Rhapsody in Green

'A witty account of 'extreme allotmenteering' for all obsessive gardeners' - Mail on Sunday 'An extremely entertaining and inspiring story of one woman's passionate transformation of a small; irregular shaped urban garden into a bountiful source of food.' - Woman & Home 'A gardening book like no other; this is the author's 'love letter' to her garden. She relays warm and witty stories about the trials and tribulations throughout her gardening year.' - Garden News '...this inspirational; funny book; written by someone who hankers after a homesteader's lifestyle; will make you look at even your window box in a new; more productive light.' - The Simple Things Gardening can be viewed as a largely pointless hobby; but the evangelical zeal and camaraderie it generates is unique. Charlotte Mendelson is perhaps unusually passionate about it. For despite her superficially normal existence; despite the fact that she has only six square metres of grotty urban soil and a few pots; she has a secret life. She is an extreme gardener; an obsessive; an addict. And like all addicts; she wants to spread the joy. Her garden may look like a nasty drunk old man's mini-allotment; chaotic; virtually flowerless; with weird recycling and nowhere to sit. When honoured friends are shown it; they tend to laugh. However; it is actually a tiny jungle; a minuscule farm; a wildly uneconomical experiment in intensive edible cultivation; on which she grows a taste of perhaps a hundred kinds of delicious fruits and odd vegetables. It is a source of infinite happiness and deep peace. It looks completely bonkers. Arguably; it's the most expensive; time-consuming; undecorative and self-indulgent way to grow a salad ever invented; but when tired or sad or cross it never fails to delight.