101 Organic Gardening Hacks - Book Review

Well I have been either living under a rock or the Americans have been keeping Shawna Coronado away from me; she's huge with 7 thousand + followers on You Tube, almost 3 thousand followers on Instagram and nearly 20 thousand on Twitter. That doesn't even include those who love her blog and have bought her books (yes she has written two).

She describes herself thusly...
"Wellness, garden, & foodie author. TEDx speaker, photographer, blogger, travel adventurer with spinal osteoarthritis & a passion to make a difference."

Pretty impressive already, eh? And then, I get her latest book published by Cool Springs Press (sent to me by Quarto Publishing plc to review) as it launches here in the UK. And yes, I too have fallen for her no nonsense, fun and actually do-able gardening ideas.

So above is the book, please do not be put off by the word 'hack' by the way, her publishers simply say it is a word for 'a great idea that's come to life'. I have been flicking through this over the last week and really getting into over the past two days. It is so photogenic, so cute but most importantly, I found it to be inspiring and a friendly read, with practical ideas that are actually useful and easy to replicate. 

The publishers blurb is so on point...

In 101 Organic Gardening Hacks, you'll find the top tips, tricks and solutions unearthed by Shawna Coronado. Some are practical timesavers; others offer clever ways to 'upcycle' everyday items in your garden. Every hack, however, is completely organic and unfailingly environmentally friendly!

I suggest to take a wee look at the contents page pictured below, it covers everything from the beginners needs to inspiring ideas for the allotment, garden and even unused spaces. There is literally something for everyone and nothing is too expensive. Even those with little room can't get away, there are no excuses :)

As a bibliophile, the feel, text, layout and beauty of this book makes me very happy. It's easily going to fall into a coffee table book by it's looks but honestly don't let that fool you - it's got great ideas. We are certainly going to enjoy using it. Oh, and the cover is wipe-able, which is great as I'm also the muckiest allotmenteer out there.

Of course this book is for the organic grower, which I do strive to be, but the section on pollinator hacks really got me interested as it's maybe one area were we could try harder, especially with the terrible decline in bees these days. Shawna is also an advocate for the no-dig gardening style we have adopted over the past couple of years and seems to be just as in love with composting and manure as we are, haha.

101 Organic Gardening Hacks

Eco- friendly Solutions to

Improve Any Garden

by Shawna Coronado

January 2017

£12.99 | Paperback

Published by Cool Springs Press

If you go to her blog, which I know you will - http://shawnacoronado.com/ you will see those words again 'wellness author' and she truly seems to be. Inspiring in her fight over spinal osteoarthritis, a seemingly great cook and someone who sees the garden area as a place of therapy and joy. Her ideas in up-cycling see a creative desire mixed with growing food and beautiful plants. I find her quite the exciting find, even if I am way behind everyone else.

Stay cosy this weekend

Hugs

Carrie

Grow Your Own Cake - book review

First off, how could you not want to own a book called this; I mean, seriously, who doesn't dream of cake all day long. (If you don't, I worry about our friendship and suggest that you seek help - cake is everything!) Now take that fact and add in the allotment gardener and you get the perfect scenario. Growing the ingredients of the most delicious cakes and pies plus getting to bask in the glory of that fact that you, yes you make a cake of dreams. Your friends will be in awe, your enemies will be forever begging for forgiveness.

Basically this book, written by Holly Farrell, is one of tending to nature, creating beauty and stuffing your face with goodness :)

The feel of this book is beautiful; it's prose is friendly, the photos by Jason Ingram are inspiring and it is so well laid out.

****

* Gardening Basics - covers how to pick good plants, do your soil preparation, learn about compost, fertiliser, mulch and weeds. It goes over pruning, seed sowing, tree planting and maintenance. All in a concise, no nonsense, point by point way - making things really approachable.

* In the Kitchen - is a great chapter on all the basics written in a down-to-earth way and with personal preferences that are just so much more realistic than many chef written books. Holly talks about how to do all those little technical bits such as folding, kneading, crystallising flowers, piping and pastry making. She also explains oven temperatures and what sort of equipment you would need to bake things form this book.

