The Vegetable Garden Displayed

"This was the first gardening book I ever owned. I still have that original copy, a 1960 edition. What I particularly liked about it were the clothes that people wore – they were all wearing demob suits. Also, there is not a single face in the book – their faces are all hidden or cut off. So you just have these anonymous figures, wearing demob suits, gardening. It is so beautiful in a very English, very eccentric way. The first edition was published during the Second World War as part of the “Dig for Victory” campaign. This was the Royal Horticultural Society’s contribution. As well as being a beautiful object and a period piece, it still works as a very good manual, despite being so old. If you want a book about how to grow vegetables, it remains one of the best manuals. Now that I know a lot about publishing and books, I can appreciate how well constructed it was. But for me, it is deeply personal. I pored over it. I almost know it by heart. As a 16 or 17 year old I loved it, and I still do. There are 19 different areas [of the garden] and at any one time, two or three of them are doing something interesting. So we just focus on them. We never try and focus on the whole of the garden. Spring is the most exciting time of year. The garden doesn’t really do much from November to February."