Readings.com.au: Jackie French

Christmas Wombat

Christmas comes but once a year, and it′s just as well for Santa′s reindeer, who have to fight with Mothball for the carrots left out for them by the local children. And when Mothball takes an unexpected sleigh ride, it′s not just Santa who faces the prospect of getting stuck in the chimney.

Christmas from a wombat′s eye view is always going to be interesting - especially when that wombat is Mothball.

Ages 3+

Nanberry Black Brother White

It's 1789, and as the new colony in Sydney Cove is established, Surgeon John White defies convention and adopts Nanberry, an Aboriginal boy, to raise as his son. Nanberry is clever and uses his unique gifts as an interpreter to bridge the two worlds he lives in. With his white brother, Andrew, he witnesses the struggles of the colonists to keep their precarious grip on a hostile wilderness. And yet he is haunted by the memories of the Cadigal warriors who will one day come to claim him as one of their own. This true story follows the brothers as they make their way in the world - one as a sailor, serving in the Royal Navy, the other a hero of the Battle of Waterloo. No less incredible is the enduring love between the gentleman surgeon and the convict girl, saved from the death penalty, to become a great lady in her own right.

Flood

This is a story that shows how strong and devastating flood water can be to homes and livelihoods. It is inspired by the 2011 Queensland floods but it could be about any of the disasters that strike our land, and the events that turn everyday Australians into heroes.

Flood depicts water mercilessly ripping through Queensland towns and then receding, leaving destruction and devastation in its wake. Told from the perspective of a cattle dog who is separated from his family, Flood helps children to understand the affects of a traumatic natural disaster without being too confronting, while the story of the little tugboat that pushes a boardwalk out to sea, staving off further disaster, gives smaller children a hero they can relate to.

Flood is a beautiful and timely expression of the strength of the Australian spirit during times of adversity.

Jackie French's Chook Book (Second Edition)

This completely revised edition's sections on poultry keeping and management have been greatly expanded, and are now illustrated with close to 100 full-colour photographs. It's bigger, better and always in demand. Over 35,000 copies sold of the first edition.

Rocket Your Child Into Reading

The book every parent and teacher should own.

Written in Jackie French′s inimitable style, one of the aims of this book is to help parents and teachers identify children′s reading difficulties and then suggest ways to deal with them.

The book is full of useful and practical solutions, rather than long, dense paragraphs dripping with educational theory and difficult words that are hard to pronounce. Jackie draws on her own experience of being dyslexic to show that there are many fun and rewarding ways to improve your child′s reading abilities and stimulate a love of books.

Queen Victoria's Underpants

Meet Lizzy, whose family are in the clothing industry. Very few people probably know that Queen Victoria made the wearing of underpants popular. At the beginning of her reign very few women wore them. But Queen Victoria made tartans, perambulators and chloroform fashionable. By the time she died just about every woman in Britain wore underpants like hers.

The Tomorrow Book

A timely picture book about a young prince who is determined to rule over a country where the future is filled with environmental hope - and practical solutions, such as common usage of solar and wind power.

Lively, fun and positive, this book serves to give young people information about their world and shows them that a lot of environmental solutions are simple and relatively easy to put in place.

Produced on recycled paper to reflect the message within, this is a beautiful book.

Baby Wombat's Week

The star of the international bestseller Diary of a Wombat is back - with a new mouth to feed! Cuter, stroppier and even more determined than her mother ... meet Mothballs baby. Like any growing family, this baby wombat and her mum are finding it hard to fit into their home. When setting out to dig a new, bigger hole with room for them both, Shaggy Gullys newest resident gets some help from a friend, causes more mayhem than Mothball ever did, and sorts things out in hilarious style. A charming new picture book from the team who created the bestselling Diary of a Wombat and Josephine Wants to Dance.

