My Weekly Book

My Roots – Monty Don

A book that is not all that it first appears, and undoubtedly more than the sum of its parts. It is, ostensibly, a collection of gardening columns written for The Observer over the course of several years. It is skillfully put together, in that the columns appear in their correct month order, thus accurately mirroring the passage of the horticultural year. But it is more than a mere collection, and more than a book about gardening. It is no less than a manifesto for a better way of life.

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This makes it inspiring and damned irritating in about equal measure. There are subjects on which I wholeheartedly agree with Mr Don – chiefly regarding the organic movement, the soul-stirring pleasure of growing and eating your own veg, the ills of the food production industry and the importance in every life of space for a little bit of fantasy and creativity. And then there are the subjects on which he drives me mad – chiefly the all-consuming joys of family life which the people experiencing it never seem to appreciate may apply to them but doesn’t necessarily resonate with everyone else out here in the big, wide world.

It’s no use picking this up if you want good advice about growing spuds or tips for an infallible display of disease-free rose blooms. Because that’s not the author’s game at all. He’s celebrating the garden as more than just organic, but as an organism and as an extension of the people that create it. As such it is self-willed, dirty, untidy, dynamic, bloody hard work, prone to failure and disappointment and in need of a master plan that takes place over years, possibly even decades rather than weeks or months. But infinitely rewarding as well and that’s one of the key messages for readers to take away.

In our household, the passing of Alan Titchmarsh from Gardeners’ World was a moment of great tragedy. When we heard that Monty Don was to take over, we were cautiously optimistic (a sentiment not necessarily shared by the rest of gardening Britain, but never mind.) ‘He’s a vegetable man,’ we said to ourselves, and our faith has been justified. When we settle down for our regular Friday night fix we can be sure of an update on the progress of the winter brassicas and the recently-planted radicchio, not to mention the tomatoes in the greenhouse. Marry this with inquiries into the whys and wherefores of good composting, the necessity to chit potatoes before planting and paeans of praise for allotments and flower and veg shows and round here you have happy viewers.

If you’re the same then there’s little question that you’ll enjoy this. But maybe if you never give your garden a thought you will find something in it for you as well. Maybe you’re interested in questions of environmentalism and the economics of food production, maybe you’re more inclined to speculate on the nature of human spirituality. Whatever appeals, it’s possible you’ll find food for thought here. It’s that kind of book…

• Read an extract
• Monty Don introduces the above extract
• Gardeners’ World

This entry was posted on Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 5:43 pm and is filed under 2006 reading challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.