Garden Diary

Bad news and good

Tue, 10 May 2005 09:21:15 GMT

WAAAAAAH!

My poor appletrees are being nibbled on. Some scummy little band of aphids have moved in and are eating them. So I gave them a good drowning in detergent water and will check to see how that's progressing tonight. [looks grumpy]

I transplanted my herb seedlings into larger pots. I'm not sure if they're strong enough yet, but unfortunately I really do have to do it now as they'll outgrow the germination trays whilst I'm away. Will get tatanatanya to water them only with the spraygun however. The Borage are flourishing, and the Basil, Coriander and Dill are also growing well. The rest of the herbs - Majoram, Flatleaf Parsley and Oregano aren't doing too hot however. I suspect they'll be another 'plant more when I get back'. At least by then they should be getting enough sun. I'm seriously considering buying a heated germinator with lamp for the garage next year.

I was thrilled and surprised to discover one of my Arabica Coffee seeds has germinated! It has it's very own little greenhouse (made from the plastic cylinder used for an Easter egg, with slots cut in the lid - a pretty nifty bit of recycling, even if I say so myself) and the inside is very warm, which it obviously likes.

Green springing up everywhere!

Mon, 09 May 2005 11:27:50 GMT

Ouch, ouch, ouch. I spent Sunday removing all the little weeds that had sprung up in my absence and now my thigh muscles are killing me. Ouch.

The cherry and apple trees have bloomed and leafed since my last update (I can't believe it was a month ago! but I've been busybusybusy and on holiday), and I'm very excited to see the potted horseradish has a couple of enormous leaves. The horseradish in the garden is more subdued, with leaves barely reaching half the height, but the soil is poorer there.

This weekend I planted out my seedlings and covered the majority of them with hoops and plastic, forming a mini poly-tunnel. The plastic has holes in it so they should get enough water, though I'll ask tatanatanya to keep an eye on it.

Most of the lettuce and broccoli and suchlike is a lost cause I suspect. The seedlings have those long, longs stems that mean they didn't get enough sun as babies, so the chances of them actually producing are fairly negligible. Nevermind, I shall plant some more seeds when I get back from the US at the end of May. The artichokes look pretty healthy however, as do the cucumbers and tomatoes. I planted the hanging tomato 'Gardener's Delight', in my hanging basket at the front door.

Yet to do:
Plant out the herb seedlings into larger pots on the kitchen windowsill.
Plant out the chilli pepper seedlings into larger pots on the lounge windowsill.

Incoming herbs and rocketing away. . .

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 16:15:01 GMT

Last night was an orgy of seed planting (if indeed the word 'orgy' can be reasonably linked with something so healthy). On the list were:

Artichoke, Purple Globe
Basil, Sweet
Basil, varied i.e. Genovese, Lemon, Opal and one other I can't remember.
Borage
Broccoli, Early Purple Sprouting
Broccoli, Green
Coriander
Dill
Majoram
Oregano
Parsley, Italian Plain-leafed
Tomato, Green Zebra
Tomato, White Cherry

Forgot to mention I planted multiple varieties of salad greens, i.e. lettuce and rocket, in the weekend, as well as a couple of vegetables (it was a good weekend for springcleaning, but not for gardening).

The Melon seedlings are looking very good. I'll need to transplant them into 3" pots soon. And look up how to grow them outdoors! I have the suspicion I'm going to be building that climbing frame sooner than I thought.

The rocket has sprouted, as have a couple of the lettuces. I'm a bit concerned about the latter however as the seeds are all white-furred. I'm not sure if this is normal or fungus caused by too much humidity. I shall have to wait and see. The rhubarb and chilli peppers are coming along nicely, and I planted another Explosive Ember seed in the pot that failed to germinate. The strawberries still hate me.

First sprouts

Tue, 12 Apr 2005 14:54:06 GMT

My first homegrown food - a plate of rather fiery cress. Isn't it pretty? And my first seedlings! Green Honeydew Melons sprouting away happily. The chilli peppers are sprouting, but are all looking a little weedy, which is worrying. And the strawberries haven't germinated at all. Blah. The rhubarb is making an effort however.

