Skills for Growing - by Charles Dowding

Skills for Growing is overflowing with advice and instructions based on years’ worth of detailed data gathering and observation. It is vibrantly illustrated with images of the crops he grows at his market garden Homeacres, which are refreshingly unromantic and so genuinely complementary to the written guidance, making this a feast for both the brain and eyes.

In this book, Charles shares the knowledge and techniques you need for success in all aspects of vegetable gardening, based on decades of experience.

His desire is to save you time, effort and money, through making all your inputs effective, from seeds and water, to the space in your garden. There are three chapters with vital information about spacing, and a harvesting table for easier planning of second plantings to keep space full.

He advises on how to create planting plans, succeed with succession and reduce rotation. There are chapters on saving your own seed, propagation, multisowing, spacing for all common vegetables, methods of harvesting and how they influence growth, watering (both when and how much) and using covers for warmth as well as pest protection. He also describes successful winter gardening, and growing perennial vegetables.

The book is illustrated throughout with beautiful, captioned photos from his no dig, organic garden in Somerset, Southwest UK. It is a fantastic resource for anyone wishing to learn new skills, or to improve and tune the skills they already have, in order to grow bigger and healthier harvests from a given space.