Drawing directly from his experience as an acclaimed climate-change gardener, and of setting up a kitchen garden from scratch for River Cottage, Mark explains the practical aspects of organic growing, introduces us to a whole world of vegetables we may not have previously considered, and does away with alienating gardening jargon once and for all. 
Mark begins with a catalogue of vegetables that will grow in this country, explaining for each their benefits, what varieties to go for, dos and don'ts, and popular culinary uses. He then invites us to create a wish list of foods, and shows us his own list from his early gardening days. Next, he explains how to turn this wish list into a coherent kitchen garden plan appropriate for our space, whether it be a patch of acidic soil, a roof-top garden or an allotment, whether we put on our wellies in every free moment or are 'time-poor' gardeners. Then he puts all the theory into practice, showing us how to look after nutrients in the soil, how to resist pests and diseases, and how to make our garden sustainable and organic. In clear, concise sections we learn about seed trays, supporting plants with climbing structures, mulching, composting, companion planting, irrigation and promoting pollination, and there are additional tables showing sowing and harvesting times, plant sizes, and alternative varieties of plants for different sites.
About thirty recipes and a directory of useful addresses finish the book, and the handbook is complemented by bright colour photography throughout. Practical and inspiring, with a textured hard cover and an introduction by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Veg Patch is destined to join Handbooks No. 1, 2 and 3 as an indispensible household reference.

Veg Patch: River Cottage Handbook No.4

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Diacono, Mark

Cooking by Ingredient

Bloomsbury Publishing

Growing fruit at home is a delicious and altogether more enjoyable alternative to buying it in the shops. Mark Diacono offers a practical and accessible guide to making the most of your garden and what it has to offer.
The first part of the book is an A-Z of the different varieties of fruit, with old favourites like apples, cherries, plums, blackcurrants, white currants, redcurrants, strawberries, blueberries, gooseberries, raspberries and rhubarb as well as more exotic species like figs, grapes, cranberries, Japanese wine berries and apricots. Each is accompanied by a photograph, with detailed advice on when and how to grow and harvest.
In the second part of the book, Mark gives straightforward guidelines on techniques like pruning and training, as well as how to deal with problems or pests. There is a section dedicated to growing under covers and in containers.
Introduced by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and with 30 delicious recipes, beautiful, full-colour photographs and a directory of useful addresses, this is the ideal reference for any aspiring fruit grower.

Fruit: River Cottage Handbook No.9

Chickens are a fantastic addition to a garden or outdoors space--you don't have to live in the back of beyond to have a few clucking around and giving you fresh eggs. They come in all shapes and sizes: some are layers, some are just born to strut. Mark Diacono begins at the basics, showing how you can raise chickens from eggs, and look after them once they start laying their own.
The first part of Chicken &amp; Eggs explains how to think ahead about what kind of chickens you want and how many to get, whether you are going for a breed that lays eggs regularly, or that you might eventually use for eating, or that simply looks decorative. You can choose from Orpingtons, Derbyshire redcaps, Muffed Old English Game, Leghorns and many more. 
Mark then goes on to show how you can breed chickens, encourage them to lay, work out what kind of eggs you have (are they destined for the eggcup, or will they hatch into baby chicks?), and take care of them day to day, as well as how you can go about getting the birds on the table. The final part of the book is a recipe section that goes far beyond the roast, with lots of delicious ideas for fresh eggs or home-reared chicken. 
With an introduction by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, this is an essential guide for anyone who can't stop thinking about chicks.

Chicken & Eggs: River Cottage Handbook No.11

An authoritative and glorious A to Z of more than three hundred ingredients and three hundred recipes, set to become an essential tome in the River Cottage library.
This huge and beautiful book is a River Cottage encyclopedia of ingredients. With entries on vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices, meat, fish, foraged foods, dairy, oils, vinegar, and much more, it celebrates more than three hundred ingredients that the modern cook might come across.
Each ingredient is described by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall or an expert contributor from his River Cottage team. They explain how best to prepare a given ingredient, which varieties to look for, and optimum seasonality. For every entry there is a delicious recipe.
With stunning food photography and gorgeous illustrations, River Cottage A to Z is an ambitious work that will become a guide for every kitchen, as indispensable as The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

River Cottage A to Z: Our Favourite Ingredients, & How to Cook Them

Meller, Gill

Corbin, Pam

Wright, John

Lamb, Steven

FEARNLEY-WHITTINGSTALL, Hugh

Fisher, Nick

Duffy, Nikki

Maddams, Tim

Cooking Methods

WINNER OF THE ANDRE SIMON FOOD BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2014 'Otter Farm is all about flavour. It starts and ends with the question: What do I really want to eat?'
The taste of a perfectly ripe mulberry was Mark Diacono's inspiration for creating Otter Farm, a unique smallholding in Devon with every inch dedicated to extraordinary produce. Sprouting broccoli, asparagus, artichokes, borlotti beans and chard flourish in the vegetable patch; quince and Chilean guava grow in the edible forest; and pigs and chickens roam freely.
Here Mark shares his colourful, beautiful recipes, all brimming with flavour and with fresh vegetables, herbs and fruit – including a warm salad of Padron peppers, cherries and halloumi, a stew made from chicken, pork and borlotti beans, a curried squash and mussel soup, and cucumber ice cream, quince doughnuts and fennel toffee apples. He charts the seasonal challenges and excitements of rural living, and offers practical advice for cultivating the best of the familiar, unusual and forgotten varieties at home. With luminous photography that captures life in the kitchen and outdoors, this ground-breaking book reveals how even the most exotic and exciting tastes can have their roots in British soil.