Banana plantation

Fri, 08 Apr 2005 13:39:11 GMT

Planted the Musa Valentina banana seeds - a rather odd operation involving a ziplock bag of moist vermiculite. I placed it on the floor, as the the underfloor heating should hopefully keep it warmed to the requisite 20 - 30 degrees celsius. Germination apparently takes 3 - 6 months. Eep. I just hope I don't forget about it before then!

Cress #1 & 2 are looking a little healthier. I think I should plant them more thickly next time however. Cress #3 has that little bubble of crystalline jelly surrounding each seed, with little white sprouts appearing. That 'burgeoning of new life' stage is definitely the prettiest.

Nothing else is sprouting yet.

Oh! I saw a robin redbreast in the garden a couple of days ago. [grins]

Exciting leaves and dismal sprouts

Thu, 07 Apr 2005 14:06:10 GMT

The Egremont Russet is budding little bunches of leaves. At the moment they're small brown mounds huddled against the trunk and waiting to uncurl - it's very exciting. Next to her, the Reverand W Wilks has already leafed. Not as profusely, but with a good size. The cherry tree, Stella, isn't far behind.

Cress #1 is looking a little dodgy - all withered up under the dried paper. Rewet it and removed the top layer of tissue but if that's enough to save them I'll have to wait and see. I also removed the herb container lid. Cress #2 was looking a little furry around the stems, which also isn't a good sign. Too humid for too long I think. I started Cress #3, this time in an old foil container with a lid. The latter has a couple of holes in it.

No sprouting from anything else yet. [taps foot impatiently]

Fruit sowing and drizzle

Wed, 06 Apr 2005 10:20:56 GMT

The Cress is happily sprouting. At 3 days old, Cress #1 is sprouting at about half a centimetre long now, and at 2 days old, Cress #2 has broken through and is waving tiny white shoots. The saucer continues to dry out too fast, but the herb container seems to be a success.

Punched holes in the propagator lids, as the condensation was getting too heavy on them. The window sill is a little too cold not to allow them to air properly.

Planted fruit last night. Firstly Giant Rhubarb, then Alpine Strawberries in two varieties - Golden Alexandria and Quattro Stagione. I also planted some Green Honeydew Melons, though who knows if, or where, I'll have room for them!

It's drizzling at the moment and I'm thinking "Yah! Rain! The waterbutt is filling!"

Yah!Rain!??? Gardening does warped things to your brain.

Minor sowing and seed arrival

Tue, 05 Apr 2005 10:32:18 GMT

The Salsify 'Sandwich Island', Scorzonera 'Duplex' (black salsify) and Asparagus 'Fantasy' seeds turned up yesterday.

I just tried black salsify for the first time the other week and was immediately won over. Scorzonera [Scorzonera hispanica] also called black salsify, black vegetable-oyster plant, serpent root, and viper's grass, has a long edible tube-like taproot with a black tough skin and white flesh, and edible young leafs. The name derives from the Spanish "escorza nera," meaning black bark, and the reference to snakes in its common names - serpent root and viper's grass - comes from the Spanish word "scurzo," meaning viper. Scorzonera is native to Spain and is grown throughout southern Europe but wasn't actually grown as a food crop until the nineteenth century. It has a delicate, oyster-like taste which I very much liked.

Was too tired after a hellish return journey home to do much, so only planted the Arabica Coffee seeds and revamped the water for the Musa Velutina banana seeds. I'm using the plastic container tube which my Easter Egg came in for the coffee seeds - a few holes punched in it and it makes an ideal mini-propagator!

I also planted some more Cress, this time in a lidded plastic herb container. The cress in the saucer dried out too fast (although the sprouts are still viable and growing) so I figure I'll try a few different containers until one works to my satisfaction. The alternative is blowing £15 on one of those snazzy tri-layer sprouters at Planet Organic. Tempting, but a little spendthrift.

One of the Begonia 'Non-stop Rose' transplants has died, but of the remaining five, four are thriving. I brought them all indoors along with the 'Sammy Russell' Daylily as the temperature has dropped this last couple of days. No frosts yet, but it seems to be heading that way.

A bit of rain yesterday so when I got home I collected what was in the planters I left out and put it in the waterbutt. Supposedly this summer will be a drought, so I'm being diligent in my water collecting. So far I've only filled the legs however!

Promised Debbie at work the last Horseradish thong.

