Review: SowHow

I wish SowHow had been around when I first started veg growing. Much of my gardening was learned from my dad but veg was something he didn’t do. So, it was a case of reading and making mistakes, a lot of mistakes.

This book with its easy to understand and thorough information brought to life with striking infographics would have saved me a lot of time and wasted effort.

(I was given a copy of SowHow in return for a fair review.)

SowHow came out of author Paul Matson’s realisation that there was “no simple ‘way in’ to veg gardening”. Choosing seeds for his first allotment from a display of hundreds of packets left him baffled.

Believing he wasn’t the only new gardener who needed help, he started an organic seed company with packets that had bold designs and clear growing information. This book, written with Lucy Anna Scott, first published in 2017 and now reissued, is a distillation of this advice.

The book covers the basics – where to site your veg plot, working out what soil type you have and what tools will be needed – before moving on to what to sow and how to grow.

Realising that not everyone has access to an allotment or garden, it also includes information on growing vegetables in pots.

There’s advice on buying seed, making compost, watering and companion planting to help combat pests such as carrot fly. It even explains what we mean by the seasons, such as early or late spring (March and May in the Northern Hemisphere).

The crops covered range from the familiar – sprouts, runner beans and tomatoes – to the more unusual, such as asparagus peas and sweet potato. Each entry has a growing calendar, notes on how long seed can be stored, suggestions of good varieties and full cultivation notes.

While aimed primarily at the newcomer to veg gardening, SowHow proves that there’s always something new to learn – I’d not heard of using coffee grounds to ‘feed’ blueberries, or thought of using lollipop sticks to deter cats in borders.

Above all, Paul warns in his introduction that “the gardening industry continues to insist that gardening is really easy” when in fact failure is common even for the most experienced grower. The secret is to have patience and accept that not everything will go smoothly.

“Give your plot time and love, and it will reward you,” he says.

SowHow by Paul Matson and Lucy Anna Scott is published by Pavilion Books with an RRP of £12.99. You can buy it here for £11.17. (If you buy using this link, I receive a small commission. The price you pay is not affected.) Alternatively, you may wish to buy via an independent bookseller here.

Enjoyed this? You can read more of my gardening and garden-related book reviews here.

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