Definitely Mabey

Feeling a bit down, I headed off in search of books. I know I have plenty to be getting on with but that's not the point.

It may have been my jaded state, but nothing I found really grabbed me. Not even in my favourite second hand bookshop. I picked up a couple of things, but put them back down after a couple of minutes.

Just as I was about the leave I spotted this tucked away.

It's a book I have wanted for a long time and even though it is an enormous tome, I just couldn't bring myself to buy it new (bad I know).

Quickly, I snatched it up, paid the 12 quid asking price and scuttled off grinning.
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A Touch of the Oscar's

That's a phrase I sometimes use to denote a complete cave-in on the resolution front.

"I can resist anything, except temptation."

You may, if you have very, very good memories recall this post.

I lasted six whole months after that, until I buckled and bought the book.

What a snip!

I'm a sucker for a secondhand gardening book, preferably at least as old as me.

No glossy images for me - give me a line drawing any day of week. Add in a vaguely chucklesome author name and some old-school horticultural advice and I'm happy as a sandboy. No surprise, then, that Pruning in the Fruit Garden by F Hilkenbaumer caught my attention in the £1 rack outside my favourite bookshop.

Fruit tree pruning's one of those skills that, try as I might, I can't get the hang of from a written guide. This is where Mr Hilkenbaumer's book comes in. There's very little in the way of words, because it's the line drawings that communicate the art and science of the job of pruning. The lines of the tree's branches are rendered in black, with red lines showing what should be cut back: it couldn't be clearer.

The book was published in 1976, but as the back cover says, "fashions in pruning come and go, but the basic techniques remain the same". The only mystery is a pruning timetable on the last page that's got me completely puzzled, but no matter, the rest of it is pure gold. Thankyou, Mr Hilkenbaumer.

With any luck, my plum and pear tree will thank you, too.

Jane Perrone

Horticultural - The organic gardening blog

Thanks for the Guest Blog Jane - GMx

Gardeners’ Brains Trust

VP’s photos of her wartime book reminded me of this little hardback I have on my shelves.

I bought Wild Flowers and Weeds by G.H. Copley N.D.H., Gardeners’ Brains Trust, etc, largely because of the cover, but also because inside the dust jacket it states “War Time Productions and Costs 8/6” - which seems a bit steep to me.

All of which reminds me - I must look up what the Gardeners’ Brains Trust was.

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Dig For Victory

VP has supplied these pictures of her copy of Practical Gardening & Food Production In Pictures, a book clearly intended to help the wartime Dig For Victory campaign.

Old Soot Secrets

Following a plea for soot advice from aged tomes by Flange member VP I can provide this from The New Illustrated Gardening Encyclopedia by Richard Sudell, F.I.L.A., A.R.H.S., (the book is not dated but the inscription is 1932).

"There are 3 reasons why soot is valuable to the gardener: it contains a little nitrogen; it is a good insecticide; it darkens the soil surface, and therefore makes the soul warmer by retaining solar heat. Soot should always be stored dry and can be used in making liquid manure, or as a surface dressing along the rows of growing crops, either alone, or mixed with lime. If mixed with lime it makes the best insecticide, as the fumes are objectionable to insects of all kinds."

He also has a diagram (see pic) to show how to make soot-water - a sack full of soot, plus a brick to keep it submerged, hung from a rope in a butt of rainwater - with light excluded.

Practical Home Gardening Illustrated (1949) by the same author adds no more information but does include a very similar diagram in the month of March. The diagram bears the legend "Soot water stimulates pot plants", and I'm unclear whether March is time to make, or to apply soot water.

It does have rather lovely pictures inside the cover of Garden Friends & Foes which I’ve posted for purely gratuitous reasons.

My copy of The Complete Gardener first published 1950 (and heavily reprinted) by W.E. Sherwell-Cooper (a man with a formidable array of credentials after his name) has this -

"Soot is a nitrogenous manure which darkens soils and so enables them to absorb and retain heat better. More generally used as a top dressing in the spring. Suitable chiefly for all members of the cabbage family. Usually applied at 5ozs. to the square yard."

Modern Love

I wanted to share with the flange members my latest acquisition. I was today given 'The Modern Greenhouse' by J S Dakers by a work colleague who is having a clear out. Now you need to understand that by modern we mean 1955 and this is an update on the original version of 1938. In a charming foreword the author says that the 1938 edition has been updated to take into account changes in horticultural practice. I have only had a quick flick through but had to smile to myself at a section which describes how to make up a general mix compost:

4 parts yellow loam, 2 parts peat-moss (from bales), 1 part course river sand.

The mind boggles - what is yellow loam? what bales? and do I need to go wading in the river!

Then to each bushel of compost add: one andhalf ounces superphosphate of lime, three quarters of an ounce of potash and two ounces of horn or hoof manure - I have too many questions to this part to list!

All I can say is thank goodness for John Innes!!!!!

Will peruse the book further and let you know if I find any more gems - no doubt I will

Helen (aka patientgardener)