Books

The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz

£30

With beautiful illustrations and extended references you will find details on making: 

• fermenting vegetables
• sugars into alcohol (meads, wines, and ciders)
• sour tonic beverages
• Milk
• Grains and starchy tubers 
• beers (and other grain-based alcoholic beverages) 
• beans; seeds; nuts 
• fish; meat; and eggs 
• growing mold cultures
• Kimchi, kraut
• kombucha, kefir

The Woodchip Handbook by Ben Raskin

£20

The book explores and unlocks the tremendous potential of woodchip to enhance soil health and plant growth:

• As a natural mulch for weed suppression, temperature buffering and water conservation
• As a growing medium for propagating plants
• As a decomposing source of warmth for hotbeds in the greenhouse or hoop house
• As a carbon-rich compost ingredient that supports beneficial fungi and microorganisms
• As a powerful soil health booster when applied as small-sized ramial chipped wood
• As an ideal substrate for growing many kinds of edible or medicinal mushrooms
• As a sustainable, versatile and durable material for foot paths and ornamental landscaping

The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments by Nigel Palmer

£20

In The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments, experimental gardener and author Nigel Palmer provides practical, detailed instructions that are accessible to every grower who wants to achieve a truly sustainable garden ecosystem – all while enjoying better results at a fraction of the cost of commercial fertilisers. These recipes go beyond compost by allowing you to make your own biologically diverse inoculants and mineral-rich amendments using leaf mould, weeds, eggshells, bones and other common materials available for little or no cost.

Recipes include:

• Extracting nutrients from plant residues using simple rainwater techniques
• Extracting minerals from bones and shells using vinegar
• Fermenting plant juices and fish
• Culturing indigenous microorganisms (IMO)

Rebugging the Planet by Vicki Hird

£13

In Rebugging the Planet, Vicki Hird shows us that bugs are beautiful, inventive and economically invaluable. They are also responsible for pollinating plants, feeding birds, defending crops and cleaning water systems. But with 40% of insect species at risk of extinction and a third more endangered, our planet is headed towards an insect apocalypse. We have to start giving worms, spiders, beetles, ladybirds and butterflies the space they need to flourish!

Discover how to:

• Grow your garden a little wild and plant weedkiller-free, wildlife-friendly plants
• Take your kids on a bug treasure hunt and build a bug palace in your garden
• Rebug parks, schools, pavements, verges and other green spaces
• Make bug-friendly food choices and support good farming practices

From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want by Rob Hopkins

£12

Imagination is central to empathy, to creating better lives, to envisioning and then enacting a positive future. Yet imagination is also demonstrably in decline at precisely the moment when we need it most. In this passionate exploration, Hopkins asks why imagination is in decline, and what we must do to revive and reclaim it. Once we do, there is no end to what we might accomplish.

From What Is to What If is a call to action to reclaim and unleash our collective imagination, told through the stories of individuals and communities around the world who are doing it now, as we speak, and witnessing often rapid and dramatic change for the better.

Seed to Seed Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners by Suzanne Ashworth

£20

Seed to Seed is a complete seed-saving guide that describes specific techniques for saving the seeds of 160 different vegetables. This book contains detailed information about each vegetable, including its botanical classification, flower structure and means of pollination, required population size, isolation distance, techniques for caging or hand-pollination, and also the proper methods for harvesting, drying, cleaning, and storing the seeds.

Seed to Seed is widely acknowledged as the best guide available for home gardeners to learn effective ways to produce and store seeds on a small scale. The author has grown seed crops of every vegetable featured in the book, and has thoroughly researched and tested all of the techniques she recommends for the home garden.

Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway

£22.50

 Toby Hemenway extends his expert knowledge of permaculture to urban and suburban landscapes. A perfect beginner’s guide to ecological gardening, Gaia’s Garden dispels the notion that meaningful gardening can only take place on a large piece of land with lots of space to grow. 

