A comprehensive guide to organic growing. Garden With excellent photographs throughout, this book can help you to enjoy your gardening all year round, and grow a wider variety of vegetables, salads and herbs to feed your friends and family. Blackmore Vale magazine I visited Charles' garden some four years ago when he held his annual open day. It turned into a life changing afternoon out. The rotavator was sold and we have never dug since. Our vegetable patch now provides us with virtually all our vegetable needs, is totally organic and looks a picture too. Thank you Charles. Sawdays Newsletter I don't think I've ever previously sat down and read a book on vegetable growing from cover to cover, but this one had me hooked. It is a model of clarity. BBC Gardens Illustrated Want to know about vegetables and no-dig gardening? Look no further: Charles Dowding is your guru. Packed with information and first hand experience. Oxford Times A wonderful book, to devour at a reading and to keep on hand for constant reference and enjoyment. The Lady What commentators say about Charles Dowding's methods: 'It wasn't the variety of salad leaf shape, texture and colour that impressed me most. It was the plants' health. If ever there was vindication of Dowding's theories, here it was. The leaves seemed to burst from the ground, glossy and exuberant.' Matthew Fort, Guardian 'I first met Charles when Geoff Hamilton and I presented an entire Gardeners' World programe from his organic farm in Somerset. The crops grew on beds that were never dug, but dressed with compost or well-rotted manure ... A visit to Charles's garden was all I needed to convince me to hang up my spade ... ' Anne Swithinbank, Gardeners' Question Time [Anne has used Charles' no-dig method since then, and has also adopted his way of growign and picking salad.] And what course participants say: 'My number one gem from the course was "Don't take perceived wisdom as gospel - try it for yourself and see what works for you." Eka, Oxford "We have been trying your salad picking method and it has been a raving success. We have been picking for the last 8 weeks or so ... Despite feeding 8+ people twice weekly and contributing to countless events, the lettuces hardly look as if they have been touched.' Jenny, Cardiff 'It has been fantastic watching the garden come to life over the last year, and I'm looking forward to another full year of produce. Thanks again for showing me how easy it can be.' John, Brighton Sharpen-up your veg-growing skills with this new guide. Amateur Gardening 'A must for the time stretched.' Bunny Guinness Sunday Telegraph Charles Dowding is my hero: his no-dig approach to growing has saved me hours of back-breaking work and improved my techniques no end. His tried and tested advice has been proven from years of successful veg production and it's easy to see from the health and vitality of his plants that htis approach really works. Guardian Gardening blog I found 'The Vegetable Course' a really good read and enjoyable as well. The content has answered so many questions we had as we started plotting, both text and illustrations. In addition I think the publishers did a very good job on the book. The binding works well at the plot, on the sofa and in bed. I do dislike those books that jump out of your hands as you're reading them. Yours behaves itself brilliantly. That the font is readable and the pictures well reproduced makes it a real pleasure. Thank you. Ken Bird, reader A book for all growers, who will find easier, more productive ways to grow vegetables all the year round within. The Landsman

Charles Dowding grew up on a dairy farm in Somerset. After graduating from Cambridge he worked for a hotel in the Inner Hebrides before starting to grow organic vegetables commercially on the family farm in the early 1980s. In 1990 he left behind what was by then a large market garden to live in France and Zambia. Returning to Somerset in the mid 1990s, he established a bed and breakfast and vegetable growing business at Lower Farm in Shepton Montague. Charles's salad bags are now the main output from his two-acre garden of permanent raised beds and fruit trees. Charles also runs his vegetable-growing courses at Lower Farm and lectures and writes books on his unique growing techniques.