It is what it says it is, gardening to eat. It's simple, specific, and practical. Gardening tips and recipes are easy enough to follow even for those who have never done any or both. Highly recommend to anyone who wants to try their hand at growing their own food.

I absolutely loved reading this one! No fancy ingredients. Just real, nourishing food. The book is well structured a d easy to navigate.

A very useful, easy to read and informative book about vegetables and other plants you can use cooking.
It's well written, full of ideas and hints.
I strongly recommend if you need a reference guide or you are a beginner.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Gardening to Eat: Connecting People and Plants by Becky Dickinson is a nonfiction book. Embrace a plant-based lifestyle all the way from seed to plate. This inspiring and informative book takes the mystery out of gardening and reveals how to grow an array of fruits and vegetables using simple, organic techniques. Packed with fresh ideas for turning home-grown produce into delicious, nutritious meals, you'll find heaps of no-nonsense recipes created for real people with busy lives and healthy appetites. No fads, no fuss, no fancy ingredients, just real, honest, ethical food. With a passion for connecting people and plants, Gardening to Eat brings the garden into the kitchen. For people who love food and love to know where it's come from.

Gardening to Eat is a book for those that want to be more self sufficient, and grow their own fresh fruits and veggies. I liked the idea of the book- and there was some good advice. However, some of it was over the top. Many of us do not have the room for things like greenhouses or the processes of crop rotation, and in that regard I think the book felt a little uneven. Support for even growing some herbs indoors is given- and then the importance of going large and going all out is stated. Once the book got to the individual crop possibilities- and recipes for the rewards and possible over abundance- I was much happier with the read. Granted, I am in the states so there were a few things that were not relevant to me (like hedgehogs for slug control) a great deal was universal.

Gardening to Eat by Becky Dickinson
Connecting People and Plants

This basic introduction to gardening begins by introducing the whys you might want to consider, and reasons gardening might be an option for you. What are the benefits to body, mind, life, environment and more. There is discussion of what to grow, location, planting, composting, companion planting and pest control. I was intrigued by the idea of using plastic bottles and glass jars to keep pests and slugs off seedlings and may share that idea with my husband.

I remember the first carrots we harvested after planting seeds with my mother. I must have been about four or five at the time and I still remember when the earth movers came and dug up our tiny garden to put in a new housing development. At this point in time my husband is the gardener and has over six acres of land to work with. This book didn’t provide new information for us but it was interesting to read. One of the biggest takeaways for me is the idea that a new gardener should plant what they like to eat.

In the second part of the book a variety of produce are presented individually with information about strengths, weaknesses, conditions required, and tips to assist. There are further details on pests, pruning, harvesting, varieties to try and this information is followed by a few recipes using the fruit or vegetable being discussed.

I believe this would be a great introductory book for someone wishing to begin a garden of their own.

Thank you to NetGalley and White Owl for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4 Stars

Good but basic fruit and veg gardening book. I did appreciate the inclusion of some varieties that American books seem to leave out (this book is British) like parsnips. Useful reference book.

Why else would you garden if it’s not to eat? No nonsense guide to grow vegetables and fruit from the dirt and the journey to your plate. Contains helpful information on why you should garden for yourself so you can obtain the benefits. Four stars!

There are so many reasons to grow your own vegetables and Becky Dickinson discusses them including personal gratification and health, fabulous flavour, environment and ecology. She also allays any fears by giving reasons why people don't do it and refuting them. It is also very important to know what will grow under your conditions and to adjust expectations. My gardening zone is a 2a, one of the coldest on the planet with only 80-90 frost-free days a year. If I can grow many vegetables, anyone can! There are obviously many I can't but you make due with what you have.

Other focuses of the book include natural pest control (if only we had hedgehogs here!), crop rotation (this really works!), planting and harvesting. I really like that many tried and true seed varieties are included, removing guesswork. And then there are lots of recipes using said produce. There is information on particular fruits, too, such as blueberries. At the beginning of many fruit and vegetable discussion is a detailed little blurb about strengths, weaknesses, conditions and other tips (i.e. sowing and harvesting). You will learn things such as chitting, a word I had completely forgotten!