Tom Appleby Convict Boy

Jackie French has the happy talent for making historical fiction interesting to younger readers. She does not resort to anachronism, nor does she patronize her audience. In her new novel she describes the journey of the First Fleet and the early years of settlement in Sydney. Her hero is the resourceful, intelligent Tom Appelby, a boy orphaned by judicial injustice who is sold as a chimney sweep in London. French does not gloss of the horrors of Toms life, but she describes how his courage and capacity for friendship enable him to survive. When Tom is transported French describes the reality rather than the myths of the First Fleet. Her account of the settlement is fascinating, as she portrays the Europeans as suffering from dislocation and disorientation as much as starvation. Relationships with the local Aboriginal population are also carefully drawn. Toms sterling qualities lead him to find a home with a new family and become a successful farmer. Tom Appelby, Convict Boy, makes history interesting whilst never neglecting to provide an exciting and believable story.

Penny Roberts is from Readings Carlton

The Night They Stormed Eureka

It's 1854, and the Ballarat goldfields are a place of dreams and rebellion as Sam, a homeless teenager, is called back to the past to join the Puddlehams, who run the best little cook shop on the diggings. The Puddlehams dream of buying a hotel with velvet seats, while others dream of freedom from the British crown, away from the rule of wealthy landowners and corrupt officials. Once again Jackie French takes a fresh look at the history we thought we knew and recreates an event entrenched in our national heritage.

Pete The Sheep

The award−winning team behind Diary of a Wombat have joined forces again to create another highly amusing picture book.

Sean is a shearer and instead of a sheepdog to help him‚ he′s got a sheep sheep − Pete. After being rejected by the other shearers and their dogs‚ Sean and Pete set up a sheep salon in town. Sheep from everywhere arrive to have their wool shorn in the latest style and even the shearers′ dogs end up arriving for a cut in order to look gorgeous.

Jackie and Bruce have created the perfect combination of words and illustrations in this irreverent look at the world of sheep shearing.

Ages 4−9

Pete The Sheep

The award−winning team behind Diary of a Wombat have joined forces again to create another highly amusing picture book.

Jackie and Bruce have created the perfect combination of words and illustrations in this irreverent look at the world of sheep shearing.

Ages 4−9

Diary Of A Wombat

A delightful and entertaining peek into the life of one very busy wombat!

Monday

Morning: Slept.
Afternoon: Slept.
Evening: Ate.
Scratched.
Night: Ate.

A typical day. Don't be fooled. This wombat leads a very busy and demanding life. She wrestles unknown creatures, runs her own digging business, and most difficult of all trains her humans. She teaches them when she would like carrots, when she would like oats and when she would like both at the same time. But these humans are slow learners.

Find out how one wombat between scratching, sleeping and eating manages to fit the difficult job of training humans into her busy schedule.

Ages 3 7

Diary Of A Wombat

She sleeps. She eats. She scratches. She is training humans to become better pets. She is Mothball a wombat with attitude.

Award-winning author Jackie French's love of wombats comes alive in this cheeky observation of Mothball's life while Bruce Whatley's captivating illustrations of Mothball's antics shows just how entertaining and endearing wombats are to humans.

The bestselling daily routine of Mothball the wombat is now in durable board book format for the youngest reader to enjoy.

White Ship

They were searching for a place to call home.

Michel was happy living with his family on a remote island off the coast of France. Even if he sometimes dreamt of sailing the ocean on a wonderful ship like the Captain's White Ship, his days were too full of fishing and chores to think about it much. But one day disaster strikes the island. Michel and the other children are forced to flee from Catherine de Medici's soldiers on the White Ship and look for a new land to call home.

Finally Michel's dream has come true but at what cost? And, what's more, something strange has begun to happen to the White Ship: the ship never weighs anchor, no one grows any older, and they never sight land. What's happening to them? And why is Michel haunted by bizarre dreams of an island in a distant southern land and a girl called Rachel?

It takes a catastrophe for Michel to discover the truth behind the White Ship's endless journey and to solve the mystery of Rachel and the strange southern land.

The White Ship is a story of religious persecution, friendship, and an idealism that stretches over four hundred years; but most of all, it's a story about the search for safe harbour and a place to call home.

Ages 12+

Hitler's Daughter

Did Hitler's daughter, Heidi, really exist? What if she did?

