If you’ve enjoyed any of my work so far most of the following books are published by Kyle Cathie, available mail order 0207 692 7221/7215. These are roughly in the order they were written with many still in print. There are also foreign editions, especially my ‘complete fruit’ which is in a multitude of covers in nearly two dozen languages.
** Go to Amazon books **
Really Help your crops: Worst weeds, Companion plants and Co-lives, for farmers and horticulturists. E-book
With commercial growing small margins are very important. A few percent improvement in yield, or a similar decrease in rejects, can make a crop more profitable. But only if the additional costs to obtain that change at the margin are less than the increase in profit.
Really Help Butterflies: Plant companions & co-lives Vol. 2. E-book
Lepidoptera; Butterflies & moths, their larvae and food plants. If we want more butterflies in our gardens we must provide exactly those suitable plants that can feed their respective larvae, caterpillars, grubs, worms and miners, and not just plant a few pretty flowers to attract the adults.
The Companion Garden
(Good Companions in USA) (pub. Kyle Cathie) –this my first published book was a delightful little illustrated volume of the benefits mixing plants can offer to us, other creatures and each other. (Sadly out of print with signed copies now quite collectable.)
Bob Flowerdew’s Complete Book of Companion Gardening
(Kyle Cathie) -here I explore the numerous ways plants interact with other flora and fauna about them, with historical observations, and how we can use these to our advantage. I find it hard to understand why some alleged ‘scientists’ claim companion planting is baseless. It would be stranger still if with hundreds of thousands of plants and critters in our gardens that none interacted in any way other than by being eaten.
The Organic Gardener
(Hamlyn-Reed Octopus) -my Organic methods in detail including a plan of my garden, full of luscious photos of my flowers and produce taken by Jerry Harpur. In soft back as Bob Flowerdews Organic Garden. Now sadly out of print though re-worked and re-issued in updated revised forms as Go Organic, and Organic Garden Basics (Hamlyns).
Bob Flowerdew’s Complete Fruit Book
(Kyle Cathie) -an encyclopaedic testimonial to the delights fruits and nuts offer to the gardener, the gourmet and to us all. Full descriptions, instructions and alternative uses, and with my own recipes. Includes not just the usual soft and orchard fruits but also those we can glean from the wild, those unknown edible ornamentals, and those fruits you may come across in a good supermarket or on a foreign holiday. Now out in a carefully revised and expanded edition.
Bob Flowerdew’s Organic Bible
(Kyle Cathie) -How to be Organic. Very beautiful photographs (204) in this book all taken in my garden are in themselves lasting testimonials to the methods, and to the exquisite quality of Organic flowers, fruits and vegetables. All you really need to know. Now out in a thoroughly revised and updated edition with even more emphasis on encouraging wild life whilst growing your own food and with all new photography.
The No work garden
(Kyle Cathie) -in this comic diatribe of vitriol poured enthusiastically on the heads of experts, designers and instant garden makeovers I explain how much conventional gardening advice is not wrong but inappropriate. I show easier ways of getting more pleasure & production from your garden for much less effort or expense. Good for non-expert gardeners and older hands will also find much to amuse and inform. This is THE book you NEED to read BEFORE you start.
The Gourmet Gardener
(Kyle Cathie) -with all the emphasis on quality; taste, flavour, texture, variety and seasonality. This book is not about feeding a family of twelve from an allotment, or how to produce fodder reliably. It is all about producing really tasty tucker. Growing the very best!
Going Organic
(Kyle Cathie) –this is the green gardeners guide to solving all the likely problems with their most natural solutions. It’s a comprehensive guide to those greener and organic methods you can employ to avoid pitfalls and errors, woes, foes and a reference book for those common pests and diseases and their solutions.
Grow your own, Eat your own
(Kyle Cathie) –yet more of my lovable and idiosyncratic approach to storing and preserving your own produce. It is not difficult to grow lots of your own delicious produce but far harder to do so over the whole year. Growing food is only half the story, you also need to harvest, store, process and preserve in a host of different ways to feed your family more fully and happily- so be your own delicatessen, confectioner and brewer as well as greengrocer and cook.
Bob’s Basics
(Kyle Cathie) Six compact volumes covering the most important areas of greener and organic gardening, their titles say it all-
- Composting
- Companion Planting
- Weeding without chemicals
- Pruning, Training and Tidying
- Simple green Pest and Disease control
- Sowing, Planting, Watering and Feeding
Bob also co-authored-
- The complete book of vegetables, herbs and fruit (Kyle Cathie)- available in many languages and editions.
- The complete manual of Organic Gardening (Headline)
- Gardeners Question Time All Your Problems Solved (Orion),
- Gardeners Question Time Plant Chooser (Kyle Cathie)
- Gardeners Question Time Tips & Techniques (Kyle Cathie).