Vegetables R Us

Thu, 31 Mar 2005 16:18:06 GMT

My big order of vegetable seeds arrived yesterday. I bought them from the Anioleka Heirloom Vegetable Seeds Company, a UK/US outfit that do lots of rare and unusual seeds. The order included:

Rossa di Toscana Onion (a "very rare red bulb onion")
Green Zebra Tomato (they look like English gooseberries!)
White Cherry Tomato
Quattro Stagione Strawberry seeds
Tatsoi [Bok Choy]
Royal Chantenay Carrot
Black Valentine Bean
Bionda Foglia di Quercia Lettuce
Early Wonder Beet
Italian Green Calabrise Broccoli
Green Arrow Pea
Andover Parsnip
Champion Radish
Chinese Celestial Radish
Honeydew Melon
Lemon Cucumber
Armenian Scarlet Red Pepper
Hungarian Szegedi Pepper (apparently rare)
Roguelands Yellow Bell Pepper

I have a garden!

Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:49:16 GMT

Friday

Got up at 10:30, dashed outside about 11 and dug. And dug. And dug. Managed to get through about 3 ft wide x 7 ft long x 1 ft deep of soil. Around about 2pm Mark came downstairs and in the space of 3/4 of an hour managed to duplicate my efforts. Blah. But good that he was sweet enough to do it for me. Then spent the next while turning the compost and clearing up the old roots and weeds rubbish piles and the rest of the yard. Just over half the garden is now properly dug and de-blackberried. Made Mark dinner to thank him. Now totally and completely zonked.

Saturday

Got up early to beat the other 45% of the population that gardens at Easter, to the Wyevale Garden Centre. The centre turned out to be well equipped and thot outrageously expensive, which I'd been a bit worried about.

I bought 100 lt of organic compost, 25 lt of seed compost, a large bag of vermiculite, 750 gm dried blood, 750 gm superphosphate and 750 gm dried bone, a bag of water retention gel, a min/max outdoors thermometer (which I promptly dropped and broke on getting it home), a soil test kit, a couple of bookhinge propogators (very swish), a large plastic soil sieve (I definitely need that!), some chive seeds and a packet of wildflower meadow seeds.

Spent another couple of hours digging the garden to the rosemary bush, and the brick column I'd decided would mark the end of the vegetable garden. Finished! Hoorah!

Took soil test:

Ph: Alkaline
Nitrogen (N): Low to Medium
Phosphate (P): Low
Potassium (K): not done yet

Sunday

Levelled off the soil and then added fertiliser and sulphur:

630 gm superphosphate [P₂O₅ 17%] (@ 70 gm m₂)
315 gm dried blood [N 13%] (@ 35 gm m₂)
200 gm sulphur (@ 100 gm m.cubed)

Tanya denailed the wooden boards for the walkways and retreived bricks for me, and started setting up the long planters. I then laid out the walkways in the most effective pattern I could think of. Photos of Tanya and partitioned-up garden:

Monday

Divided up garden partitions into foot square sections with plastic tags and hemp twine. It really does look like a vegetable garden now!

Planted:
2 x Horseradish [Armoracia lapathifolia] thongs; 1 in Square 6/1 and 1 in a container

8 x Tulipa [Tulip 'Queen of the Night'] bulbs in container
6 x Begonia x tuberhybrida [Begonia 'Nonstop® Rose'] transplants in small containers
2 x Dracunculus vulgaris bulbs in container
1 x Hemerocallis fulva [Daylily 'Sammy Russell'] bulb in container
8 x mystery bulbs in container

Rain forecast

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 16:29:03 GMT

It looks like it's going to be cloudy and rainy this Easter weekend.

Well, just, bugger.

Digging in the rain is not something I'm prepared to do. Still, I can clear the window sills and set up my propagation units I guess.

I spent last night sorting out all my seeds into a catalogue box (previously used for photos);

Herbs

Roots & Fungi

Salads

Vegetables

Fruits

Flowers: Edible

Flowers: Black

Tropicals: Edible

Tropicals: Ornamental

I have lots of scraps of paper with their instructions on them, so I figure the best thing to do is buy an A4 folder and paste them onto pieces of paper in the folder.

