abundant, not in spite of what we do to them, but because of it.

And, speaking of timidity, here's something to hang on to:

If you don't know what to do, cut some stuff out.

That's what I love about this book; Ann totally understands the paralysis of pruning, when you're standing with secateurs for 20 minutes before putting them back in your pocket and walking away in confusion. She's reassuring about how little damage you can really do. She also knows just how hard it will be when your new trees arrive.  Read the book, though, and you're thoroughly braced for that initial heading cut - at knee height.

Before we look at the reason for such drastic action, what does this book cover? In eleven chapters Ann tells us why we should want small fruit trees; why proper fruit management is good for us, the garden and the trees; why you're better off going for a more vigorous rootstock and relying on pruning, rather than a dwarfing rootstock (which will either give you too big a tree, anyway, or present its own problems).

She covers summer pruning - the key to this method of fruit-tree growing and which is a whole lot easier on a person-height tree. I already summer prune. It's one of my favourite jobs, so I needed no persuading.

She also covers different planting options to bring in the maximum number of varieties. How about planting three trees in one hole and pruning them as if they were one tree?  By the time she's finished with you, you'll be imagining low-branching, head-height trees, beautifully proportioned, brightening your borders in spring and filling the fruit-bowl at a steady pace.

Of course, this isn't a new way of growing fruit - orchards have grown them like this for years - but it's not so often seen in the back garden.

This is a clever book in the way it imparts knowledge. It took a couple of chapters before I suddenly realised that Ann's casual, friendly style had actually handed me a lot of information. Some of it I've never heard before: "Be aware that a fruit tree is still dormant when it's blooming." Some gives you an oh-I-see moment: summer prune too late and a tree will feel it as a winter prune because it's already withdrawing nutrients from the leaves.

The sections that tell you about actual pruning take up only about half the pages. As she says:

This book is not a technical manual - fruit tree management is far less complicated than we have been led to believe.

The pruning chapters cover elementary principles; what to do to shape the tree in the seasons after that initial cut, and four basic pruning rules on keeping a tree as you want it. There's also The Hardest Pruning Cut You'll Ever Have to Make, in which she screws your courage to the sticking place for that knee-high lop which will give you the easy-reach branches and, without which, you'll never have the tree you're aiming for.

Previous chapters cover general points about planting (no soil amendment!) and fruit varieties, and later ones look helpfully at watering (with information useful for all sorts of plants), working with nature to limit pests and diseases (she's a big advocate of promoting health through using worm castings), and when your fruit is actually ripe.

This isn't just about apples and pears. Ann's advice applies to cherries, plums, figs, and some that you're much more likely to find in California: peaches, apricots and persimmons. However, because she deals in principles rather than minute detail, it's a book that's useful everywhere.

The downside? Because it doesn't go in for rigid detail, it can be hard to refind bits that you want to check again. However, (hurrah!) there is an index. 

Espaliers are covered generally, but for total hand-holding you'd probably want to check a more specific tome. Thanks to the wonders of cold storage, I now have a couple of espaliers growing away (more about that soon) and I did want to know exactly when to remove the shoots that have emerged all up the trunks. I suspect, though, if I'd asked Ann herself, she'd have told me it wasn't that critical. In future years, I'll...

...Picture an espalier in your mind and cut off anything that doesn't fit into the picture.

Without doubt, this is a book I'll be coming back to again and again. As it was, when I discovered I wasn't too late for bare-root planting, it fired me with so much enthusiasm that I bought exactly twice as many maiden whips as I actually had space for.

And I'm wondering where I can squeeze in a few more next year.

For more info and pictures, see a Q&A with Ann Ralph And for another review, visit Emma Cooper.

Grow a Little Fruit Tree by Ann Ralph, was supplied by Storey Publishing for independent review. RRP £11.99, ISBN: 978-1-61212-054-6. Available from Hive at £8.85.

Colouring books for (grown-up) gardeners

A page from Glorious Gardens, published by Michael O'Mara Books.

Bank Holiday Monday turned out surprisingly restful. And I'm embarrassed to admit why, but, yes, it involved watercolours and a colouring book. I'm now one of the thousands of adults who are colouring things in.

I wasn't just colouring in (she says, defensively). I had a new Leonard Cohen LP (new, as in bought from a retro record shop) on the turntable. So, sitting in a room, listening to Songs from a Room, making room for colour.

There are theories popping up like mushrooms as to why colouring books are so of the moment, the main one being that they're destressing. The Washington Post mentions "digital detox". Some books, such as Colour Yourself Calm  are being sold specifically as therapy. Comments on the Independent website ask, "Why can't it just be because it's fun?" after journalist Nash Riggins describes it as "a depressing insight into the terrifying times in which we’re living".

Well, I guess it's all those things. Monday afternoon I was nowhere but in front of that book, listening to that music. All thoughts of where I should be and what I should be doing vanished. However, it's also something else. And there's relevance to gardening, not just because Johanna Basford's The Enchanted Garden is one of the best-sellers and the two books I'm enjoying, published by Michael O'Mara, are Glorious Gardens and Fabulous Flowers. 

Page from Fabulous Flowers, published Michael O'Mara. (Unfinished, in case you're wondering.)

For anyone with a creative urge to paint but without the training, aptitude or time to produce anything that would make it even close to being clamped to the fridge door, they let you concentrate on just one element: colour.

And what I like about these two books is, not just that they offer patterns, rather than actual scenes, but that the flowers aren't, for the most part, particularly recognisable. A rule-follower as a child, I always found it weird that others might colour the sky red and, even now, confronted with, say, a sunflower, I automatically find myself reaching for yellow (or red, at a push). Though, getting on top of the idea that one can dream, I can say my horizons are widening.

I'm using watercolour pencils (interesting in that they act as both crayons and paints). Frustrated by the limited number of colours, I also dug out my old watercolour paintbox from childhood. Thinking about what colours to use where as I fill in petals, buds and leaves, what tones to use, and creating different shades, experimenting with juxtapositions, using the "wrong" combinations - it's a calming, restful way to get to know how colours work. All grist to the mill for thinking about flower beds.

Perspective and texture are important, of course, but juggling all three can feel defeating. Focusing on just one element is helping me to explore and crystallise ideas on just that one area.

Oddly, I don't remember enjoying colouring as a child. Lots of things got in the way, and not just the rule-following. Pictures were usually pretty dull, I remember, requiring the use of one colour (those self-imposed rules!) on rather large areas. My mother also showed me pictures completed by my great aunt in one of her own childhood books (there, adult colouring, not so new!) and I could never get mine to look that good.

 

Great-Aunt Helen Innes's delicate colouring

Oh, dear. My not-so-delicate approach!

Children generally don't, I think, have motor skills developed enough to produce really good colouring. Well, I didn't - bits would escape the lines, the colours themselves would be uneven. Even felt tips take a bit of handling to ensure that you don't get heavy overlines in one part and tiny white patches of missed paper in others. Developing your skills isn't something you tend to recognise as a kid, so you just think you're rubbish at it.

I can't (and nor can you, looking at the picture at the top) say that I'm much better at the actually colouring now, but crucially, I don't care. It's meditative, relaxing, inspirational and subtly, unimposingly, instructive. 

Of Glorious Gardens and Fabulous Flowers, the second will, I think, appeal to those who'd like a slightly more abstract approach and a daintier feel. It also includes the interesting variation of pages with black backgrounds. Glorious Gardens tends to larger, less delicate images. And, if you're still feeling guilty at the potential waste of time, you can cut them up later to make gift tags, cards and wrapping paper.

With over 200 pages waiting for attention between these two books, I may even need a new box of paints!