Review by Penny Woodard

Building the garden you want with whatever you’ve got.

Millie’s personality leaps from every page of this engaging and informative book. In the introduction she says “Experiment, play, plant, cut, kill, compost, dig, and, every now and then , push your luck.” “Your efforts (or lack of them!) can help a garden to thrive or just survive, but don’t stress – tomatoes were making tomatoes well before we got involved.” We so often over complicate gardening and Millie is telling us to just get out there and give it a go. With chapters on planning, designing and building gardens, as well as growing, planting, loving and eating your produce, The Thrifty Gardener is full of fascinating tips as well as careful and sound advice. Millie’s emphasis very definitely reflects the title with suggestions about using found and recycled materials right through the book. In the chapter on growing she looks at bottles for garden edges, wooden pallets to make mobile beds and everything from toasters to polystyrene boxes and food tins as pots. The planting chapter covers plants to grow for fibre and structure, plants for hot spots, for privacy, for birds, for frogs, for windbreaks, for play, for ponds and much more.

I thoroughly recommend this book for both the beginner and more experienced gardener, but especially if you are a do-it-yourself person (most true gardeners are) and/or someone who needs to garden on a small budget. The Thrifty Gardener has a real sense of fun as well as being full of wise thoughts.

Borrow it from your local library, buy it from an independent bookshop or go to the ABC shop to purchase a copy online.

By Millie Ross, $35.00, Harper Collins Publishers

(The book was given to me by the publishers)

Review by Penny Woodward

Some books are practical and useful, some tell a story, some are beautiful to hold and use: Seasons in my Kitchen Garden is all of these and more. The first thing I noticed about Marcelle Nankervis’s delightful third book was the design, which makes the most of the lovely photographs. Delectable close ups of fresh produce, snippets of farm life, and only two photos of Marcelle (I hate this current trend where gardening books and magazines have more photos of the author than they do of the produce or garden!). The book starts with the story of why Marcelle and her family moved to the small farm and this story continues, interwoven between practical seasonal pages about the how to, growing and harvest of fruit and vegetables. She tells of the things that worked, and the things that went terribly wrong. How she wouldn’t put the pigs next to the house again, how her children have become her pest controllers and how they now all wear safety goggles anytime they are working on the farm (you have to read the book to find out why). Breaking up the story of the first year are practical hints: how to build  a vegetable bed, planting bare-rooted trees, no-dig gardens, crop rotation and pest control. Also how to grow and harvest everything from pears and apples, to rhubarb, mushrooms, asparagus, beetroot and broccoli and much, much more. Marcelle is a well known gardening writer, researcher and editor, with stints at Your Garden, Better Homes and Gardens and Burke’s Backyard – some ongoing. Her warmth and knowledge shine though in her writing, making the whole book a joy to read. Based on sustainable and organic principles, this book is definitely recommended for gardeners and anyone interested in starting their own small farm. Borrow it from your local library, buy it from a bookshop or go to Marcelle’s blog to find out more

By Marcelle Nankervis, Hardie Grant, $39.95

Eager to keep their Italian traditions alive after coming to Australia in 1965 Lina and Tony Siciliano started a new life together in suburban Essendon. With only a small garden they yearned to grow their own food so in 1981 acquired a barren block of land in East Keilor where they planted fruit trees and vegetables and raised chickens. Thirty years on and the couple have transformed the site into a profitable business boasting a productive bounty of 400 olive trees, an orchard, vegetable garden and their Rose Creek Estate vineyard.
Taking a month by month approach author Gabriella Gomersall-Hubbard has documented the family’s sustainable way of life from preserving – think big tomato day and sausage making – to producing olive oil and wine. Colour photos throughout capture the essence of the Siciliano’s seasonal activities in the garden and kitchen while traditional recipes reinforce that achievable goal of growing organically, knowing where your food comes from and ensuring low food miles. Try a spicy pasta with potatoes and cavolo nero or the slow cooked capretto with fresh peas.

Review by Penny Woodward

This lovely book is full of delights. For those of us lucky enough to have visited Rose Creek Estate, to have met Tony and Lina, and eaten their food, this book is a wonderful evocation of their lives and lifestyle. The beautiful pictures of everyday life, and those of the garden and produce, combine perfectly with the text about each season and the delicious recipes from preserved chopped tomatoes to sauteed broad beans and a restorative almond drink (something I would need all the time if I worked as hard as Tony and Lina do). There are so many recipes and I am going to try them all over the next year or so as I harvest my seasonal produce.  The author has done a great job of capturing the essence of the Mediterranean lifestyle lived by the Sicilianos. Growing Honest Food is very reasonably priced for a coffee table sized book full of pictures, and would make a great gift for anyone interested in productive gardening and food. Ask for it at your library (get them to buy it if they haven’t got it), buy it from you local independent book shop or buy buy a copy online from the store.

Gabriella Gomersall-Hubbard

Hyland House Publishing, HB, rrp $39.95

Stephen with his much loved dogs

As many of you will now know, Stephen Ryan, horticulturalist, author and broadcaster is no longer the host of Gardening Australia. It is their loss, but unfortunately ours too. Stephen is a friend, so this is not totally unbiased, but I believe that the ABC has been foolish in the way they have squandered his talents. Stephen has a knowledge of horticulture that is second to none. For more than forty years he has worked in the world of plants, winning awards and scholarships, writing books and speaking on the subject all over Australia and overseas. But instead of tapping into this ‘fountain of all knowledge’, they used him to do awkward connects between segments and to spruik a viewer’s suggestion. Such a wasted opportunity. Gardening Australia has, for so many years, worked to showcase gardening for people of all abilities. I have been gardening, and writing about gardening now a long time, and have often learnt something new from watching Gardening Australia. But not so much recently. I sense that in sacking someone as charismatic and knowledgeable as Stephen Ryan, Gardening Australia is heading down the track of the commercial stations, going for popular at the expense of informed. I guess we will know more about the trend when we see who is appointed to the new position. I hope the appointment won’t be all about style, rather than substance.

