The Vegetable & Herb Expert: The world's best-selling book on vegetables & herbs [Paperback]

The world's bestselling book on vegetables and herbs has been fully revised, updated and expanded. The chapter on herbs has been hugely increased.

There can be no fresher tasting vegetables or herbs than the ones you’ve grown yourself.
Whether you are a first-time allotment holder or an ‘old-hand’, the Vegetable & Herb Expert will shown you:

• How to get started.
• Where to grow your vegetables, and how.
• What types and varieties to grow.
• Looking after your plants.
• Grow your own herbs.
• Deal with pests and diseases.

Reliable, easy-to-follow advice and information from EXPERT books – the world’s best-selling gardening series.

An updated edition with new information, new illustrations and extra pages.

* New chapters on 'baby' vegetables and the modern easy way to grow food crops.

* New greatly enlarged chapter on herbs.

* New scores of varieties which have appeared in the past few years.

Dr David Hessayon initiated a major innovation in gardening publications in 1959 with the first of his Gardening Expert guides. These best-selling guides have had an unparalleled influence on gardening over the past 50 years. There are over 51 million copies in print. He was awarded the 1993 Gardening Book of the Year Award from the Garden Writers Guild and received the first-ever Lifetime Achievement 'Oscar' at the National British Book Awards. In 1999 he received a Guinness World Record Award as 'Britain's best-selling living author of the 1990s'. He lives in Essex, and has two daughters and four grandchildren.

One of the most important changes in gardening since World War II has been the resurgence of interest in growing vegetables at home. The concept that it is only for the poor or the country dweller has long been swept away with the realisation that home-grown produce beats the shop-bought equivalent in three vital ways. Firstly, you can harvest at the peak of tenderness and flavour instead of having to wait for maximum yields like the professional grower. You can also serve vegetables within an hour or two of picking and with sweet corn, beans, asparagus etc. this can mean a new flavour experience for you. Finally, you can grow vegetables which do not appear in High St shops and you can sow top-quality varieties of ordinary vegetables which are not grown commercially.

You can save money by growing your own – it has been estimated that an expenditure of £1 on seeds, fertilisers, canes etc. yields a crop worth about £9 at shop prices. But saving money is not the main motive for many – it is just a bonus from a hobby which provides a special thrill from growing and then eating your own.

Most of the basic principles of vegetable growing have been with us for hundreds of years, but the subject doesn’t stand still. There have been several important developments since the earlier edition of this book appeared. Interest in herbs continues to expand and specially-bred baby vegetables have made their appearance in seed catalogues. Until recently growing vegetables nearly always meant long rows of plants, but now the idea of growing in pots, raised beds and even in the flower bed and shrub border has taken root.