The Bee Garden: How to Create or Adapt a Garden To Attract and Nurture Bee

The Bee Garden: How to Create or Adapt a Garden To Attract and Nurture Bees

Bees play a vital and irreplaceable role in pollinating our flowers, fruits and vegetables.


The more bees in your garden the healthier, more productive and more pleasant a place it will be.


Yet bees are declining rapidly and many people, even if they do not wish to keep bees themselves, are asking what can be done on an individual basis to help the bee. This book is a response to that request. It will demonstrate in one accessible volume how each of us can play our part in providing a bee-friendly environment, no matter how much gardening space and/or time we may have.


It includes:


* How bees forage, what bees you can expect to find in your garden and what plants are best for them. :


* Why honey bees are so important; what they need to thrive and how they detect and access those requirements; and what varieties of plants are best suited to provide those needs.


* How the gardener can offer and maintain a bee-friendly garden, followed by a season-by-season account of what beefriendly plants are in flower and when, and what jobs the gardener can be doing during these times to help bees thrive.

* A gazetteer of selected bee-friendly plants, arranged by type of plant in seasonal sub-sections.


* Illustrative, practical planting plans, including a culinary herb garden, a potager, a wild flower garden, and a 3 seasons traditional border.

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Chas and His Rock’n’Roll Allotment is a book by Chas from Chas and Dave.

Chas and His Rock ‘N’ Roll Allotment
features a series of vignettes and anecdotes about his life as both a famous musician and amateur gardener. –Welwyn Hatfield Times

This has to be the most hilarious gardening book I’ve ever read. –Mike Hallowell, The Shields Gazette

Judging by this book the cheeky Cockney musician seems to be at home as much in the allotment as he is on stage. –Rural Life Magazine.

Chas and His Rock n Roll Allotment is a gardening book like no other. Written by Chas Hodges, better known as half of musical duo Chas and Dave, the book is full of funny stories and anecdotes interspersed with the author s tips for growing your own . The book is aimed at the novice gardener and aims to prove that hoeing and sowing can be an enjoyable way to while away an afternoon and that tending a garden should be fun, rather than a chore. Chas s pearls of wisdom are drawn from personal experience of getting his hands dirty, rather than text book gardening techniques, and his light hearted approach makes the book an easy read. So if the idea of Sunday roast accompanied by your own home grown vegetables appeals to you, this book tells you how. And if all that digging proves to be just too much, you can always settle down with a pint of beer and enjoy the tongue-in-cheek humour of a born raconteur.

I think that means he knows how to rabbit.

Always nice to find a new author you like reading –
Charles Dowding has several books that I know will be of interest to readers of GardenandGardener.co.uk

Charles Dowding Books at Amazon

Charles Dowding’s Vegetable Course
– Charles Dowding’s Vegetable Course – NOT RELEASED YET but you can preorder
Paperback: £11.21
1 Mar 2012

Charles Dowding, the master of no-dig gardening, developed his highly successful
methods of vegetable growing through 30 years experience of growing and selling
vegetables and extensive experiments. Through his courses at Lower Farm in Somerset
and his three previous books, he has won a keen following. Beginners and experienced
veg growers alike find that his methods work and that he opens their minds to
new possibilities. Now he has distilled the essence of his courses and ideas
into one book. In it you will find out how to grow vegetables the Charles Dowding
way. Charles Dowding’s Vegetable Course is both a straightforward guide to success
and an inspiring source of ideas for achieving a more productive vegetable garden
for less effort.
About the Author
Charles Dowding grew up on a dairy farm in Somerset. After graduating from Cambridge
he worked for a hotel in the Inner Hebrides before starting to grow organic
vegetables commercially on the family farm in the early 1980s. In 1990 he left
behind what was by then a large market garden to live in France and Zambia.
Returning to Somerset in the mid 1990s, he established a bed and breakfast and
vegetable growing business at Lower Farm in Shepton Montague. Charles’s salad
bags are now the main output from his two-acre garden of permanent raised beds
and fruit trees. Charles also runs his vegetable-growing courses at Lower Farm
and lectures and writes books on his unique growing techniques

