What does the gardener do during the long winter evenings when pottering in the garden simply isn’t an option? Well, at the moment, I’m dipping into a memoir by Joy Larkcom. Aside from having a glorious name, Joy is a gardening writer, who, during the 70’s, toured Europe to find out how people grew vegetables in different parts of the continent and to bring back rare varieties to the UK. Her work changed how we grow our veg today, as well as recording, in some cases, practices that were disappearing from the landscape. This memoir includes Joy’s writing from that trip, as well as her later discoveries in China and her own gardens back in the UK and later in Ireland. A wonderful companion for those winter evenings.
Just Vegetating: A Memoir by Joy Larkcom
Check out some of Joy’s other books about growing vegetables:
The Organic Salad Garden
Creative Vegetable Gardening
Grow Your Own Vegetables
Oriental Vegetables
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February 5, 2015 at 2:06 am
McEff
That looks really interesting. I’ve had an allotment for 17 years and one of the joys of touring around Europe, I’ve found, is poking into foreign allotment sites to see how they work. On many eastern European sites the gardeners have their own summer houses and live in them at weekends and during holidays. And that must be absolute bliss. I’ll keep an eye open for the book
Cheers, Alen
February 5, 2015 at 12:30 pm
offmotorway
Those summer houses do sound wonderful, especially if they get to live off the produce just outside the front door!