It began on a rainy morning, as part of a game played by Mark and his friends. It was a storytelling game, and the four friends took turns weaving tales about fairies and mermaids and horses. But Anna's story was different this time: it was not a fairy tale or an adventure story. The story was about a young girl who lived during World War Two. Her name was Heidi, and she was Hitler's daughter.

As Anna's story unfolds, Mark is haunted by the image of Hitler's daughter. He wonders what he would have done in her place if he had known his father was an evil man leading the world into a war that was destroying millions of lives. And if Mark had known, would he have had the power and determination to stop him?

The intriguing novel poses powerful questions about a frightening period in history and will force readers to examine moral issues in a fresh, compelling light.

Ages 10 14

Daughter Of The Regiment

There was a light in the corner of the chook-house, just below the perches. It was bright and strangely piercing, like a bit of sun had wandered in by mistake. Who is the girl through the hole in the chook-house? Is it a hole in time? And how can you help someone who lived more than 150 years ago Harry dreads leaving the farm to go to boarding school next year. Cissie is an orphaned girl living with the soldiers at the garrison 150 years ago. Something more powerful than time has drawn them both together.

Ages 10+

Missing You, Love Sara

There are hundreds and thousands of Missing Persons ... whether they have changed identity to remain hidden from those who love them, whether they have been abducted or some other reason is not always known.

Missing You, Love Sara is a story of such a person and the effect on those left behind. Their search for Sara and their search for reasons and meaning to her disappearance.

And when Sara is found there are many repercussions. For people affected by the sudden disappearance of a loved one, this story will resonate, and for others it is a story that once started cannot be put down.

Ages 12+

Macbeth And Son

For hundreds of years, society has regarded Shakespeare as one of the greatest and most accomplished authors of all time. We study his style of writing in English classes and marvel at his ability to transpose scenes from history for the common people. Yet how would you react if you discovered that these stories from Shakespeare were lies? Meet Luke, an ordinary contemporary 13-yearold, who by an unusual twist of fate, becomes acquainted with Macbeth’s stepson, Lulach. By night, Luke gets wrapped up in vivid dreams about Lulach and Macbeth, the latter seen as the great conqueror who helps restore peace to the Kingdom of Alba. By day, Luke studies Macbeth the novel at school, where Macbeth is portrayed as a murdering, greedy madman. Why did Shakespeare lie? The truth will change Luke and Lulach’s lives forever. With their lives deeply intertwined, will they discover potential danger in telling the truth? Jackie French has written a realistic and inspirational story of two boys who have very similar lives but live in two very different societies. I highly recommend it to all those aged 11+ years, who love reading a great mystery story while learning about history at the same time. Nicki Carter (aged 12) is in year seven at St Michael’s Grammar School.

How The Finnegans Saved The Ship

How the Finnegans Saved the Ship is set in 1913, the year after the Titanic sank. It is the story of the voyage to Australia that is made by the Finnegan children and their mother, who travelled in a boat as unlike the Titanic as is possible. This ship also hits an iceberg, although luckily it is saved. The journey they undertake is perilous, though, and the conditions and attitudes markedly very different from those of today. Added to this is the family's anticipation of going to a different country - and a country they know very little about and one that couldn't be more different from their beloved Ireland.

What does make a family leave the country they love and travel to another?

This book is based on a true story - there really was a Mary who travelled on a ship to Australia in 1913 that hit an iceberg, and Mary and her family really did help save the ship.

Ages 10+

Dark Wind Blowing

Mike is just like any other normal kid - he lives with his mum in an ordinary house, in a small town, where nothing unusual ever happens.

His next-door neighbour is Lance Loosley, a boy who's known at school as 'Loser' because he's so unpopular. Loser tells Mike that 'Tenterfield' - the old property nearby, which was recently bought by some foreign investors is being used as a laboratory to run dangerous experiments. Of course, Mike doesn't believe Loser for a second. He's always concocting stories to make himself look good.

But one day at school, Loser is pushed too far by the other kids. This time the humiliation and teasing is too much, and Loser seeks revenge. He smashes a test tube in class, a test tube that he says contains a deadly virus from the 'Tenterfield' property.

