Bob's Books
Roughly in order written with few still in print. There are also foreign editions, my ‘Complete fruit’ now in a multitude of covers in nearly two dozen languages.
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. (Several editions all sadly out of print with signed copies of first hardback 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 base-less. It would be stranger still if with hundreds of thousands of plants and critters in our gardens to find that none interacted in any way other than by being eaten. Also in revised and updated edition.
The Organic Gardener (Hamlyn-Reed Octopus) -my organic methods in detail including an illustrated plan view of my garden, full of luscious photos of my flowers and produce taken by Jerry Harpur. In soft back as Bob Flowerdew’s Organic Garden.
Now sadly out of print though re-worked and re-issued in updated revised forms as Go Organic, and Organic Garden Basics.
Bob Flowerdew’s Complete Fruit Book (Kyle Cathie) 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, and in nearly two dozen foreign languages. Also combined with Jekka’s Complete Herb, and Bigg’s Complete Vegetables in a comprehensive edible encyclopaedia (Kyle Cathie).
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 of conventional gardening advice is not wrong but is rather 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 the emphasis on quality; it’s all about taste, flavour, texture, variety and seasonality. This book is not about feeding a family of twelve from an allotment, or just how to produce fodder reliably. It is all about producing really tasty tucker. Growing the very best for yourself!
Going Organic (Kyle Cathie) –this is the greener gardeners guide to solving the pest, disease and cultural problems a gardener will likely encounter along with their most natural cures and preventatives. It’s a comprehensive introduction to all those greener and organic methods you can employ to avoid pitfalls and errors, woes and foes and also a reference book for the common pests, diseases and their solutions.
Grow your own, Eat your own (Kyle Cathie) –yet more of my idiosyncratic but very pragmatic approach, this time 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.
**** And there’s a French edition!!!****
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 - available in many languages and editions (Kyle Cathie)
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).
Bob also wrote introduction and forewards for-
The Garden Poems that will grow on you (Otley Word Feast press)
The Victorian Gardener, Anne Wilkinson (Sutton)
Bob’s self published available via Amazon
Ordered by ‘my ideal read in sequence’
Currently Baker’s dozen, collect the set
1st What to do When -timely notes of monthly tasks in each and every area of the garden, “there’s a right time for every job- and it was probably last month”, very handy for newer gardeners who are taking it all on the first time, and also for us older hands who are not keeping up as well as we did
2nd Really help your plants -Plants interacting with other plants, their good & bad companions and worst weeds’
this being Volume I of ‘Plant Companions and Co-lives’
An A-Z of wild and garden plants and recorded effects between these and other plants we need to know about whenever planning or planting our gardens.
3rd REALLY HELP BUTTERFLIES -This being Volume II of ‘Plant Companions and Co-lives’
I really would appreciate your help drawing this to wider attention as we crucially need help our native Lepidoptera-
There’s little point planting ‘flowers to help butterflies’ any more than making the North sea bigger to help cod stocks. We need grow those plants their larvae eat. This is an A-Z of wild and garden plants and which of our native butterfly and moth caterpillars THEIR FOLIAGE will sustain.
4th Really help your garden ecology -Plants and their co-lives; their associated fauna: insects, nematodes, bacteria, fungi large & small and shared viruses. Interactions between our native and garden plants and all the varied forms of life they coexist with not covered in volumes I & II. This being Volume III of ‘Plant Companions and Co-lives’
5th Really help your crops -An edited compilation of all three volumes of ‘Plant Companions and Co-lives’ for the most important interactions; those with our crop plants. Almost essential informative reading for farmers and horticulturalists.
6th Grow Your Own Kitchen garden & Pantry - invaluable, not just how to grow but all the ways you may then store, preserve & process your crops, an essential guide to becoming your own delicatessen, and how to grow crops in ways suited to their future storage or processing
7th Recycle & Reuse stuff in your garden -My first e-book and best seller, not yet been printed to save paper, exactly what the cover says; simple garden up-cycling uses for all sorts of waste products and junk.
You may use, repeat, copy, distribute by any means any idea from this book gratis with my blessing.
8th Greenhouse, cloche and tunnel gardening,