Kitchen Garden Forum

I want to buy a book about growing fruit and vegetables in containers for a friend who has never grown anything to eat in her life but would like to have a go. She has little space to grow so I thought container gardening may fit the bill.

The book needs to be full of photos for inspiration and practical tips and advice suitable for a beginner.

I know I'll be able to pop to a bookshop and find plenty of books on container gardening but wondered if anyone has one they would recommend.

Hi Gallotments , I have one called Patio Produce by Paul Peacock, its a pretty comprehensive guide to max produce from small space, it covers seeds their needs, compost, companion planting, cultivation pests and problems, advice on each crop, including unusual things like kiwis and samphire, planting pruning seasonal jobs, gardeners calender. I did have another one, which was beautifully illustrated, but maybe not quite so comprehensive, but i lent it out and it wasn't returned, so it must have been good, lol, can't remember what it was called now.

I've seen that book on Amazon NB and others sounded fairly good - Crops in Pots by Bob Purnell, Kitchen Harvest by Susan Berry and Organic Crops in Pots by deborah Shneebeli Morrell. Any of those rings any bells regarding your missing book?

An alternative course would be something to show how vegetables can be grown in flower borders - such as runner beans up fences etc. My friend's garden is very small though.

I remember a lot of the illustrations showed recycled containers,and group companion plantings with suggestions for required root depth and compost water retention/requirements etc grouping and stacking graded pots, and pot ladders against a sunny wall, but blowed if I can remember what it was called !

One practice I've adopted in the past couple of years for growing seasonal things in containers is to treat the soil as a compost bin once I've removed plants (geraniums, bush tomatoes). I dig in all my kitchen compost and other green material from the garden, mix it up and let it rot down over the winter. The containers are all in sunny positions and even with weak autumn/winter sun, the heat is sufficient to rot everything down. By Spring I've got some lovely regenerated compost to start again.

Thats a great idea for pots Primrose, I will try that, I hate moving heavy pots as I have some big ones. That's how I deal with roots and weeds too Primrose, I leave healthy roots in just harvest the plants and leave any weeds and then mulch with newspaper or cardboard and top with homemade compost, overwinter it all rots down the worms turn the soil and work the cpompost in, then its refreshed for new plants the following year, trouble with lots of fat juicy worms is it attracts moles and I get quite upset if the cats catch them, beautiful little creatures, and considering they spend their life tunneling through dirt they are beautifully sleek and clean.