Amongst the recipes I plan to make are Chard and Potato Gratin, Slightly Spiced Parsnip Crisps, Pea and Ricotta Tagliatelle and Next Level Potato Salad with Caramelized Red Onions (which I am making tonight).

This is an inspiring book which addresses simple gardening questions which is excellent preparation for the upcoming growing season!

An advance review copy was provided to me by Pen & Sword and NetGalley. Much appreciated!

Gardening to Eat is a tutorial gardening guide with some recipes by Becky Dickinson. Due out 28th Feb 2021 from Pen & Sword on their White Owl imprint, it's 152 pages and will be available in hardcover format.

I liked the no-nonsense logical layout of the book. Beginning with an exposition about why to grow food, what the benefits can be, the payoff in terms of mental and physical health, the benefits locally and globally, the author moves along to a short (and very encouraging!) very basic gardening how-to tutorial.

The second section of the book (and the lion's share of the content) is given over to chapter by chapter treatment of individual veggies, resources, varieties, how-to-grow info, and a selection of recipes using the harvest. All of the "big name" veggies are of course represented: tomatoes, peppers, cole crops, sweetcorn, onions and beans of many types... but I also appreciate that the author also has included many overlooked crops which might not immediately suggest themselves to beginning gardeners: blackcurrants, blueberries, chard, and rhubarb as an example.

The recipes are meat-free, varied and simple and interesting and allow the tastes of the vegetables to shine through on their own. There's a lovely traditional gazpacho, but also a rather unexpectedly adventuresome beetroot burger recipe. Recipe ingredients are provided in standard metric measures (yay!) and should be available at well stocked grocers. Nutritional information is not provided. The photography throughout is gorgeous - clear, colourful, and appealing. The author's style is very upbeat and positive and a lot of fun to read.

Five stars. This is a beautifully made garden-to-table book which will certainly get readers' fingers itching to get started. I would recommend it for home gardeners, public or school library acquisition, allotment garden associations' lending libraries, gardening clubs, and similar groups.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

This book was a fun read. I wish it had some more information about growing these plants in the US but I still really liked that I learned some fun recipes to use for when I make stuff here. I am ready for it to be time to grow my garden!

While this book is meant for gardeners in Britain, I found many useful facts and tips. I am from the USA, so I took what was written and internally translated it for my interests. It is well thought out, informative, and I love that there are recipes in it to use the plants they are talking about. If I were in Britain, this would be a go-to book for me. The author makes the information accessible for your typical backyard gardener. Each plant is described in detail with tips on growing it for use. Plants are accompanied by pictures, as are the recipes. From soil prep to harvest to consumption, this book covers it all. It should be a must-have on the shelf of every British gardener.

A goal I have is to some day have a huge thriving garden, so when I saw this book, I was really excited to read it.

I love that this book is based not only on a plant based lifestyle, but also talks about why and how to grow your own food! I loved all of the gardening tips in this one, and will definitely be trying them out. I loved that the book was broken down by eat fruit or vegetable. It then showed tips and information about growing that particular thing and followed with recipes.

I would recommend this cookbook to anyone who loves to cook with fresh produce. Even if you decide a garden isn’t for you, these recipes would be awesome to use with a local CSA box as well.

Thanks to @netgalley and #penandswordbooks for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is a very well written and comprehensive, but not textbook dry, book on vegetable gardening. I have gardened over thirty years and found the information to be both sound and practical, with many tips not often given, such as “puddling in” transplants. I also like that the author included specific recipes after each vegetable growing guide section. The photographs are beautiful and make me want to rush out and start planting. I highly recommend this book.

I hope that the editors see fit to insert American measurements along with the European equivalents given in the planting and cooking instructions. This would make it more pertinent and salable in the U.S.