Is Loser telling the truth? Have they all driven him into becoming a killer? Will they all die from the virus?

Ages 12+

Story To Eat With A Mandarin

Prudence is invited by her father's distant werewolf cousins to their gloomy castle to hunt for some missing 'treasure'. Phredde and Bruce accompany Prudence, who is well aware that if she fails then her father will have to take her place.

The zombie librarian also makes a reappearance as does the castle banshee, and Cousin Flea decides that he wants to be a lighting and sound effect technician and turns what was once a nicely decorated castle into a setting for a television series.

Ages 8+

Blood Moon

The body lay at the bottom of the stairs. He wore red and green pyjamas. It took me a second to realise the red was blood.

An old man, his eyes were still open. For one dreadful moment I thought he was still alive. But no one can live with a hole where their throat should be ...

Danielle Forest, Virtual Engineer, was looking forward to spending some quiet time with her lover, in their stone house in the Outlands. But someone, or some thing, keeps murdering members of nearby Utopias. A family of werewolves is under suspicion and Danielle's friend Ophelia asks her to prove their innocence.

Before she can say 'silver bullet', Danielle is a temporary resident of the Tree home to the apparently friendly werewolves and fully occupied trying to deal with another bloody murder, the angry local community and some amorous water sprites; not to mention her bone-loving hosts.

Are the werewolves the killers Danielle seeks? Or are humans more vicious by far?

This thrilling sequel to In the Blood is the second book in the Outlands trilogy.

Ages 10+

Phaery Named Phredde

Beautiful new editions of popular titles that will entice a whole new generation of readers to the exploits of Phredde and her friends.

A Phaery Named Phredde and other stories to eat with a banana

Meet Phredde, the coolest phaery in the universe. Phredde is tiny, ferocious and Pru's best friend. And with Pru's brother turning into a werewolf, Pru needs all the magic help she can get!

Ages 7–12

Phredde And The Leopard Skin Librarian

What do you do when your school librarian starts dressing in leopard-skin and goes off chasing dinosaurs?

A school excursion to the Big Koala goes horribly wrong when Phredde, Pru and Bruce and their vampire teacher Mrs Olsen, and Miss Richards, librarian and martial arts expert head back into the time of the dinosaurs, not to mention giant marsupial lions, a dinosaur with diarrhoea and an exploding volcano.

Who will save them? Can one kid, two phaeries, a vampire and a librarian dressed in leopard-skin survive in the past with just a laptop computer, a flying carpet and a plastic spoon?

Another hilarious Phredde adventure that has it all vampires, volcanoes, a lovesick werewolf and a cute six-metre tall budgie (with jaws that can crush a motorbike!).

Age: 7 12 years

Phredde And The Purple Pyramid

Phredde, Pru and Bruce are back and this time they're in ancient Egypt. Will the pyramids survive?

Instead of just roaring like all volcanoes that are school bells do, it erupts and a tunnel opens. Phredde, Pru and Bruce can't help but enter the tunnel, magic at the ready, for a new adventure.

It seems Fluffy, Queen of the Nile, has sent this time tunnel to seek out a brave and brilliant girl to save her – this has to be Pru, well, it can't be Phredde, she's a phaery, and Bruce, well, he's a frog and a boy.

Will one girl, a phaery and a frog be able to save Fluffy, Queen of the Nile? And, what kind of a name is Fluffy for an Egyptian queen anyway?

Ages 7–12

Phredde And A Frog Named Bruce

Beautiful new editions of popular titles that will entice a whole new generation of readers to the exploits of Phredde and her friends.

Phredde and a Frog Named Bruce and other stories to eat with a watermelon

When your teacher's a vampire, your brother's a werewolf, and a frog named Bruce refuses to try to help to save Sleeping Beauty from the Prince, what else can happen?

Ages 7–12

Phredde And The Zombie Librarian

Beautiful new editions of popular titles that will entice a whole new generation of readers to the exploits of Phredde and her friends.

Phredde and the Zombie Librarian and other stories to eat with a blood plum

There's a grey–flesh zombie librarian tending her blood–starved books in the school library.and a 5000–year–old Egyptian mummy roaming the corridors. Can Phredde and Pru escape?