More planters and minimal digging progress

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 17:04:49 GMT

Digging progressed slowly this weekend. I was too tired on Saturday to do anything more than a bit of weed and wood clearing, but managed to dig about a row and a half on Sunday. The ground I'm now doing is riddled with blackberry roots, which makes the work three or four times slower. It's tiring and tiresome. If I'm at the halfway point by the end of Easter I'll be very happy. Then I'll just nibble at the rest. Getting home when it's light means I can have a go at a square or two without burning out my enthusiasm. And it's not as though I can plant the whole section in one go anyway.

Saturday I returned to the Pound Store and bought 8 more of the big square plastic planters and 6 slightly smaller but deeper urn-shaped plastic planters. The back concrete slab will look festive by the time I'm finished, or else! I also got some useful tools and a wrens' nest. Hopefully the starling that nests in the roof won't chase them away. I'd like to chickenwire over its access hole, but it's too dangerously high.

Mark, Tanya and I went to have a look at the local Focus DIY Store's closing-down sale (most annoying), though there wasn't much left. I got some builders' sand, a nest of 4 beautiful lavender-glazed terracotta pots, some chickenwire, copper pipes & bends for building a support frame for the beans and peas, and some very nice blue plastic tiles for the bathroom.

ø ø ø ø ø ø ø ø ø ø ø ø ø ø

The garlic is going great guns, now 2 and 3 inches high respectively. The Black Dragon grass seems to be growing well.

The first ladybird of spring

Sat, 19 Mar 2005 00:25:14 GMT

We actually ate dinner out of doors tonight, and very pleasant it was too. A warmish 17 degrees or so, a clear indigo sky and a radiant slice of moon shining down on us. Magical. And there on the fencepost I saw my first spring ladybird. A beautiful shiny red Seven Spot Ladybird [Coccinella 7 punctata], and the biggest I'd ever seen at about 6 or 7 mm! I very rudely woke her up with my flash to take this photo.

I then dashed off and joined the Phenology Network's Springwatch to help document the change of seasons creep across the UK.

Spring, Sprouts, Sulphur and Savers

Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:25:33 GMT

Spring is definitely here! These mornings I can watch the bobbing heads of the daffodils on the hillocks beside the railway tracks as I travel to work. I'm never sure if it's because they're a harbinger of warm weather, or their exhuberant bright yellowness, but daffodils never fail to cheer me up.

The garlic bulbs I planted on Sunday night are sprouting ferociously. Originally they just had little pale green nubs at their tops. Now two of them have 1 inch shoots thrusting skyward, and the biggest one is racing ahead with a 2 inch shoot. I shall have to read up on them this weekend as all I did was pop them into the little kitchen pots recently vacated by my aloe vera transplants, water them and then leave them alone to live or die. As they've suceeded in the former I guess I should take notice and care of them.

The sulphur I ordered for decreasing the alkalinity of the soil has arrived. Bernie our next door neighbor says anything they ever planted has grown in our soil, but I want to reduce it down to about 7. Judging from the soil test I think it's about 8 to 8.5, which isn't good for acid-loving plants, of which several vegetables are. A lot of veges seem to thrive best at 7 too. Alkaline soil contain high levels of chalk or limestone. Considering the number of chert flints I've had to pick out of the garden, that doesn't surprise me in the slightest (chert being a form of silica found in limestone).

The rain saver I ordered also turned up and the waterbutt is being delivered today. I shall try and set them up in the weekend, so I can take advantage of any late rains.

Last Frost

Thu, 17 Mar 2005 11:43:02 GMT

Finished reading Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening. Very inspirational. I'll just have to try and hold on to that feeling when I'm sweating my guts out digging again this weekend.

Found out my Last Spring Frost is early May. Flaming heck, that's weeks away!

Potting Black Dragons; buying gumboots

Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:14:41 GMT

Potted the Ophiopogon planiscapus nigrescens [Black Dragon grass]. There was supposed to be 3 transplants, but I got 2 big ones, 1 medium, 1 small and 2 very small transplants. I'm not complaining!

More seeds turned up yesterday, including some freeby seeds with the purple shiso seeds. I have no idea what they are. Could be entertaining.

Bought Calendula officinalis marigold to plant with the tomatoes, and Tagetes marigolds to plant for salads and decoration. A really lovely orange, yellow and red mixed variety.

