Fruit
Growing fruit at home is a delicious and altogether more enjoyable alternative to buying it in the shops. Mark Diacono offers a practical and accessible guide to making the most of your garden and what it has to offer.
The first part of the book is an A-Z of the different varieties of fruit, with old favourites like apples, cherries, plum, blackcurrants, white currants, redcurrants, strawberries, blueberries, gooseberries, raspberries and rhubarb as well as more exotic species like figs, grapes, cranberries, Japanese wine berries and apricots. Each is accompanied by a photograph, with detailed advice on when and how to grow and harvest.
In the second part of the book, Mark gives straightforward guidelines on techniques like pruning and training, as well as how to deal with problems or pests. There is a section dedicated to growing under covers and in containers.
Introduced by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and with 30 delicious recipes, beautiful, full-colour photographs and a directory of useful addresses, this is the ideal reference for any aspiring fruit grower.
A smallholder and writer, Mark Diacono is known for his commitment to sustainable, ethically produced food. Mark leads the Garden Team at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage - running the garden courses, giving talks and hosting events at River Cottage HQ and appearing in the River Cottage TV series.
As well as having a unique take on growing your own food, Mark champions climate change growing, an approach to producing food that takes sustainable advantage of the new weather conditions; Otter Farm, his smallholding in East
Devon, has become famous as home to the UK's first olive grove.
Mark's book Veg Patch: River Cottage Handbook Number 4 was named Practical Book of the Year at the Garden Media Guild Awards 2009 and A Taste of the Unexpected won the Guild of Food Writers' Book of the Year 2011.