2009 Book Reviews
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Grow Your Own Drugs by James Wong
This book accompanies the recent BBC2 programme of the same name, James Wong, an ethno-botanist, has created a fantastically informative guide to plants and how their beneficial properties can help with minor everyday ailments. The book shows you how you can not only grow your own drugs, but put them together in your own kitchen, relatively easily. James offers a range of natural remedies ‘which may help relieve the symptoms of ailments from acne to athlete’s foot, and winter blues to nits’.
James demonstrates how to make creams, soothing gels, lavender bath treats, herb teas, and much more, from plants which can be easily grown in your own garden or sourced in local garden centres. Almost all the recipes from the 6 part show are in the book, and more besides. If you’re new to making your own herbal remedies, this is the perfect book to start with. Nicely illustrated with lots of photos of the finished products, there are recommendations for things to have in the store cupboard for making the remedies. A basic kitchen kit guide, plus a list of things to take with you when you go foraging, as well as a useful resources list.
Laid out in the same way as the programme, Fruit, Flowers, Trees, Herbs, Roots, Vegetables there is a guide to the top 100 plants detailing where to find it growing, its uses and some extra brief recipes. It's a book I would turn to time and time again for recipes to make me and my family feel better naturally, the recipes are easy to follow and I've had successful results with all the remedies I've made from the book.
Review by Debs Cook |
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Mother Nature's Herbal by Judy Griffin
Step into a world of spiritual rejuvenation and radiant health with the restorative power of herbs. Brimming with herbal folklore, tips for growing and harvesting your own herbs, and over two hundred medicinal and culinary recipes from diverse cultures, Mother Nature's Herbal will become your trusted companion on the path to natural living.
Take a tour of the time-honored traditions and healing practices of cultures past and present, including Native and South American, Mediterranean, East Asian, and others. Create delicious and exotic entrees, brew soothing herbal teas, mix perfumes and salves using flower essences from your backyard garden, prepare elixirs and medicines to treat every ailment-and so much more.
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RHS Simple Steps to Success: Herbs by William Denne
This is a useful beginner’s guide to herb growing, that shows the new herb gardener ways to incorporate herbs into their garden, sowing and growing tips abound and there are lots of projects for beginners to try their hands at, plus herb themes such as edible flowers and low maintenance herbs with shopping lists of what herbs you need to buy to achieve the affect in the garden. The book is richly illustrated throughout with lots of photos of individual herbs. It contains a useful chapter on maintaining your herbs and a plant guide that lists soil type, preferred situation and hardiness.
Review by Debs Cook |
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How to Garden: Vegetables and Herbs By Alan Titchmarsh
Anybody that owns Alan’s ‘The Complete How to Be a Gardener’ or ‘The Kitchen Gardener’ books already has the information in this book to hand. For a book containing only 144 pages, information about herbs takes up only 15 of those pages. Only the most common culinary herbs are included and the information is very basic. A good guide if you’re just starting out growing your own vegetables and want to include a few herbs for the pot and only want a basic selection, but I can’t help but think there are better guides out there including some excellent ones by Mr Titchmarsh. It would make a good present for the person new to vegetable gardening, but not of much use to the seasoned herb and vegetable grower.
Review by Debs Cook |
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The Secret Life of the Garden by Chris Beardshaw
This book was previously published in hardback in 2007 under the title “How Does Your Garden Grow?”. If you’re interested in how and why your garden grows I can heartily recommend this book. Billed as a book that unlocks the ‘secret science of gardening’ it claims to help the reader ‘understand your plants and get the best out of them’, it doesn’t lie. As well as the science behind the garden, Chris offers useful tips and age old gardening wisdom. There are some beautiful illustrations in the book and plenty of informative diagrams that explain such things as the process of germination and inside plants cells. I found the list of herbs that could be used as dynamic accumulators for compost making very useful.
Review by Debs Cook |
Forum Members Recommend
A recent post on our forum asking people to list their Top Five herbal reference books that they think everyone should own, saw many varied suggestions. Here's a selection of 5, see the post and add your own recommendations here.
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