Bob Flowerdew

"I like: gardening, scented plants, good food, cats, beautiful women, conversation, reading, etymology, outrageous ideas, public speaking, scuba diving and whinging on about the state of things.

I dislike: bad and bland food, political correctness and people whinging on about the state of things."
 
Bob Flowerdew was born into a family that has tilled the land in Norfolk and Suffolk since pre-Elizabethan times. A member of the Henry Doubleday Research Association and the Soil Association, Bob practises what he preaches with his own organic garden in Norfolk. He lectures widely and can be heard on Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time.

Bob is Britain's leading organic gardener, but, among other occupations, he has been a chicken giblet washer, computer installation engineer, council cleaner, dog impersonator, glass fibre laminator, houseboy and cook in a house of ill repute, security lighting engineer, marine engineer, museum attendant, nude model, official guide in Paris, theatrical gofer, vitreous enamel applicator, arcade mechanic and inventor.

The son of a farmer, he actually studied financial management. After graduating, he worked his way around Europe and North America and became fascinated by the different gardening and farming methods, returning to pick grapes with one French family for 12 successive years.

Bob has been gardening on his current plot for more than 16 years and grows organic fruit and vegetables of almost every variety our climate will allow, including bananas, pineapples and guavas. He also keeps chickens, ducks, geese and bees. He set out to prove that all this can be done single-handedly and in your spare time - which he has achieved but at great cost to his social life!

Bob runs a consultancy landscape service, teaches at agricultural college and is president of the Norfolk group of the Soil Association.

Bob has written several books on gardening including Bob Flowerdew's Complete Book of Companion Gardening, Bob Flowerdew's Complete Fruit Book and Bob Flowerdew's Organic Bible.