How to Grow Winter Vegetables
– How to Grow Winter Vegetables

Paperback: £9.36
21 April 2011

Organic Gardening: The Natural No-dig Way
– Organic Gardening: The Natural No-dig Way

Paperback: £8.80
1 Sep 2010

Salad Leaves for All Seasons: Organic Growing from Pot to Plot
– Salad Leaves for All Seasons: Organic Growing from Pot to Plot

Paperback: £9.86
20 Mar 2008

Organic Gardening
Kindle Edition: £8.89
3 Feb 2011

His gardening methods sound interesting! I love the idea of not digging even clay!
He’s got a website you can visit too

The key to his no dig method?
The initial action of mulching with thick layers of cardboard, compost and manure in the first year leads to a massive boost in long term fertility and results in remarkably little weed growth. Subsequent years see much less time and compost needed, while soil continues to improve under dressings of one to two inches compost or well rotted manure.

The Winter Harvest Handbook
The Winter Harvest Handbook, anyone can have access to his hard-won experience. Gardeners and farmers can use the innovative, highly successful methods
Coleman describes in this comprehensive handbook to raise crops throughout the coldest of winters.

Building on the techniques that hundreds of thousands of farmers and gardeners adopted from The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest, this new book focuses on growing produce of unparalleled freshness and quality in customized unheated or, in some cases, minimally heated, movable plastic greenhouses.

Coleman offers clear, concise details on greenhouse construction and maintenance, planting schedules, crop management, harvesting practices, and even marketing methods in this complete, meticulous, and illustrated guide. Readers have access to all the techniques that have proven to produce higher-quality crops on Colemanis own farm.
His painstaking research and experimentation with more than 30 different crops will be valuable to small farmers, homesteaders, and experienced home gardeners who seek to expand their production seasons. A passionate advocate for the revival of small-scale sustainable farming, Coleman provides a practical model for supplying fresh, locally grown produce during the winter season, even in climates where conventional wisdom says it ijust can’t be done.

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year-round Vegetable Production Using Deep-organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses

These other books are also worth a look:

How to Grow Winter Vegetables

The Polytunnel Book: Fruit and Vegetables All Year Round

How to Grow Food in Your Polytunnel
- This book explains how to come through winter with plenty of vegetables stored, fresh harvests to make, and also has advice for growing plants to withstand the winter, for eating in spring during the hungry gap season of April, May and early June.
Highly recommended –

Perennial Vegetables – this book comes highly recommended by a friend

Perennial Vegetables

Imagine growing vegetables that require the same care as the flowers in your perennial beds and bordersono annual tilling and planting. They thrive and produce abundant and nutritious crops throughout the season. In Perennial Vegetables, author and plant specialist Eric Toensmeier introduces gardeners to a world of little-known and wholly under-appreciated plants. Ranging beyond the usual suspects (asparagus, rhubarb, and artichoke) to include such eminori crops as ground cherry and ramps and the much sought-after, antioxidant-rich wolfberry (also known as goji berries), Toensmeier explains how to raise, tend, harvest, and cook with plants that yield great crops and satisfaction. Perennial vegetables are perfect as part of an edible landscape plan or permaculture garden. Profiling more than a hundred species, with dozens of colour photographs and illustrations, and filled with valuable growing tips, recipes, and resources, Perennial Vegetables is a groundbreaking and ground-healing book that will open the eyes of gardeners everywhere to the exciting world of edible perennials.

This other book by UK author – Martin Crawford – a director of ‘Gaia’ – is due out on 5 April 2012 – How to Grow Perennial Vegetables: Low-maintenance, Low-impact Vegetable Gardening
is well worth putting on your wish list!

