Green shoots

     I've enjoyed reading Clarissa Dickson Wright's and Johnny Scott's A Greener Life very much, not just for all the practical information  - and there's lots of it - on growing your own food, raising livestock, keeping a greener home and so on, but for the fact that the authors' personalities shine through. It's not a bland how-to book, but one with a distinctive style. You may throw up your hands at some of the views expressed, or you may agree wholeheartedly with them, but either way you will laugh and you'll learn something.
     Another thing I liked was the little off-shoots of information which punctuate the text, the snippets that have you saying "I never knew that", so here are a few for your edification:
 - Do you grow melons (and who does not)? - support the hanging fruit with ferret hammocks.
 - Henry VIII's romantic wedding gift to the homesick Catherine of Aragon was an orangerie and salad garden in every royal palace.
 - In eighteenth century England, Londoners used to walk among the bean fields of Chelsea to smell the lovely scent.
 - Angelica was once the main export of eleventh century Iceland for use as an anti-scorbutic.
 - In medieval times, ladies would embroider a bee hovering over a thyme plant on a kerchief to give to their knights as encouragement in battle.
 - Shetland sheep don't require shearing; instead, the old wool loosens and can be pulled off in a process called rooing.
 - And finally, this is what you can get if you try your hand at candle-making!

Comments

[Rebecca]

Ferret hammocks? Is this something I can knit, I wonder?

I shall keep an eye out for this book, you have made it sound very appealing.

[BrittArnhild]

Sounds like a book after my heart :-)

[Pamela]

Isn't it wonderful to be curious? There is so much to learn!!

[Wanda]

What a fabulous, useful sounding book!
It seems that Ferret hammocks would be good for tomatoes and other climbing vegetables.