Gardening handbook - making a gardener out of a non gardener (Gardening Handbook - Peter Mchoy)

Member Name: karlsm93

Product:	Gardening Handbook - Peter Mchoy
Date:	09/05/09 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Full of step by step photographs, easy to follow text.

Disadvantages: None

I am not a gardener. I don't mind getting my hands dirty but I simply don't fancy having my hands near any kind of bug. Anyhow, my husband is the exact opposite, and thankfully loves the outdoors. If it wasn't for him, we would still be looking at soil in the backgarden. Instead, I can enjoy his handywork and relax in a small but beautiful garden.

Our house was a new build when we bought it, so it literally gave my husband a blank canvas on which to work his magic and create a garden. So, on a shopping trip, prior to moving into our new house, I spotted this 'Gardening Handbook' (by Peter McHoy) in Easons. At the time, it cost me £5.99 for the hardback spiral bound book, however, a quick internet reveals that you can probably get it for around £2 now. I actually like books that are spiral bound, I think its the fact that the pages don't keep flapping back when you are trying to have it open at a particular page.

It was the front cover which caught my eye in Eason's - emblazoned with the title 'Gardening Handbook' with a colourful photograph of a beautiful garden in the background.

Inside there is a substantial contents pages, and this alone demonstrates the vast array of topics that this book covers. In fact, the contents takes up 3 pages - splitting the book into three main sections:
*Gardening Basics
*Flowers and Foliage
*Fruit and Vegetables

The start of each of the three sections is easy to find since there are yellow, in contrast to the remaining white pages.

*Gardening Basics*
This section beings with the statement ' A garden does not look after itself.........' . A brief introduction follows, including some photographs providing a taster for the rest of the section. This section of the book they offers the reader information and advice via text and colour photographs about:
Choosing tools
Choosing a lawn mower
Preparing the ground
Testing soil (to see how acidic or alkaline it may be)
Making garden compost
Fertilizers and Manures
Watering
Weeding
Pest Control
Sowing in Pots and Trays
Sowing Hardy Annuals, Alpines and Shrubs
Cutting
Pruning
Putting up an arch/fence/wall/path
Edgings

Now, it has to be said, that if you are in any way interested in gardening, a lot of this will be basic knowledge (according to hubby), however, when creating a path in our garden, he found this section to be of particular benefit, as well as picking up a few tips to further his gardening expertise. This section is brilliant for those who want to learn to take care of their garden, but don't know where to start. The colour photographs make everything seem doable. The text is simple and easy to follow, and written for the non gardener - that is not to say however, that an experienced gardener will not pick up a few tips, as my husband admitted he had from it.

*Flowers and Foliage*
Again this section starts with a statement '.......it is the flowers and foliage that make a garden such a pleasant place to relax in'. I must say I am a sucker for colour in the garden, surrounded with pretty flowers and shrubs. A brief introduction follows again, with more summer garden photographs making you dream of relaxing outside on a nice day. The pages in this section follow a similar pattern to the previous section in that they are full of colour photographs showing step by step what to do, as well as having easy to follow texts. This section concentrates on:
Improving a cold/windy garden
Planting and growing shrubs
Planting climbers and trailers(this book got referred to a lot when hubby added climbers)
Planting trees (and how to apply a tree tie)
Growing bulbs/herbaceous plants
Plant Supports (wigwam canes that hubby puts up in our garden every spring to grow our runner beans)
Spring and Summer bedding
A Lawn from Seed/Turf
Lawn Care
Rock Gardens
Windowboxes and hanging baskets
Tubs and Troughs
Making a pond
Greenhouse basics (eg installing an automatic venilator and fixing a shelf)
Cold Frames (insulating and ventilating)

Again, this section covers all that a non gardener or even a gardener like my husband who was starting from scratch on a garden, that therefore needed a lawn laid, shrubs and bulbs planted and advice on planting hanging baskets. Even as a non gardener myself, I feel with this book, I could confidently carry out some of the activities talked about in this section (if only all the bugs would stay clear). My father has just bought a greenhouse, and has already requested this book to help with the installation and setting up of it.


*Fruits and vegetables*
This final section, is the one that hubby has spent most time referring to. He came from a family, who were practically self sufficient, and grew nearly all of their own vegetables - so he is now recreating this in a smaller garden. The statement at the start of this section includes the line 'The kitchen garden holds its own special charm'. In our small garden, we are restricted by lack of space, however, that hasn't stopped hubby from using what is there to follow some of the ideas of this section, which include:
Groundwork (for a vegetable plot and advice about crop rotation)
Manures and Fertilizers (eg garden compost)
Making an early start ( putting up cloches instead of a greenhouse, putting in the first veg)
Winter protection and extending the season
Sowing vegetables
Staking and Supporting
Special Techniques (eg forcing rhubard, potatoes under polythene, outdoor tomatoes etc)
Greenhouse vegetables (tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers, melons and sweet peppers)
Patio Vegetables (growing bags used for growing potatoes)
Harvesting and Storing
Vegetables Facts (tables with planting instructions, season and spacings)
Growing Herbs
Harvesting and Storing Herbs
Growing Fruit (and planting a fruit tree)
How to grow outdoor grapes, peaches, nectarines,currants, raspberries, balckberries, gooseberries and strawberries.
Harvesting and storing fruit
Fruit facts (tables with harvesting times of common fruits, and the soil conditions necessary, as well as other tips)


The book finishes with a list of UK suppliers where some of the items demonstrated can be found and an extensive index.

All in all, this has been a great asset for my husband to refer to, especially when he was starting the garden from scratch. He still refers to it every Spring when it comes to planting the vegetables, as well as other advice that it offers. The book includes over 950 colour photographs, which are a real benefit to someone starting out on this hobby. The blurb on the back sums it up well when it states that ' this book is not only the ideal practical introduction for new gardening enthusiasts, but it is also a fully comprehensive reference book for the more experienced gardener' and anyone even glancing through this book will see this very easily. Every task is covered in a step by step manner, avoiding any error, and as I said before, the text is written in a simplistic way, making it an easy book to refer to quickly, rather than having to scan to find the important information. As they say, a picture speaks a thousand words, and this book certainly uses its extensice pictures to make a non gardener into a well briefed gardener. A great purchase.

Summary: A great reference book for a gardener, and intro for a non gardener