The Sceptical Gardener: The Thinking Person's Guide to Good Gardening

Description

Ken Thompson is a biologist but has been writing about gardening for over fifteen years, and has been a gardener for longer than he would care to remember. In this collection of articles originally written for the Daily Telegraph he sets out to examine some of gardening's most intriguing questions, and even manages to track down answers to a few of them. Why is that we seem to care more for common rather than rare animals? How can a gardener improve the flavour of their vegetables? And what do bees do that improves strawberries? From the difference between British and Spanish bluebells, why Matucana and High Scent sea peas are far superior to the Valerie Harrod variety, and the easy way to sex an earwig, Thompson provides an expert's miscellany of gardening knowledge, aimed at making you not necessarily a better gardener - but quite probably a far more thoughtful one.

Ken Thompson was for twenty years a lecturer in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield. He writes regularly on gardening for the Daily Telegraph. His previous book, Where Do Camels Belong? (Profile, 2014), was described as 'lively and punchy' by the Sunday Times.

A delight ... if you have simply had enough of people refusing to take gardening seriously, I suggest you buy The Sceptical Gardener * The Spectator * Packed with good, common-sense gardening advice gleaned from years of tending his own patch, it's also very funny * Waitrose Weekend *