Ages 7–12

Valley Of Gold

One valley s stories of gold through the ages, from the beginning of the earth 4 billion years ago, through the valley s creation and the history of its alluring deposits.

Interspersed with historical and geological information are stories that bring to life the valley and its occupants. First, around 35,000 BC, we meet Mirrigan, a young Aboriginal man hunting the last of the mainland thylacine to present its skin to his female friend, Dhani. From there we move through stories of European settlement, gold rushes, Chinese immigration, bushrangers, relations between Indigenous and European people, world wars, the Depression and natural disasters. When we arrive at the present day, the substance that has so shaped the valley's recent history gold is still an important commodity, but no longer at the expense of the valley.

Jackie French once again manages to inform and entertain in this wonderful collection of stories.

Ages 10+

A Rose For The Anzac Boys

It is 1915. War is being fought on a horrific scale in the trenches of France, but it might as well be a world away from sixteen–year–old New Zealander Midge Macpherson, at school in England learning to be a young lady. But the war is coming closer: Midge's brothers are in the army, and her twin, Tim, is listed as 'missing' in the devastating defeat of the Anzac forces at Gallipoli .

Desperate to do their bit – and avoid the boredom of school and the restrictions of Society – Midge and her friends Ethel and Anne start a canteen in France, caring for the endless flow of wounded soldiers returning from the front. Midge, recruited by the over–stretched ambulance service, is thrust into carnage and scenes of courage she could never have imagined. And when the war is over, all three girls – and their Anzac boys as well – discover that even going 'home' can be both strange and wonderful.

Book Of Unicorns

There are worlds where fields of dry, baked earth are side by side with enchanted gardens, and places where the strangest creatures are the truest friends. These are the places where unicorns heal hearts and minds, and a place where dreams come true. Unicorns can give you strength to carry on or they can be weak, strange-looking foal, hand-fed like a poddy lamb, asleep beside Grandma s stove. Whether fragile or strong, in this world or a place light years away, these mythical creatures will always be magic!

Ages 10+

How The Aliens From Alpha Centauri

Do you like to fly to the moons of Saturn or visit talking wombats? Do you like to daydream? Do you eat chocolate? Have you ever wondered how your favourite authors create the fantastic worlds their characters inhabit? And have you ever wanted to write yourself? Jackie French, one of Australia s most popular and renowned children s authors, helps you to unleash the full power of your creative imagination. Everything is covered from how not to write the beginning of your story to ways you can make your stories fatter and juicier. Hovercrafts, orphaned cats, horrible maths teachers you never thought writing could be so much fun. Characters made from compost or aliens in your maths class you too can be a writer.

Ages 10+

My Mum The Pirate: Wacky Families Book One

Whoever said having a pirate for a mum was fun?

Cecil's mum wears long black boots and an even longer sword, and she makes her enemies walk the plank. Putrid Percival serves sea monster soup for dinner when Cecil would rather eat pizza. And Filthy Frederick stinks – but hey, he's good at maths, and nobody's perfect!

Cecil gets seasick and all he wants is a normal life. With parent–teacher night looming, Cecil is worried. Will the crazy crew of the good ship Mermaid and his pirate mum ruin his street cred?

But when flood waters strike and Bandicoot Flats Central School is in danger, who will save the students and teachers from the perils of the rising waters?

The wacky talents of Jackie French and Stephen Michael King will delight younger readers as way–out and wild adventures unfold in the Wacky Family series.

Ages 7+

Flesh And Blood

The thrilling finale to the Outlands trilogy.

The City has called on Danielle Forest, Virtual Engineer, to find the source of a new influenza epidemic that is infecting the City and threatening the Outlands.

The disease partially kills, and those affected become zombies intent on killing all around them. If the epidemic is not controlled, the deaths are likely to be greater than anything seen since the Black Death.

Danielle and her boyfriend, Neil, may be infected with the disease, so they must race against time to find the source in order for an antidote to be made. But can they find the origin of this terrible disease before it's too late?