Bought some ankle-high gumboots at Lidl for the excellent price of £3. I'd almost spent £15 on a knee-high pair in Homebase earlier that day, so was happy to save money. They also have cloches and long planters for a good price. Might pick some of them up later.

However I did buy a small mister (I remembered I'd bought a pump sprayer last year in time) and a wooden potplant trolley at Homebase. Also cruised around and looked at gardening options.

Ideas:

Remove the bricks from down the side of the garage and use as the pathway between blocks for the Square Foot garden.

Use the wood planks discarded in the garden to make small planters. I think they're too thin to make a sunbox.

Save some of the carpet cover to use as mulch.

Weekend Digging and Seed update

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 14:02:39 GMT

I have rediscovered butt muscles I'd forgotten I had. Ouch.

Almost a third of the yard is dug now, about 8 or 9 hours solid work. I feel quite accomplished. Even if I did no more, that's a large enough plot for a decent salad garden. The blackberry bushes slow me down, having to bore down into the clay subsoil to remove as much of the root as I can. I might try the vinegar solution (1/20th vinegar to water) on the roots. It will make the soil more acidic but ours is quite alkaline anyway. I've been using gloves and handcream so aren't having problems with my skin, but my arthritis is aching a bit. I'm glad I'll only ever have to do this once!

Pictorial progress from Saturday - on Sunday I did the other part to the brick wall. It's a very foreshortened photo, the dug section is actually only about a third of the garden.

Bought some Sulphur to mix into the soil and decrease the alkalinity.

Vegetable Seeds
Asparagus 'Fantasy'
Asparagus Argenteuil
Bean French ?
Bean Black Valentine
Beet Early Wonder
Beetroot ?
Broccoli Green Calabrise
Cabbage Baby Savoy
Carrot ?
Carrot Royal Chantenay
Courgette unknown
Courgette ?
Cucumber ?
Cucumber Lemon
Horseradish English
Leek ?
Lettuce Bionda Foglia di Quercia
Melon Honeydew
Onion Rossa di Toscana
Parsnip Andover
Pea Green Arrow
Pepper Armenian Scarlet Red
Pepper Roguelands Yellow Bell
Pepper Hungarian Szegedi
Radish Chinese Celestial
Radish Champion
Rocket unknown
Rocket ?
Salsify 'Sandwich Island'
Scorzonera 'Duplex'
Spinach Beet ?
Swede ?
Tomato ?
Tomato Green Zebra
Tomato White Cherry

Herb seeds
Basil ?
Basil Wild
Basil Sweet Green
Basil Medley of varieties
Bay Laurel
Chives
Coriander
Cress
Dill ?
Ginsing Korean - gave to Tanya
Lavender Dwarf
Mint
Parsley Flatleaf
Parsley Curly ?
Parsley Flatleaf ?
Sage
Shiso Purple
Sprouts
Thyme ?

Fruit seeds
Melon Pear
Pomegranate Dwarf
Rhubarb Giant

Edible Flowers
Daylily [bulb]
Pansy
Viola
Nasturtium
Chrysanthemums
Tagetes
Marigold

Seed Potato Varieties:
Anya [20 tubers] (freeby from Thomson & Morgan)
Catriona [10 tubers]
Golden Wonder [10 tubers]
International Kidney [10 tubers]
Red Duke of York [10 tubers]
Sharpe's Express [10 tubers]
Shetland Black [1 kg of tubers]

I really wanted some Edzell Blue, Highland Burgandy and Salad Blue tubers but couldn't find any available in small amounts.

Memo:
Need to buy containers for potatoes etc. Currently have:
2 black bins
2 green plastic 10 ltr? large planters
2 terracotta plastic 10 ltr? large planters

Need to buy:
hummus/compost
~~a mister~~
vermiculite
heated propagator
lamp for propagating

Inde-seed-sion

Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:46:47 GMT

Buying seed.

I'm frozen with indecision; sinking like a mangrove bush at full tide under the inundation of choices. How easy is it to propogate? to grow? Should I buy organic? Or heirloom? Or the latest brightest trendiest thing? When to sow? What type of soil? Or sun? Or shade?

Argh!!!

I want to buy some of the rarer, endangered cultivars and hopefully exchange seeds with fellow gardeners in later years, but I'm overwhelmed by information. I'd prefer to buy organic but am realistic enough to decide that if a third of the vegetables come from organic seed I'll consider that a victory.

