Sunday 24 May 2020

Book Review: The Edible Garden Cookbook and Growing Guide.by Paul West

The Edible Garden Cookbook and Growing Guide
by
Paul West



Publisher: Pan Macmillan 
Imprint: Plum
Publication date: 24th September 2019
Genre: Lifestyle / Gardening
Pages: 304
RRP: $39.99AUD
Format read: Paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher





For Paul West, a meaningful life is one built around food and community. In The Edible Garden Cookbook & Growing Guide , Paul shows you how easy it is to grow and cook some of your own food, no matter how much space you have.

The Edible Garden Cookbook & Growing Guide is a celebration of real food and vibrant community. It will inspire you to grow, cook and eat with those you love - and find real meaning along the way.  


Did you find yourself, a few months ago, standing in an empty supermarket wondering how you were going to feed your family? Me too!

Why do we leave ourselves at the mercy of panic buyers when it is so easy to grow your own vegetables?
The Edible Garden by Paul West, host of River Cottage Australia, is a guide to growing your own edible garden. This 304 page book is filled with glorious colour photos and over 50 easy to follow and healthy recipes with pictures of the finished product. I always like that finished product photo, it gives me a good idea of what my meal is supposed to look like.
Paul gives us gardens for the space poor, gardens for the time poor, micro gardens and community gardens. With chapters on worm farms, composting, keeping chooks and keeping bees, what to plant where and when. Paul has a big focus on food and community in chapters on hosting a pickle party, brewing your own beer and building a wood fire barbecue.

With bookmark flaps on the front and back cover this is one coffee table book you will find yourself turning to again and again for recipes to feed your family wholesome, easy to cook meals.

My husband and I both grew up in families where there was always a large supply of vegetables and eggs in our own backyards. We had tried gardens over the years but the possums usually beat us to the produce.
This time we decided to put the garden close to the house and used raised planters which could be filled with good quality soil.





Our garden is going well and we have had more hits than misses. It’s very much trial and error at the moment but we have started to enjoy some of the produce we have grown.
The Edible Garden Cookbook and Growing Guide has gone a long way in increasing our confidence in choosing products for the local temperature and time of year.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐


Paul West is a trained chef, a passionate gardener, farmer and popular media personality. Paul hosted four seasons of River Cottage Australia (Foxtel and SBS), is the author of The River Cottage Australia Cookbook and has a regular slot on ABC radio and ABC television's Gardening Australia. After hosting River Cottage Australia in beautiful Central Tilba, Paul and his family swapped their 20-acre NSW South Coast property for a city life in Thornbury, in Melbourne's inner north turning a suburban backyard plot into a productive patch.  

 This review is part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge

 

15 comments:

  1. This sounds great. I like your garden! I've always wanted a vegetable garden.

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    Replies
    1. How’s the time to start Naida. You can even start a micro garden.

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  2. I have a black thumb, I can only grow weeds

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  3. This sounds informative. Your garden looks lovely.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Nadene. We are learner gardeners at the moment.

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  4. I don't have a green thumb lol

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    1. Me neither. We just started with some of the easier things. Herbs are easy to grow.

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  5. I've been sorting out my garden these last couple of weeks. I was thinking of planting some veg and herbs. I have onions growing already.

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  6. I think I will need this one.. we keep trying to have an edible garden with emphasis on the trying :)

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    Replies
    1. We have had lots of disasters and a few hits. The herbs are doing well and we always do well with tomatoes.

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  7. Reading and gardening. A great combination.

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    Replies
    1. I'm more inclined to read and occasionally help with the gardening. :)

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  8. This sounds useful, I’d like to grow more than weeds and the occasional shallot. Thanks for sharing your thoughts

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