Jane Griffiths

Jane's Delicious Garden is a practical and inspiring guide to preparing, planting and growing vegetables and herbs organically in any space – from small urban gardens to country smallholdings.

This beautiful, hard cover book is packed with practical advice, timesaving tips, step-by-step instructions and personal anecdotes, Jane's Delicious Garden is for novices and gardening gurus alike. With over 200 photographs taken by Jane and her husband Keith Knowlton, this 240-page book provides detailed information on how to grow nearly 100 vegetables and herbs. Beautifully illustrated by the author, Jane's Delicious Garden will enable you to feed your family and friends with wholesome, organic food harvested from your garden.

Written by a South African for South Africans, Jane's Delicious Garden is about taking a small step towards a time we once knew, a time when we were in touch with what we ate. It's about remembering what we have forgotten. It is about returning to our roots.

The shortest food mile is from your vegetable garden to your kitchen table – or from your local farmers' market to your home. But how do you make the most of an abundant harvest??

Jane's Delicious Kitchen is a fun, inspiring and practical cooking journey through the seasons – whether you grow your own food or buy seasonal produce. Filled with practical advice, time-saving tips and over 100 mouth-watering and individually photographed recipes, this feast of a recipe book is about making the most of seasonal bounty. Whether you want to preserve summer's harvest at its peak of flavour or let spring's freshest ingredients shine in simple yet sumptuous dishes, Jane's Delicious Kitchen is for gardening gourmet chefs and novices alike.

Following in the footsteps of the best-selling Jane's Delicious Garden, this luscious book is a celebration of the cycles of nature.

Although Jane has travelled extensively, her favourite journey is from her organic vegetable garden to her kitchen. She is an inspired chef who seldom cooks the same recipe twice. Jane's partner in life, work and on the road is photographer and television producer Keith Knowlton. He is an inspired dishwasher who seldom eats the same meal twice. He can often be heard saying, 'That's the best thing you've ever made!'

Why should companies choose Jane Griffiths as their speaker?

In early 2008, when I started writing my first book, Jane's Delicious Garden, the food crisis hadn't happened, the world's financial markets were solid and nobody had heard the term load shedding. Within a few months that had all changed. And whenever I told someone I was writing a book on how to grow organic vegetables and herbs, they'd say "Oh I want a copy – when is it coming out." Or "Oh I've just started my first ever vegetable garden – I need your book now!"

Not only did this inspire me to keep on writing, it also gave me my first indication of the growth in this market. When I reached 80 000 words I started contacting publishers – and within three days I had a publishing contract with Jonathan Ball. Within two weeks of publication it was on Exclusive Books bestseller list and it has not moved off it since. Within six months it had outsold both Margaret Roberts and Keith Kirsten. Today, Jane's Delicious Garden is in its 5th print run and has sold over 13 000 copies. This is a clear indication of how hungry people are for this information. It was the right book at the right time.

And my talks are the right content at the right time. The reason for the increased interest in growing our own food is not purely economical. Although some of the motivation is to save money on the monthly grocery bill, it also has to do with us becoming aware of what we are putting in our bodies and what we are feeding our children. We are waking up to the fact that organically grown food is healthier for us and one way to make sure we know what is in our food - is to grow it ourselves.

It is also part of a global shift to get back to our roots – literally! South Africans are becoming increasingly aware of carbon footprints and food miles. By growing our own food we reduce own impact on the planet because the shortest food mile is from our garden to the kitchen table.
Growing your own vegetables is easier than you think – as many people are starting to realise. A green thumb is not something that is inherited; it is something we can all develop. And as my thousands of readers are realising – if I can do – so can they!

Overview of talks:

1. Growing organic vegetables and herbs (30 minutes or one hour)

Do you want to grow organic vegetables and herbs and don't know where to start? Organically grown produce is far healthier for you and your family and it is a big step towards reducing your impact on the planet. Plus it is much easier than you think. In her talk, Jane Griffiths covers the basics of organic gardening, including time saving techniques and space saving tips. From learning about the importance of healthy soil to finding out how to confuse the bugs - this is the talk to attend if you want to get growing!

2. Jane's Delicious Garden Workshop (two hours with a half hour break in between)

An inspirational talk showing people how easy it is to set up and manage an organic vegetable garden, starting with soil and ending with the harvest. The workshop includes the following:
• Overview and basics of organic vegetable gardening
• Designing and laying out the vegetable garden
• Preparing the soil
• How to make compost
• What to plant
• Sowing seeds
• Transplanting seedlings
• Protecting seeds and seedlings
• Companion planting
• Maximising your space and time
• Maintaining the vegetable garden
• Protection against pests, disease etc.
• Harvesting: How to maximise & preserve the harvest

3. Customized talks

I have given a number of talks customised for an audience.

Examples:

A Valentine's Market: A half hour talk that wove together the similar ingredients required for a healthy relationship and a healthy organic vegetable garden. (Good relationships start with a solid foundation = building healthy soil etc)

Writers Group: The talk covered the writing process behind my two books, anecdotes from my garden and events that occurred while writing, advice for getting a book published, how to market and promote a book, what to expect from a publisher etc.

Advertising Buyers: A talk about the growth of "organic" and why and how it has been happening.