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We’re keen organic gardeners, and work hard to keep our soil healthy and work with nature to produce a healthy and productive garden. It’s important to have access to good information right from the beginning though, so we’ve compiled a list of the top ten selling organic gardening books on Amazon to help new gardeners and provide extra tips for experienced growers.

Organic Gardening: The Natural No-dig Way [Paperback] by Charles Dowding
This second edition of Charles’ successful bestseller, Organic Gardening: The Natural No-Dig Way features new photographs and more tips and advice.

Organic Gardening (Royal Horticultural Society’s Encyclopaedia of Practical Gardening)
Illustrated with step-by-step artworks, this guide dispels myths about organic gardening and explains all aspects of organic garden management, including the planning of an organically-balanced environment, soil preparation, pests and diseases, weed control, crop care and cultivation, and also contains a year-round checklist for instant season-by-season planning.

Allotment Gardening: An Organic Guide for Beginners
Aimed at those who have not had an allotment before, Allotment Gardening is packed with advice: from choosing and planning your allotment through to harvesting and storing your produce. Part One covers: tools; planning and clearing the site; soil, crop rotation; planting and protecting plants; design; growing techniques; common problems; gardener’s calendar. Part Two includes and A-Z of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers; companion planting; storage tips; directory of organic seed suppliers; useful organizations.

Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening
“What a great book. So clear and easy to navigate, this would be the ideal book for any beginner. It doesn’t pull any punches, just tells it as it is and is very comprehensive. Highly recommended for both the new gardener an those like me with many years gardening experience.”

The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Pest & Disease Control (Rodale Organic Gardening Books)
Rodale has been the category leader in organic methods for decades, and this thoroughly updated edition features the latest science-based recommendations for battling garden problems. With all-new photos of common and recently introduced pests and plant diseases, readers can quickly identify whether they’ve discovered garden friend or foe and what action, if any, they should take.

No other reference includes a wider range of methods for growing and maintaining an organic garden. The plant-by-plant guide features symptoms and solutions for 200 popular plants, including flowers, vegetables, trees, shrubs, and fruits. The insect-and- disease encyclopaedia includes a photo identification guide and detailed descriptions of damage readers may see. The extensive coverage of the most up-to-date organic control techniques and products, presented in order of lowest impact to most intensive intervention, makes it easy to choose the best control.

As many of you reading this will already know, some of the most beautiful geographical features in the U.K. are to be found in Wales.  Along with the famous valleys and mountains, the Blue Flag certified beaches are the well kept secret that have seen me and my family return to the Welsh coast every year.  In fact, visits got so regular that when a windfall occurred we looked at the option of purchasing a holiday home, to incorporate an element of investment into the annual holiday spend.  After a quick look at the market, we soon realised that we were out of our depth financially, until a friend suggested looking at static caravans for sale in Wales. This included looking at some of the many of the established caravan park operators such as Park Resorts who offer good advice to such caravan beginners as ourselves.

I must admit that I was initially put off the idea, with childhood memories of a leaky touring caravan largely responsible for my misgivings.  By way of cautious exploration, we eschewed the usual B & B to rent a static caravan in an established park for a fortnight.

When the static caravan experience proved to provide all the facilities we required, it was the scope of activities available for the children in the park that really that won me over.  I’ve never really fancied the British holiday camp style getaway, and I suppose I was expecting some kind of Hi de Hi!  However, after several days of being press ganged into, well, absolutely nothing, I soon became accustomed to the extra ‘me’ time suddenly provided by having the kids happily engaged with all the new friends on the door step.

An initial look at the finance required made a purchase seem possible on paper, but I must admit that my complete inexperience of the static caravan market was a psychological barrier to begin with.  In the end, for peace of mind we choose to bypass the private market when looking for static caravans in Wales, as quite frankly my lack of technical know-how had me worried about being ripped off.  However, respected and established caravan parks offer a pitch, and the ability for easy come back should anything go wrong. My fears soon allayed and you never know, you could turn out to be a caravan type of person too….

Have you ever heard the phrase ‘the clue is in the name’? The word coleslaw means ‘cabbage salad’ da DA! Right my attempt at QI over, you may be wondering why you would want to make your own coleslaw when you can just buy it from a shop. The fact is homemade coleslaw is a treat especially when made from organic ingredients, and not like nasty bits of old cabbage in horrid tangified wallpaper paste – so be told
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I don’t normally deep fry food but sometimes it makes a lovely change to have a proper homemade fried delight. Here is my version of this classic and delicious dish.

Ingredients:
• 400g minced haddock (or any other firm white fish)
• 50g ground almonds
• 750g of vegetable oil (for frying)
• 50g of medium matzo meal (or plain flour)
• 1 large free range egg
• Seasoning
• 1 tsp Fair Trade granulated sugar

Method:

1) Everything starts with good preparation! Make sure you have the kitchen to yourself for the next couple of hours as you do not want to be interrupted.

2) Put on old clothes and a 1970s scarf or old baseball cap on your hair, open the kitchen window and put the answer phone on! Frying fish is *ahem* a rather a stinky business – but so worth it!

3) Set up a couple of plates with layers of kitchen roll on to drain the fish balls on when cooked.

4) In a large bowl mix the minced fish, matzo meal, egg, and seasoning (about 1 tsp salt, ¼ tsp pepper), and sugar. Now the key to making the fish stick together into ball shapes is not to over use the matzo meal – you want to just keep mixing the fish and other ingredients for a good 10 minutes at least. This will release the natural isinglass which acts like a ‘glue’.

5) Make the fish up into ball shapes or patties (the patties will cook quicker as they are flatter), this is up to you.

6) In a large frying pan with deep sides (I like to use a wok frying pan) heat the oil. To test if the oil is hot put in a crust of bread. If bubbles form around the bread then the oil is hot enough.

7) Using a fish slice or slotted spoon carefully place about 4-5 fish balls into the hot oil. The oil will foam up a bit which is normal. After a couple of minutes turn the heat down to medium.

The fish balls will begin to brown and you want to carefully again turn them in the oil using the fish slice and a wooden spoon if need be. You will know when the fish are cooked when they ‘bounce’ back when gently pressed with the fish slice.

9) Remove the fish ball with a slotted spoon and put onto a plate with kitchen roll. Add another batch of fish balls and continue the process.

10) Safety points: remember hot oil can be dangerous, do NOT leave the frying fish or hot oil unattended at any time. Don’t answer the phone, go on Twitter, or whatever. And don’t chuck hot oil down the drain, you must allow the oil to cool completely before disposing of it correctly.

11) You can serve the fish straight away (once drained) with chips and a big dollop of ketchup, yum! Or you can allow the fish to cool and have later with a blob of chraine (horseradish and beetroot) and some new potatoes.

This article is reproduced by kind permission of margeland.co.uk www.margeland.co.uk

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