Perennial vegetables are a joy to grow and require a lot less time and effort than annuals. In this book Martin Crawford gives comprehensive advice on all types of perennial vegetable (edible plants that live longer than three years), from ground-cover plants and coppiced trees to plants for bog gardens and edible woodland plants. There are many advantages to growing perennial vegetables, for example: * they need less tillage than conventional vegetables and so help retain carbon in the soil * the soil structure is not disturbed in their cultivation * they extend the harvesting season, especially in early spring * and, of course, they are much less work. Part One looks at why and how to grow these crops, and how to look after them for maximum health. Part Two features over 100 perennial edibles in detail, both common and unusual – from rhubarb to skirret; Jerusalem artichoke to nodding onions. This book offers inspiration and information for all gardeners, whether experienced or beginner, and also includes plenty of cooking tips. It includes beautiful colour photographs and illustrations throughout.

wellington boots can be bought online at Amazon. They have several top brands including Hunter.

If you’d like some with steel top caps then look in their Workwear Boots & Shoes section for safety boots. These will protect the tops of your feet too. Perhaps a little OTT for the average gardening you should be doing, but perhaps if you live in fear of putting a fork through your foot they’d help your peace of mind?

And don’t say that never happens – a lad down the road from me when I was a kid managed it!

If you’ve got concerns about how wide wellies are around your calves then buy LADIES GREEN DUNLOP WELLINGTON BOOTS WELLIES WIDE CALF
(Also available for men) – these are designed for wider calfs. If you have trouble fitting into fashion boots then these are a guaranteed fit! You’ll also be able to tuck your trousers in easier to them!

If you plan to do a lot of digging then a reinforced sole wellington might be a better idea.

Vegetable Growing Month-by-Month – this is a great book! A useful resource and reference for the whole year.


Vegetable Growing Month-by-Month


Only £3.99 at the moment at Amazon.

A month by month guide about what you should be doing on your allotment or garden. Growing vegetables explained and you’ll find useful hints and help.

No glossy photos but you don’t need them! This is a practical book (Take it with you to the plot) and will come in handy month after month as you check through how to grow veggies and see what things you should be doing each month outside.

It’s an essential skill you will need if you grow soft fruit (unless you want to give away or sell your excess fruit).
You can do it in a pan on the hob and it’s not tricky. Just alittle time consuming and a little effort to make sure the jars are clean properly.

This Kitchen Craft Maslin Pan with Handle, Stainless Steel, 9 Litre
pan is ideal for making jam. It’s a lovely looking pan with a nirror polished pan with pouring spout, carry handle and helper handle. It has Graduated imperial and metric markings on the inside of the pan and a 5mm sandwich base for even heat distribution
Suitable for induction
Size 35cm (D) x 20cm (H)

They also have a Kitchen Craft Deluxe Cooking Thermometer in Stainless Steel which has a clip to hold it upright in the pan and Measurements range from 60ºC to 220ºC / 100 º F to 400 º F. There’s also a Kitchen Craft Jam Funnel which makes getting the jam in jars less tricky!

Kitchen Craft Jam Funnel, Stainless Steel is £5.29 at the moment
Kitchen Craft Deluxe Cooking Thermometer, Stainless Steel
is £4.99 at the moment.

They also have Swift Jam Straining Set which makes straining jams easier. As well as Kitchen Craft Home Made Waxed Circles which are used for help sealing the jars.

How to Store Your Home Grown Produce looks like the book all allotmenters need after a busy season and when you’ve got gluts of fruit and vegetables to deal with.



It’s wonderful to grow your own fruit and vegetables but what do you do when it all ripens at once? How do you cope with the glut which threatens to overwhelm you? Will help all those who grow their own fruit and vegetables to store their produce properly so that it will last for months and feed the family when the garden’s bare. This title offers easy and practical advice on how to bottle, dry, freeze and even salt home grown fruit and vegetables. Discover the taste of your delicious home-made jams, chutneys and ketchups. John and Val Harrison reveal just what you can do with that bountiful harvest and share their 30 years’ experience of growing fruit and vegetables and you’ll never waste another tomato or courgette again. Praise for John Harrison: ‘Britain’s greatest allotment authority’ – “Independent on Sunday”.

How to Store Your Home Grown Produce

Another soon to be classic book from John Harrison that will help you preserve more of your crop that ever before. A book that should be on the Christmas wish list of every good gardener!