I must admit to being severely tempted by some of the flashier, and less practical, offerings however. The dual fruits in particular, with their two different cultivars grafted onto one root stock and shown bursting with ripe fruits. They tempt me on one level - that of the greedy cook/consumer. On another - that of the eco-hippy - it causes me to wonder. I vaguely remember something about dual apples being cultivated centuries back, but these little trees look overladen and remind me uncomfortably of today's milk-cows bred until their udders scrape the ground. I will have to investigate further.

Possibly the only thing to do is buy what I think sounds tasty, ecologically sound, and growable by my own self. Rather like shutting one's eyes and stabbing a pin in the map of the vegetable kingdom. I shall just have to accept that this will be a year of tests, discoveries and failures, and expect that next year I'll have learnt enough to be more canny.

Off to look at heirloom and rare potatoes. The Edzell Blue sounds a shoo-in. . .

Bought:
Artichoke - Violet Globe
Banana - Musa Velutina (an edible furry pink fruit - supposedly small and a little hard, but the thought of growing my own bananas was too wonderful to pass up)
Basil - Wild
Broccoli - Early Sprouting Purple
Chilli - Explosive Ember
Chilli - Tam Jalapeno
Chilli - Bolivian Rainbow
Courgette - Black Beauty (oh my, how could I resist? a black courgette!)
Lettuce - Red & Oak-Leaf medley
Rhubarb - Giant
Spring Onions - Red Welsh
Tomato - Garden Pearl
Tomato - Gardener's Delight

Memo: ~~Buy marigolds for slug prevention!~~
...

Buying general goods, digging & killing blackberries

Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:44:12 GMT

Saturday 5th March

From the 99p store I bought:

4 x 10 litre square plastic planters
3 x mini-propogators with pots
2 x blocks of coconut coir
1 x 3 balls of jute garden string
1 x pair gardening kneepads
1 x pair heavy leather gloves [small men's]
1 x bean & pea plastic green netting
1 x gardening covering netting
1 x bird feeder [a little wood & perspex one for wrens etc]

For a total of £14.85 - very well done, I thought!

Sunday 6th March

Double-dug my first patch - a 3 x 4 foot shape near the door. Stella, Russet and The Reverand (i.e. the cherry and apple trees) look on approvingly in anticipation of company. A good couple of hour's hard labor, resulting in a sore back and muscles, but also a feeling of accomplishment. A hot bath helped the former and the latter lingered on.

Was pleased to discover the soil is actually quite good. There's only about 8" before you hit the clay subsoil, and there is a reasonable amount of clay and pieces of flint in it, but it's got good aeration and composition, isn't compacted and hosts a decent number of worms. The inorganic rubbish dumped by the previous [obsenity deleted] of an owner is annoying, as it has to be picked out piece by piece, but I don't forsee any problems growing vegetables in this soil.

Some pictures; two of before and one of my dug patch and at the bottom right, the hole left by the evicted blackberry.

I then exorcised my first blackberry plant. One down, many to go. Blah. Looked under the carpets and wood screen and was happy to note all the weeds are dead. Only the blackberries thrive. I looked it up and apparently chopping them back and then covering them is actually good for them over winter. Bugger.

Cleared the back grass area of stalks, blackberry vines and long weeds. The heavy leather gloves proved themselves to be invaluable and worth the entire previous day's cost by themselves. Dumped them on the patio area to die and dry so they can be fed to the composter.

Tested the soil. It's about PH 8, alkaline. Must remember that.

BOOK LIST

Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:39:03 GMT

Book List

Gardening:
Black Magic and Purple Passion - Karen Platt

Bountiful Container, The - Maggie Stuckey, Rose Marie Nichols McGee

Edible Container Garden, The: Fresh Food from Tiny Spaces - Michael Guerra, Patrick Whitefield (Preface)

Growing Herbs in Containers (A Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin) - Maggie Oster, Sal Gilbertie

Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work - Mel Bartholomew

Window-box Allotment, The: A Beginner's Guide to Container Gardening - Penelope Bennet

Ecology:
Earth Care Manual, The: A Permaculture Handbook for Britain and Other Temperate Countries - Patrick Whitefield