Ages 16+

Pharaoh

The people call Prince Narmer 'the Golden One' – a boy with the brightest future ahead of him. Handsome and talented, he is destined to be King of Thinis, the greatest town in Egypt and, for Narmer, the centre of the world.

Then his whole life changes overnight. A devastating accident forces him to give up his right to the throne and sends him journeying across the ancient Middle East with the mysterious Trader, the crippled Nitho and a tamed wildcat called Bast. And as he travels through the desert and visits the great cities of Punt and Sumer, he learns that Thinis is actually a very small place indeed.

But can he ever truly forget his homeland? When he decides to pay one last visit to Thinis, he will discover what it really means to be a leader, and will find his destiny fulfilled beyond his wildest expectations.

Set in a time before the pyramids and based on real historical events, Pharaoh will sweep readers along on a fascinating journey through a part of the world we hear so much about today.

Big Burps, Bare Bums And Other Bad Mannered Blunders

Good manners, terrible manners and all manner of manners.

This book covers manners for all situations:

kissing; dobbing; introductions; and eating. It also includes very important etiquette procedures for dealing with vampires, aliens, friends, zombies and more. All of this is delivered in a straightforward but hilarious problem and answer format.

Problem:

My gran says it's rude to pick your zits in front of other people.

Solution:

There are some people who LOVE seeing pus oozing out between people's fingernails. These people are WEIRD and you do not want them as your friends. If you want NORMAL friends, don't pick your zits where they can see you.

Ages 9–12

Shaggy Gully Times

Who knew that the famous wombat diarist, Josephine the ballet-dancing kangaroo and hairdresser Pete the Sheep all lived in the same country town? Here’s the town’s newspaper, demonstrating that if Australia’s short on water, it’s happily still long on shaggy stories. Packed with news,ads, puns, jokes, a ‘horror scope’ and letters to an agony aunt who’s a parrot, this is a breathless romp through the bush that will leave you gasping for ‘mouse-to-mouse resuscitation’. Age 7+

War For Gentlemen

Charles Fitzhenry wanted to be a hero, and left his home in New South Wales to fight for freedom in the American Civil War – on the side of the South. Gentlemen like Charles fought for the ideals of their class, for honour and glory. But it was not a war of honour. It was simply endless battles, starvation and hardship in an increasingly bitter war.

Was Charles a hero, even if the war he went to fight was not the one he found?

Based on a true story, A War for Gentlemen follows Charles Fitzhenry to battle; to his escape with Caroline, his uncle's slave, and their new life together; and the echoes of the war in the lives of their children and grandchildren. It is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, unexpected happiness, and the terrible consequences of ideals – a story that still echoes in the wars Australians fight today.

Beyond The Boundaries

The farm it was now all his, held in trust till he was twentyone. But it would still be in trust. That's what it meant to own the farm You held it in trust, you looked after it, you cherished it. You were the guardian, like all the other guardians, stretching back in time

The boundaries were more than lines on a map. Boundaries shifted in the gorge, till there were no boundaries at all, the lines between different times and different people so indistinct that everything seemed to merge. There is danger the land is calling him and Martin must walk the boundaries again. What will he find on his journey?

In this sequel to Walking the Boundaries Martin finds the shifting boundaries take him further than he could have imagined deep into the future and further into the past.

Ages 10+

Secret Life Of Santa Claus

It's Christmas and for the first time Jackie French reveals the intimate secrets of life at the North Pole!Rudolph wants cosmetic surgery, the North Pole computer system has crashed, Blitzen Blitzen-Dottir is plotting revolution and even Santa Claus feels that blizzards aren't what they used to be. Also includes Jackie French's indispensible guide to surviving Christmas home-made Christmas crackers with PROPER jokes and pressies, ten minute frozen Christmas pudding, how to cook a turkey avoiding disaster, gifts for problem men, how to remove embarrassing Christmas and New Year lipstick and gravy stains and a few Saturnalia orgies... plus much more.*Warning: also contains a recipe for Rum and Roses Fruit Cake. All Jackie French books are microwave and dishwasher safe.