A Year at Otter Farm

Special Diet

Whether you are taking your first steps in growing some of what you eat, or experienced and looking for inspiration, ideas and some new plants to grow, The New Kitchen Garden is for you. 
Inspired by a range of gardeners growing food on allotments, on rooftops, in container gardens and in other edible spaces, many of them urban, Mark shows you the full exciting breadth of what a kitchen garden can be. Whether you have a window sill, space for a few plants by the back door, an allotment or an acre, you'll find a series of invitations to grow any of almost 200 fruits, nuts, herbs, spices, flowers and vegetables to suit your space, time and inclination. 
Everything is here - the tools, the techniques, the ideas and the knowledge - to enable you to realise that vision of your own kitchen garden, wherever you live. There's also a dozen incredible edible gardens - a rooftop food forest, a courtyard of metre-square raised beds, Charles Dowding's no-dig garden, a child's container garden and Raymond Blanc's heritage garden at Le Manoir among them - their gates flung open by the gardeners to reveal their methods, ideas and techniques, with plans, key plants and photography to accompany. 
Mark Diacono - who was head of the gardening team at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage - captures the spirit of adventure and imagination of those growing food in the twenty-first century. He takes ideas from gardens around the world, including that of his own home, Otter Farm in Devon, with its unique blend of orchards, vineyards, forest gardens, edible hedges, perennial garden and veg patch.
No matter whether you have space for a collection of pots or a small farm at your disposal, The New Kitchen Garden will show you how to create the most incredible edible garden you can.

The New Kitchen Garden: How to Grow Some of What You Eat No Matter Where You Live

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Gardening & Landscape Design

Headline

Grow & Cook: An A-Z of what to grow all through the year at home

Vegetarian & Vegan

“Makes growing your own into a swashbuckling and delicious adventure—where you travel the world and taste its finest fruits in your own backyard.”
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, founder of River Cottage and author of The River Cottage Cookbook
For the food-loving gardener, Mark Diacono has a new mantra: Life is too short to grow ordinary food. Head gardener at the famed River Cottage, Diacono wants us all to stop growing onions, potatoes, and carrots, because it’s just as easy to cultivate mouthwatering delights such as Chilean guava, kai lan, daylilies, Japanese wineberries and Szechuan pepper. In The Food Lover’s Garden he shows how easy it can be to reap extraordinary flavor. 
Selected for their deliciousness and ease of growing, the fruits and vegetables in the book come with straightforward gardening advice and detailed information on how and when to harvest. Preparation suggestions plus fifty recipes, such as sweet Blue Honeysuckle Pancakes, stunning and delicate Daylily Fritters, and a rich, double cream Cardoon Gratin, teach readers how to showcase the unusual ingredients in their home cooking. 
Brimming with practical advice for growing and enjoying 39 of the most remarkable fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, spices, and flowers, The Food Lover’s Garden is a sumptuous and lyrical invitation to garden, eat, and live more adventurously.

The Food Lover's Garden: Amazing Edibles You Will Love to Grow and Eat

Timber Press

Typically, vegetable gardening is about the long view: peas sown in spring aren't harvested until summer, and tomatoes started indoors in February can't be eaten until July. But it's not true for all plants. Some things can be planted and eaten in weeks, days, even hours. The Speedy Vegetable Garden highlights more than 50 quick crops, with complete information on how to sow, grow, and harvest each plant, and sumptuous photography that provides inspiration and a visual guide for when to harvest. In addition to instructions for growing, it also provides recipes that highlight each crop’s unique flavor, like Chickpea sprout hummus, stuffed tempura zucchini flowers, and a paella featuring calendula. Sprouted seeds are the fastest. Microgreens can be harvested in weeks: cilantro, 14 days after planting; arugula and fennel in 10 days. And a handful of vegetable varieties grow more quickly than their slower relatives, like dwarf French beans (60 days), cherry tomatoes (65 days), and early potatoes (75 days). The Speedy Vegetable Garden puts fresh, seed-to-table food at your fingertips, fast!

The Speedy Vegetable Garden

Leendertz, Lia

Sour is the definitive book on this unique taste. From cheese to vinegar, throughout the centuries we have deliberately let – and even encouraged – food to go sour to enhance its flavor. Sour foods have never been more fashionable, with the spotlight falling on foodstuffs as disparate as Belgian sour beer and Korean kimchi. But what is it that makes sourness such an enticing, complex element of the eating experience? And what are the best ways to harness sour flavors in your own kitchen? Mark Diacono sets out to demystify the sour world, and explore why everyone's extolling the virtues of kombucha and fermenting for their digestive health. By grappling with gooseberries and turning his hand to sourdough, experimenting with ultra-cool shrub cocktails, and making his own yogurt, keffir and pickles, Mark tells the story of what makes things sour, and offers recipes that maximize the transformative power of this amazing taste.

Sour: The Magical Element that Will Transform Your Cooking

Quadrille

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