* Recipes - Now it's recipe time and oh my! Cakes are spilt into seasons; spring & summer and autumn & winter, which makes so much sense when you are trying to grow the ingredients at the same time. Each main home grown ingredient is written about on the 'grow' page, talking about best varieties, planting, maintenance and harvest, then comes the recipe on the 'bake' page.

* Then there are chapters on Afternoon Tea ideas and Puddings rounded of with a chapter on Savoury bakes, cause sometimes we do need a little non-sweet food stuffs, I guess :)

Author - Holly Farrell (@Holly_E_Farrell )

Photographer - Jason Ingram (@jasonphotos)

*******

There are so many things I want to bake, though I may eat everything myself...it's a risk. I would like to see myself use this book and give a little added excitement to harvest time.

In summary I found this book really approachable, inspiring and full of nothing but useful information and recipes you will want to eat and now won't be too daunted to create. A triumph really and a push to get me back on the pots again this weekend and to start doing photography again :)

*******

This book is out today, 3rd March 2016!

Publisher - Frances Lincoln (@Frances_Lincoln)

Twitter hashtag   #GrowYourOwnCake

Love and hugs

Carrie

'The Crafted Garden' by Louise Curley - a book review

I'll admit I was a bit it doubtful when it came to this book. I thought it might be one of wasting time and getting frustrated at fiddly ephemeral projects, but reading the introduction Curley makes me want to be more in tune and celebrate the seasons inside my home. When you have had weather like us (no summer to speak of) it is a joy to see fresh flowers and plants whilst cosy and away from the constant rain.

It seems that at Christmas many of us find no problem in bring the outside in with wreaths, garlands and trees etc. Why not make this a year round event and as Louise says, invoke those days of the nature table in primary school, taking time to truly study the intricate beauty of nature in seeds, leaves and lichen etc. A miniature world of magic and miracles, free, forgaged or grown yourself.

On this point of foraging, there are great guidelines provided which are so very important and tips on cut flower care. All this before the book starts in earnest, broken up into the seasons....

Spring
As with every season Lousie provides a stunning variety of flower and foliage for you to grow or look out for. Yes, there are some fiddly projects (not great when you have permanent double vision like me) but the terrariums (which are so trendy) and the alpine theatre are really two projects I could see myself doing. Oh, and I love the tips on collecting quintessential spring flowers and pressing them; a fun record of a place or season and educational.

Each chapter ends with making use of nature at every turn, in this case how to make leaf mold.

Summer
The big question is put forward - why buy imported flowers when you can celebrate your garden and allotment?! I know we are all guilty at some time of buying exotic blooms when our own home grown are just as beautiful. This chapter provides great advice on choosing and growing cut flowers but also using colourful veg and herbs as centrepieces. There are instructions on drying flowers and tips on how florists make arrangements. Perfectly for the season, this chapter includes some fun kid projects too.

Autumn
A celebration of the colourful leaves, autumn vegetables such as gourds, bare trees, making very simple but effective decorations showing their fragility and beauty. We have guidance of picking plants and trees with great seed heads and foliage and how to preserve with glycerine. To end we learn the best way to gather seeds for the next year.

Winter
Scandinavian style projects of rustic Christmas décor abound here, such as those found in beautiful and expensive shops. Making your own could be fun for all the family and I did really like the alternative tree featuring pine cones, twisted hazel and natural baubles. Napkin rings and gift embellishments are sweet and easy...why have I never thought of this beautiful heartfelt touches before?

The book ends with a long, extensive list of suppliers, so no excuses :)

*****

Overall this is an excellent quality book with stunning photography and written in a friendly and relate-able way. Some projects are childish, but that's not a problem, getting the kids involved and appreciating the beautiful outdoors is a lovely family activity and great teaching method; it also takes you back to your own sense of childhood wonder. Further, if you live to entertain this book is for you and when I think about it now, it would be of fabulous help for great cost effective wedding solutions!!

Love and hugs
Carrie

A rant and calming pretty pictures

Today is La Tomatina in Valencia, Spain and, as with every year, I feel my heart breaking at the wastage of all those beautiful red tomatoes in a world were we had an aphid apocalypse in our greenhouse and too many people are truly starving to death or have illnesses like scurvy.