Fascinating History Of Your Lunch

The Fascinating History of Your Lunch is an historical look at food and the food from right around the world. Who invented cheese? Or bread or margarine? Where did lettuce and tomato plants originally come from? The plants we eat nowadays come from all over the world and the way we cook and eat them also come from many different cultures. Apples travelled with the Romans, oranges with the Muslim armies and chocolate started off as ancient Aztec coins. The history of food is the history of the world - the Spanish conquistadors conquered the South American Aztec empire and brought home the bitter beans that would eventually become chocolate. They also brought potatoes and chillies with them. Wars, famines and revolutions bring people from one country to another and they bring their favourite food, too. The most important things to learn from history are how people once lived and thought and how that has led to the world we know today. And one of the most interesting ways of understanding history is to look at what we eat.

Ages 10+

Jackie French's Guide To Companion Planting In Australia and New Zealand

Companion Planting : What REALLY Happens When Basil meets Tomato

It was love at first sight - just like the books explained - the ones that tell you how parsnips hate celery, and celery like cabbages. He was tall, green and handsome, the perfect basil plant, and she was a blushing tomato, a country girl at heart.

He swept her off her feet (well, shook her to the roots anyway) and they produced prolifically all season, and were buried in the same compost heap that winter. (Yes, I know that's not romantic but we do need a bit of realism here).

Actually, if I had my way myths like 'basil loves tomato' would be composted too. 'Tomatoes love basil' is one of the great companion planting fallacies. Tomatoes grown here with basil don't do any better or any worse than those grown without it: but if you condemn poor old basil to live his life next to tomatoes he'll probably get black spot.

There are a lot of companion planting myths around - like growing marigolds to repel nematodes. Marigolds can repel nematodes - they'll repel them away from the marigold roots, and right into the arms of the poor flowers or vegies you're trying to protect. Not that it matters much - the main pest species of nematodes in Australia don't care one way or another about marigolds (most of them can't stand mustard though - but that's another story).

So many companion planting hints have been passed on from book to book, all based on European observations - whereas Australia has quite different pests and predators, and garden relationships - and the 'companion planting' that works overseas may not work here at all.

In fact it's often hard to tell whether companion planting works or not. Most people who practice companion planting are exceptional, caring gardeners. When their loving touch gets rid of pests, produces blooms that stun the neighbours or cabbages as large as watermelons, they praise companion planting.

They should be singing their own praises instead.

To know whether one plant really grows better or worse with another you need to have at least two similar plots - say one with tomatoes without basil, one with both tomatoes and basil, and maybe another with basil all on his lonesome. Take lots of notes: measure how long the seed takes to germinate, how fast the seedlings grow, when they fruit, how much and how often. Then compare each plot's performance - and do it all over again next year as well.

Having said all that, I now have to praise companion planting. It's because of companion planting that I don't have to use pesticides any more (except to test one sometimes), rarely weed and hardly ever fertilise.

This year, for example, I planted pansies with my onions. Onions are slow growing and are easily overcome by weeds - but the faster growing, spreading pansies kept the weeds down and insulated the soil around the onion bulbs. We got bigger onions - and for much less work. (The pansies were pretty too.)

I've harvested the onions today, in fact, and weighed them - and in one square metre so thick with pansies that you'd never know there were onions there at all I gathered 23 kiloes of the fattest, sweetest, most delicious onions you have ever tasted. (I admit a bit of bias here - all gardeners are fanatic about their produce).

The pansies are still flowering. I suspect the onions helped protect them from aphids and fungal problems - but I'll test that next year.

This to me is the essence of companion planting - designing a system where the plants do the work. You don't need long lists of what loves what, either - in most cases, you can simply work it out yourself.

Fertilising with Companion Planting

Many plants 'fix' nitrogen from the air - or, more correctly, the bacteria associated with their roots do. You can use these plants as home grown fertiliser to feed your garden.

We grow masses of perennial climbing sweet peas - those lovely pink and white ones that come up every year and flower through most of summer. In autumn I pull down their debris and use it to feed nearby trees or vegies. Try growing peas, beans, lupins, broad beans and other 'nitrogen' fixers, and using the old plants to fertilise others next door. If you can bear to slash them down as soon as they flower they'll be much richer in nutrients before they've put most of their effort into next year's seeds - the beans or peas etc.

