My gardening books: The Vegetable & Herb Expert by Dr. D.G.Hessayon

I love and hate this book in equal measure. Yet I still find it is the first book I reach for if I want to check details about a particular vegetable.

The good points            The layout is simply unsurpassable. Each veg has its own page or two, with concise information on everything you need to know. And it is so visual.

There is a pictorial calendar with dates for sowing, planting, and harvesting. There are diagrams  showing planting distances and depths for each veg. There are diagrams of all the pests and diseases which one might encounter.  There is a table containing seed facts, such as germination time and expected life of stored seed. There is a section on soil facts, which will tell you that cauliflower, for example, need well-consolidated soil, while celeriac needs fertile moisture-retentive soil. There is even a tiny paragraph describing how each veg can be used in the kitchen. All this information is concisely presented and  gathered together, in one place, in an easy-to-access way. At the risk of repeating myself, the layout just cannot be beaten.

The bad points                        It is old-fashioned and out-of-date.  Ok, you may argue that most of what you need to know about growing vegetable is ageless.  Nevertheless, it does show its age. One of my main objections is that it is unashamedly non-organic. The first version I owned, (in those days simply “The Vegetable Expert”) was published in the late 80s and told me to sprinkle an insecticidal powder (Bromophos) in seed drills before sowing (which I did, not yet knowing any better). And still, when I looked for guidance about dealing with leek moth last autumn, I was told to spray with a contact insecticide rather than given any less poisonous advice. 

Another objection is that is designed for someone who grows in rows rather than beds.

The revised version, published in 2001, includes a section on herbs and contains other minor adjustments. The reference to Bromophos has been removed, and there is one double page on growing veg in beds. But that information is not integrated into the individual sections, and it is little more than a token.

The vegetables featured are those that were grown 25 years ago. So there is a section on salsify, which no one I know grows, while garlic, which every allotmenteer I know grows in their vegetable garden, is given the same amount of space in the herb section as such obscure entries as feverfew and melilot. (And, incidentally, it doesn’t recognize that to get decent sized bulbs you need frost, and tells you to plant in March.)

Marrows, courgettes, squash  and pumpkins are grouped together and given just a double page, where I think they really deserve 2 or 3 individual sections.

Also the varieties are out-of date. For example, the modern blight-resistant varieties of potato, such as Sarpo Mira, are not mentioned, neither are any supposedly carrot-fly resistant varieties of carrot. Many of the tomato varieties listed are hard to find nowadays, yet a modern favourite as sungold, is not mentioned.

Every time I see it in a bookshop, I check if there is a more recently revised version available, hitherto without success.

Yet for all its faults, it still deserves a place on any gardening bookshelf, simply for its superb concise pictorial layout.