Joy Larkcom

"The benefits of shelter cannot be exaggerated. Research has shown that sheltering s from even light winds can increase their yields by up to 30 per cent — which is equivalent to the increase in returns from optimum irrigation or optimum fertilizer use. The bents of sheltering plants from severe winds are considerably higher. In coastal areas, s also give protection from wind-borne ."

"By the 1980s we had reorganized our kitchen garden and laid it out in parallel narrow beds — a practical, efficient, centuries-old system, enabling the to develop a high state of fertility in the beds. ... Not long afterwards I made my first Little Potager, an area nor more than 6½ by 4½ m/20 by 15 ft. It was later enclosed in an undulating woven willow fence. Then followed a Winter Potage, primarily for edible plants which retain leaf, stem or flower colour in winter; these include s, hardy s, purple-flowering , hardy , , s, , 'Parcel' celery and winter pansies. Partially edged with low, stopover apples, the Winter Potager is surrounded on three sides by a of vines, and . With luck it remains colourful and decorative even in mid-winter. The full story is told in my book Creative Vegetable Gardening, but what is relevant here is the decorative potential of so many salad plants."

"... of all the Oriental vegetables, the , a group roughly defined as members of the cabbage family, should prove the most rewarding for Westerners to get to know and grow. An amazingly diverse group, it includes the sturdy, bud-like heads of (already well known in the West), the crisp white- and green-stemmed s, and with their delicious flowering shoots, the pretty fern-leaved s and the . Within the mustards there are exceptionally hardy varieties with beautiful purple-hued leaves, compact-headed mustards and forms with weirdly swollen but highly prized stems and roots."

"is a passion with people from all walks of life, all races, all ages, and the plots they cultivate range from large country gardens to allotments, to tiny urban patches, to es. For me, it is a very personal passion. In the 1970s my husband and I and our two young children spent a year touring western Europe in a caravan, studying vegetable growing and collecting old varieties. We "rediscovered" forgotten salad plants like and , as well as the then new and green Italian Lollo lettuces. On our return we introduced them to the UK, along with the productive cut-and-come-again technique for growing salad seedlings."

"Her book Grow your Own Vegetables is a masterpiece of good sense; I have read it more than once. And her Creative Vegetable Gardening is, as books go, my happy place, one I head back to whenever I feel uninspired by my own garden. So imagine how excited I was when I got an invitation to her retirement vegetable garden that sits on a windswept corner of . She and Don, her husband, converted it from a in just under 10 years. As a garden, it is everything I hoped for. Relaxed, a little messy perhaps to some (but not to the wildlife), joyous with colour and filled to the brim with food. I squished many s in return for some lemon verbena tea. If you want to read more about her garden, buy Just Vegetating. It is much more than simply a – it also takes in her travels in the pursuit of the best vegetables from Europe to China."