Yep, I'm a spoil sport and I hope everyone who takes part in the festivities today gets hit - whack bang!, in the bum at least once. Damn it.

Deep breath

So I've been ill again for a while and to be honest I still am and the exhaustion accompanying it has had me sleeping whole days away. For you though, I have imbibed much coffee and here we go with a calming post of all those photos I just haven't got around to sharing; I'm also hoping that this will wake up my resolve to get the lottie and use my new Fiskers SmartFit pruners and bring some more flowers home ..... I also have a new book to review on flower arranging crafts so...

forget-me-not

mushroom

climbing french beans

Blackberry bush is covered in fruits = fingers crossed; it's us against the birds!

White Cosmos - I love them so

last handful of mangetout

white cosmos, white dahlia, yellow dahlia, pink rose, yellow poppies, red poppies

little red peppers (some have dried tomato flowers petals on them)

Right, I did it, I wrote a wee post and now the whole idea isn't so daunting! I shall be back soon with more photos (I hope to go to the plots this evening) and reviews :)

Much love
Carrie

'The One-Pot Gourmet Gardener' Book review

It's a fact; I instantly fell in love with 'The One-Pot Gourmet Gardener' as soon as I unwrapped it. The texture of the front cover, the feel of the pages - pure quality. It's a beautifully written, straight forward guide which will get everyone hopping from foot to foot ready to grow their own yummy meals in their own backyard.

(N.B. with these recipes, illustrations and photographs your mouth will water and you'll simply drool like a fool, read with caution and preferably whilst alone, haha)

With this genius book in your hands there are no excuses to not grow your own and fall deeply in love with the experience. All you need is a balcony or patio with room for a pot or two and you're set. No worries about digging up your garden or having to have an allotment.

No prior knowledge about vegetable gardening is needed; Cinead McTernan has it all laid out in easy step by step stages; the variety of vegetable best suited for pot gardening, best type and size of pot, tools needed, best compost, where to place your pot, how to sow or plant up seedlings and caring for your babies and harvesting/storing them.

Goodness if you'd recently been hit over the head by a galvanised watering can and woke up with no gardening experience at all, this book would have you sorted in no time.

Then we come to the best part...Unlike many cook books, this contains recipes you will actually want to grow the ingredients for and you can!! There are picnic foods, soups and salads, quick suppers, tasty accompaniments, plus drinks and puds. All achievable, easy and super impressive looking. More than that however, each recipe details the best variety of seed, size of pot and soil conditions, when and exactly how to plant up your pot, when to harvest and then a gorgeous recipe.

I recommend this book to everyone! No matter what, these pots look stunning and are edible - put one buy your front door or under the kitchen window, let's see a revolution in gardening where it isn't all bedding plants in pots.

Published by Frances Lincoln Limited
Written by Cinead McTernan
Photography by Jason Ingram
Out on the 2nd April

******************

To order One-Pot Gourmet Gardener at the discounted price of £12.99 including p&p;
p* (RRP: £16.99), 

telephone 01903 828503 or email mailorders@lbsltd.co.uk and quote the offer code APG311. 

*UK ONLY - Please add £2.50 if ordering from overseas.

Love Carrie

Baby it's cold outside

The weather! Oh my what a past couple of days; the tail end of an ex-hurricane is more than enough for this girl. It's really starting to feel like the dreaded winter now with the darker nights starting to draw in, the wind having a bite to it and the grey and rainy skies. I believe the clocks may even turn back this Sunday but I try not to listen to such terrible news.

So I wanted to talk about bringing the outdoors inside instead with the use of houseplants and I have a book here that illustrates that idea beautifully.

Those lovely people at Quarto Publishing sent this book for me to review 'Decorating with Plants' by Satoshi Kawamoto. I must say first off that it is a beautiful book to look through and I do believe in the author's ethos of enriching our lives by transforming the way we relate to flora and fauna in everyday life.

The blurb is thus - ' Using his own house as a studio, garden stylist Satoshi Kawamoto guides you around each room in the home, demonstrating how to incorporate a variety of plant life seamlessly indoors.' However, his house we are nosing around is, to me, is unrealistically arty, cluttered and claustrophobic (the step ladder on the front cover is in his dining room for instance). Just my opinion but with my double vision I would not be able to cope to his decorating ideas as presented...but one or two things out of each section - yes I love and would do.