Introduced grasses have been popular in our gardens for many years now but not native grasses. To help encourage wider use of Australian grasses we have needed a well-written, accessible book on how to grow and use them, and finally we have one. Nick Romanowski obviously has a passion for, and wide-ranging knowledge of, this subject. In chapter 4 he profiles more than 200 native grasses, sedges, rushes and grasstrees and from the numerous photos we can see that many Australian grasses are as beautiful as the introduced grasses. They also have the added bonus of providing food and shelter to native animals, insects and birds, and unlike introduced grasses, very few of them are weeds or have weedy potential. The early chapters explain the differences between the different forms of grasses, as well as how they can be used in the average garden – lawns, borders, mounds, water gardens, bogs, formal and semi-formal beds and finally in pots. Growing, propagating, maintaining and even eating the grasses is also covered.

At present I have only four native grasses in my garden, I am now going to use the list of suppliers at the back to get some more and plant a more interesting understory to my native trees. Any one with an interest in native plants, or who just wants to try something different in their garden that will also benefit the environment, should read Nick’s book. Nick hopes that his book will change the way Australian gardeners look at their gardens and act as ‘a guide to those of us who are concerned about the effects on this country of introduced plants and attitudes to gardening.’ Highly recommended.
Buy it from your local independent bookshop, borrow it from your library or buy a copy online from the store.

Australian Grasses by Nick Romanowski, Hyland House Publishing, Flexi-cover, full-colour, 192 pages $29.95

Smart Gardening by Marcelle Nankervis, Exisle Publishing, $34.99

Ellen with sunflowers

By Ellen

Mum always thought it was only a matter of time before I became I keen gardener. But on the eve of my 22^nd birthday I still don’t feel any strong desire to rave about the brilliance of borage or the magnificence of mint. Growing up with my mother Penny Woodward was always a trade off between gardens and ice cream, gardens and play grounds, gardens and mini golf. My brother and I went with her to the gardens, if we behaved ourselves we got ice cream (or a visit to a play ground, or mini golf). This being said, some of the most memorable hours of my childhood were in gardens. Especially Heronswood in Dromana on the Mornington Peninsula, watching the goldfish and proudly identifying the elephant garlic. I came to know this allium quite well over the ten years Mum spent writing her book Garlic and friends.  Garden visits took us all over Australia, to find mazes, Avenues of Honour, new gardens and plant-oriented ways to write about our family holidays.
When I moved out of home at eighteen I was faced with my own plants. My general philosophy of plant it and ignore it was tested when I nurtured a spearmint plant on the windowsill of my very small room in the halls of residence. Plants were important to lots of people there, they brought some green life to otherwise very grey and brown rooms. One student’s windowsill was adorned with beer bottles, vodka bottles and parsley and carrot plants. Another had a small lemon tree he called Douglas.

Ellen's young hands showing how to plant seed from Growing Easy Herbs

My spearmint plant wilted but survived under my care and I soon added an aloe vera plant.This one I managed to over water. It drooped unhappily until I took it home to mum for some appropriate care. As I shifted houses my small plant entourage grew, and I am now the proud owner of a peppermint, which is better than spearmint, the same aloe vera that has so far survived three and a half years of my care, a chilli plant and a silver beet, all in pots.
I still don’t think I’m a gardener, but it is surprising what has seeped in. You know you’ve absorbed something when you can pick out mistletoe, mint, thyme and pineapple sage, when you can tell the difference between lemons and limes and be able to inform your housemates that that wilting tree is probably a nectarine (even though there was no fruit).

Ellen's older hands demonstrating how to divide costmary to replant.

Growing up with a garden photographer has meant also doing time as a hand model. It is the job I usually got because I was better at sitting still than my younger brother. So I’ve held secateurs as I pretended to cut any number of plants, planted seeds and cuttings, watered worm juice from mum’s new and very special watering can, trying very hard to keep my shadow out of the photo and I’ve held compost at every conceivable angle. For the best array of photos of my hands see Growing Easy Herbs for Beauty Fragrance and Flavour, my hands in that range from six years to twenty-one years.
Growing up with gardening has been an interesting experience, and one that I highly recommend. So introduce your child to gardens and plants, even if it is just so they know how wonderful garlic is, that mint tea is great for queasy stomachs and is so much better made with a fresh mint leaves, that aloe vera soothes burns and that you can use a sage leaf to clean your teeth when you’re separated from your toothbrush.

Rising costs have combined with anxiety about food security to create a critical moment for people considering growing their own food. Right on cue is “Vegies A-Z”. It’s the third OG special (after Getting Started, $10.00, and Fruit, $10.00). Vegies A-Z combines new material with recent OG articles from reliable writers. My quibble with this third volume is that there is not more on soil preparation, which is crucial. Perhaps that’s in Getting Started? Perhaps the three volumes need to be read seriatum, and would make a great gift, possibly to yourself. PW is a major contributor. — AMS.
Note: There is more on soil preparation in Getting Started which is unfortunately currently out of print. A reprint is planned for later this year
Borrow a copy from your library, buy one from your local newsagent or go to the store on this website and buy a copy online