Readers can expect step-by-step instructions on:

• Building and maintaining soil fertility and structure 
• Catching and conserving water in the landscape 
• Providing habitat for beneficial insects, birds and animals 
• Growing an edible forest that yields seasonal fruits, nuts and other foods

Grow Your Own Vegetables by Joy Larkcom

£6

This revised, updated and expanded edition of the classic guide to growing your own vegetables contains everything you need to know to create a highly-productive vegetable plot. Covering every aspect of vegetable gardening from preparing soil to manures, composts and fertilizers, from growing techniques to protection, pests, from diseases and weeds to making good use of space, this is a comprehensive guide to ensuring the best results from your garden or allotment. With cultivation information for over 100 vegetables, including site and soil requirements, cultivation, pests and diseases, and cultivars, this illustrated handbook is a must for vegetable gardeners of all levels and experience.

At Work in the Ruins – Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics and All the Other Emergencies by Dougald Hine

£22

In eloquent, deeply researched prose, Hine demonstrates how our over-reliance on the single lens of science has blinded us to the nature of the crises around and ahead of us, leading to ‘solutions’ that can only make things worse. At Work in the Ruins is his reckoning with the strange years we have been living through and our long history of asking too much of science. It’s also about how we find our bearings and what kind of tasks are worth giving our lives to, given all we know or have good grounds to fear about the trouble the world is in.

For anyone who has found themselves needing to make sense of the COVID time and how we talk about it, At Work in the Ruins offers guidance by standing firmly forward and facing the depth of the trouble we are in. Hine, ultimately, helps us find the work that is worth doing, even in the ruins.

Forest Gardening a Beginner’s Guide by Graham Burnett

£4

Forest gardening is a low-maintenance sustainable plant-based food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecologies, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables which have yields directly useful to humans. Despite the name, which perhaps implies that they require large amounts of space, the principles of forest gardening can be replicated in even the smallest of urban gardens or community spaces, including public parks, inner city housing estates, school grounds and even mini-forest gardens planted in containers and tubs on tower block balconies!

This 28 page full colour publication is an ideal primer for those new to the concept of forest gardening or anybody who would like to know more, providing  a brief history of Forest Gardening in the UK, a step by step guide to creating your own forest garden, the seven layers of the forest garden, forest garden crops and more.

(p.s we also run courses on Forest Gardening)

A Garden in Your Kitchen – A Beginner’s Guide to Home Sprouting and Fermentation by Graham Burnett

£5

Did you know that your kitchen can be a ‘garden’ in its own right, using the minimum amount of space to produce intensively grown, nutrient rich ‘micro-crops’ and ferments all year round, especially during the winter months when other fresh vegetables can be hard to find? This 28 page full colour beginners guide demystifies the arts and techniques of sprouting and fermentation, giving you all you need to get started as well as a basis to experiment and add your own variations…

Top of the Crops – how to make your edible garden grow by Graham Burnett

£4

Do YOU want to grow your own??

Top of the Crops is a low cost, non-nonsense beginners guide to producing fresh and tasty vegetables, herbs and fruit in your own back garden or whatever space is available to you. It contains all you need to know to start you off growing crops that are good for your health, good for your children, good for your community, good for wildlife, good for planet and good for your pocket.

How to Prune an Apple Tree: A guide for real people with imperfect trees by Chloe Ward

£5

The subject of fruit pruning can cause much confusion, and the technical terminology and perfect looking trees in the pruning manuals are sometimes demoralising. This guide avoids jargon, but explains pruning by illustrating how an apple tree grows and how it responds to being pruned. It covers all aspects of apple tree pruning, from forming the shape of a newly planted tree, to restoring an old tree, the reasons for winter and summer pruning, and what tools to use.

Composting for All by Nicky Scott

£4

Everyone can compost, whether they have a garden or not. And although more and more people are buying compost bins, they dont always know how to use them effectively. This booklet sets out, clearly and simply, all you need to know to ensure success. Composting your waste will help to produce healthy plants of all shapes and sizes, besides helping the planet. Why resort to shop-based composts usually made from peat? Leave the peat in the peatbogs where its supposed to be, and divert all the lovely compostable material away from landfill sites!

(P.s we run courses on composting)

How to purchase

To purchase a book you can pre-order for collection at the garden at Belper Lane End. Just use the contact form below to let us now which book(s)you would like. Thank you!