To be extremely honest I just couldn't get into the book and thought the ideas worked the best in his high end shops in Tokyo and New York; here the spaces were urban oases and there seemed a feel of a beautiful jumble of gorgeousness - it would be a delight to find that special something to take home.

************

Personally (if I wasn't such a liability), I would love more plants indoors but I also encourage the use of fragranced candles, bouquets of flowers and daylight simulation bulbs - they are my go to tricks and they really work.

Hugs and love
Carrie

Sarah Raven's 'Cutting garden journal'

Over the past week or more I just haven't given a damn. I push myself to make things and to try and do bits of housework but in actual fact all I want to do is sleep. The flu, depression, constant anxiety and self hatred take it out of a girl. I'm exhausted.

One thing that has helped is the lovely book I was sent to review on cut flower gardening. Not too much reading, gorgeous photography, plans, projects and inspiration for next year's 14b flower patch.

I may have fallen in lust with this fabulous Sarah Raven's 'Cutting Garden Journal'. Sarah is a goddess of all things cut flower and I just love that she has written a easy, go to book helping people like me to be more confident in her area of expertise.

First off, it is an absolute joy to the senses; the touch of the paper, the layout, the photography. It is sort of a cross between a coffee table book and a how to manual, so stylish but full of great know how and precise instructions.

For us it is going to be a guide to getting our beds right and full of exactly the right plants. Raven even tells you the best variety of the best plants to grow; how to grow them, where they'll grow best and how long the stems should be cut for the best look!

This is the saviour of 14b (yes we were talking about it again, keep it or get rid....). Now we can have the room we want for vegetables and such but know exactly how much room my flowers need too.

A great book to look over again and again, especially now the dull darker days are creeping in.
It was released yesterday, so now you can rush out and get your copy ;)

Hugs and Love
Carrie

Book Review - Kitchen Garden Experts

My luck runneth over as Frances Lincoln Publishers has sent me May book release: Kitchen Garden Experts by Cinead McTernan, photography by Jason Ingram.

The blurb....

Kitchen Garden Experts features the chefs and gardeners at twenty of the UK’s most exciting restaurants, hotels, pubs and cafés, focusing on how they produce the best fruit and vegetables to appear on their menus. With this book you can:

* Explore the kitchens and gardens of twenty celebrated chefs, from Terence Conran and Raymond Blanc to River Cottage and L’Enclume;
* Gain extraordinary access to 20 recipe books and 40 signature dishes;
* Discover key ingredients and special growing methods that help these chefs win awards for excellence;

* Follow the simple steps from plot to plate, learning new growing skills

*****

This is one heck of a book for real foodies, grow you own people and anyone who like to consume food! It has been by my bed and at the Lottie with me; leading to dreams of travel, of really nailing this whole allotment thing and of food, delicious artistic foody joy. I even look forward to winter as my favourite recipe is the uchi kuri squash soup.

The foreword by Raymond Blanc contains these words which I love...

'I believe it is our responsibility to embrace sustainability and to reconnect with our land.... By working qith the seasons, we can all enjoy superb tastes and textures - inexpensively'

This is not a textbook, not merely a recipe book and much more than a coffee table book - this is inspiring. Ok, I shall not be making dishes like these masters but a girl can dream (and heavily reduce the trickiness of presentation), they are do-able :)

Each section is split into the 20 gardens around Britain with each head gardener talking of their space and giving some tips. Then they go on to give detailed knowledge on two of the main elements of their associated chef's two chosen recipes. As well as this each section contains a page with that places 'kitchen garden secrets' surrounded by a collage beautiful enough to frame.

Maggie wants to own the book herself...

Kindly, for my readers there is a discount available :)

To order Kitchen Garden Experts at the discounted price of £16.00 including p&p* (RRP: £20.00), telephone 01903 828503 or email mailorders@lbsltd.co.uk and quote the offer code APG130. 

*UK ONLY - Please add £2.50 if ordering from overseas.

Hugs and love
Carrie