At a time when more people are starting to grow their own at home thanks to the current lockdown, it seems rather apt that I’ve been sent Grow Fruit & Vegetables in Pots to review.
It’s the second book by Aaron Bertelsen based on Great Dixter, which he first encountered when he volunteered there in 1996. Studying and work at Kew and then Jerusalem Botanical Gardens followed and today he’s back at Great Dixter as the vegetable gardener and cook.
It’s these twin skills that the book showcases, being both a gardening guide and a cookbook.
(I was sent a copy in exchange for a fair review.)
It opens with the history of the kitchen courtyard garden at Dixter, an area that started almost by accident when Aaron decided to grow some tulips to brighten the view.
“When you spend as much time at the kitchen sink as I do, it is very important to have something nice to look at,” he tells us.
Faced with empty pots once the tulips were over, he popped in some spare herb plants and the container garden was started.
Today, it’s an area that has everything from fruit bushes and salad leaves to beans and edible flowers.
The first part of the book covers how to go about growing in containers. There’s guidance on where to site your pots, how to choose containers, tools that will be needed, types of compost and what to grow. Many of the considerations – aspect and time available – are the same as those for a traditional vegetable plot.
Most important is to grow what you’ll use and will grow well: “Choose crops that are not suited to your site, or that don’t reflect what you use in your cooking, and the chances are you will quickly lose interest – and there’s nothing sadder than a neglected container garden.”
There’s advice on gardening techniques, including pricking out, hardening off and protecting plants.
“My motto in the garden is, ‘Never forget we are at war’,” he says, going on to suggest ways to defeat pigeons and slugs.
The final part of the gardening section of Grow Fruit & Vegetables in Pots is a guide to different crops, how to grow them, favourite varieties and common problems. I liked the ‘key dates’ section for each fruit or vegetable with information such as when to sow or prune.
The book then goes on to suggest how to use the crops you raise with recipes ranging from soups and salads to main courses and preserves. We tried the ‘Soup of Israel’ and found the recipe easy to follow and the soup delicious.
Throughout the book there are lovely photos, making it visually pleasing as well as informative. The gardening and cooking instructions are clear, so it would be an ideal book for novices, either in the garden or kitchen.
“There is something immensely calming about caring for and nurturing plants, no matter how small the scale,” we’re told. Growing something to eat is a bonus.
Grow Fruit & Vegetables in Pots by Aaron Bertelsen is published by Phaidon with an RRP of £24.95. You can buy it for £11.61 here (If you buy through this link, I get a small commission. The price you pay is not affected.)
You can read more of my garden and garden-related books here.
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