The gardening introduction is extremely detailed and aimed at real gardeners who are willing to invest time, money and energy. We are talking setting up a garden plan, a greenhouse and everything. My little pots and mini patches on the balcony and roof were a bit ashamed. So I couldn’t quite follow through on the instructions, that is a bigger project.
I did however learn how to grow some of my favourite veg (looking at you, kale) which my family doesn’t know and can’t teach me, as well as finding out about different varieties of vegetables to try once I do have a garden.
The recipes (based on each grown vegetable or fruit) are a good mix of traditional and inventive.

I am lucky enough to have a small garden, even though I'm in a very urban area, and one of my goals this year is to make use of it, growing my own produce. Let's see... I think this book will be a lifeline for me!
I want to grow fresh food to connect more with nature, to enjoy the process, as well as to know there are no nasties in my veg.
As I'm not a confident gardener I needed some guidance, and this is a great book for that.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Handy guide to not only eat from the garden but actually growing it as well.
Useful tips and good recipes. It’s everything you’d expect from a book like this, but it lacks a certain surprising element, something to differentiate from the masses.

Gardening to Eat is a charming, informative book. It starts by teaching us about various types of gardens, organic gardening, composting, companion planting, crop rotation and pest control. But you won’t feel overwhelmed, I promise. This isn’t a textbook – it’s like a favorite aunt is visiting from the country, and over a cup of tea and cookies, she shares the wisdom of her years with you.

I’ve grown large vegetable gardens for decades, and thought I knew just about everything. But did I know that baking broken eggshells will make the edges sharper for repelling slugs? No, I didn’t. Have I heard ‘weeds’ and ‘blow torch’ mentioned in the same sentence before? No, I haven’t. I give Auntie a few more cookies and encourage her to keep talking. We chat about pests and weeds, and I‘m eager to start planning out my garden.

Then suddenly she exclaims, ‘beans!’ and starts telling me their strengths and weaknesses, what conditions beans like, and whether they can grow in containers (yes!). She also gives me a ‘top tip’ about successional sowings. There’s many types of beans to choose from and different ways to plant them, so Auntie makes sure I understand everything.

Then, she reaches for her purse, pulls out a stack of recipe cards, and hands one to me with a smile. Thai Green Bean Curry sounds delicious. The recipe is written in an easy to follow, friendly manner. I’m handed another card. Spice and Easy Five-a-Day Rice. ‘Good for using up leftovers’, she tells me, and then she announces, ‘beetroot!’

Soon I’m as enraptured with beetroot as I was with beans. She guides me through the learning process once again. As she hands me recipes for Beetroot Burgers with Horseradish Sauce and Beetroot Dahl, I start to wonder if she’d like to live in my guest room forever.

We keep discussing vegetables in alphabetical order, right on through tomatoes, until Auntie has given me all of her recipe cards. I think she’s happy her accumulated knowledge has been passed on. I wish I’d met Auntie when I was younger and just learning about gardening. I hope you’ll invite her for a visit and a chat. Be sure to bake some cookies.

Thank you to the publisher for an advance copy of this book via netgalley!

Well why didn’t anyone any think of combining a gardening book of what you should grow and how...with delicious recipes on what to do with the veggies you have grown before !! What a great idea! And the recipes are so yummy it will be hard to pick what to plant next year!

This is nice advice for how to grow a wide variety of vegetables, with a few recipes provided for each. I appreciated that each vegetable profiled had lists of what was challenging and what was easy about it, with recommended varieties. The author is based in the UK and so I had to extrapolate a bit for my MN garden, but I still picked up some nice tips and inspiration for next year's garden.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review. My kindle version had color photos but the formatting was messed up, so I can't speak to how effective or attractive the final photo element of the book will be.

Limited gardening information, with interesting recipes. Would be helpful for very novice gardeners and fairly novice cooks. I enjoyed the sections on varieties of vegetables to grow.