I also use the trimmings from our wattle trees as fertilizer/mulch. It's nitrogen rich, breaks down quickly into stunning black soil (worms adore it) - and a light prune keeps the wattles healthier and in better shape too.

Other 'nitrogen fixers' include casuarinas, honey locusts, sweet peas, soy beans, clover, peanuts, kennedias, broom (use sterile varieties that don't spread), woad and tree lucerne. The latter makes a lovely street tree by the way - evergreen, heat, drought and frost tolerant, with masses of honey scented white flowers all spring. Tree lucerne can be kept severely pruned - and the prunings make some of the best mulch I know.

Weeding with Companion Planting

Many plants suppress the growth of other plants, or inhibit the germination of their seeds. This makes sense when you think about it. A plant wants to make sure its own progeny survives - and will do its best to wipe out the competition. (Even barracking parents at children's sports are far less ruthless than their plant equivalents).

Every spring I let some of my radishes, as well as cabbages and other brassicas, go to seed. The flowering vegies suppress the growth of everything around them. Then I water the garden, pull them out and have a relatively weed free garden, already dug over by the deep roots ready for planting - and the old radishes and cabbages can rot down to become mulch later in the year.

I use a thick barrier of marigolds to suppress any couch grass that thinks it's going to invade the garden beds, and a thick hedge of comfrey to keep out kikuyu. The comfrey dies down each winter, about the same time the kikuyu stops growing. I slash the comfrey too three or four times each summer for home grown (and wonderfully rich) mulch. Don't ever dig around comfrey - it spreads.

You need to be wary of some growth suppressors though. Sunflowers suppress the growth of most plants around them - wonderful for clearing up a weedy patch, but not so good if you want other plants clustered around their legs. I sometimes grow climbing beans up our sunflowers. The plants are never as tall or as prolific as those grown elsewhere, but they produce beans up to two weeks earlier - good for an early crop - and the sunflowers seem to do better with the beans.

Attracting Predators with Companion Planting

Predators - from birds to dragonflies to tiny wasps (not the great ugly European wasps but Australia's enormous range of smaller good guys) - can control all your pests for you. When we first came here we had every pest on the Southern Tablelands. Now we don't have any major pest problems at all. We've still got a few pests - but they're kept in check by an enormous number of predators.

As I write I can see a tiny warbler picking off mites from the kiwi fruit leaves and a blue wren gobbling aphids on the roses. I know there are hoverfly in the grevillea and their larvae must be eating something... and the yellow robins and pollistes wasps cleaned all our pear and cherry slug up too before I could even take a photo of them (one year I'll get the camera out in time - but at the moment our photo library just has some not very good shots of where the pests were before the predators started guzzling).

Many garden predators are blossom feeders, and it's their larvae that like to eat pests. Birds also adore blossom - either to eat directly (even nectar feeders may eat pests when they're nesting - or if there are a lot of pests about - birds are great opportunists- you should se the honeyeaters dart about after flying ants round here) but also birds feed on the insects that are attracted to blossom- and then they move ont your veg nearby and clean up the insects there too.

Every garden needs blossom all year round. The best for attracting birds and other predators are probably those with tubular flowers (my favourite is pineapple sage - sweet smelling leaves with briliant red flowers and clouds of tiny birds), or any of the prolific native flowerers like grevilleas - especially the grevilleas that flower most of the year, like 'Robyn Gordon'. After all, most predators are natives too. A word of warning about grevilleas - many people are allergic to them, especially the hybrids of G. banksii. Before buying a grevillea stroke a bit of it on the soft skin under your arm pit. If you come up in a rash avoid handling that particular grevillea.

Confusing Pests with Companion Planting

Pests recognise their food supply either by its shape or by its scent. Most of our gardens are like a supermarket for pests - they can wander up and down the neat, straight, weedless rows saying 'I'll have a bit of this and a whole lot of that.'

Confuse them. Don't plant straight rows of anything - mix up your plants so you don't have great blocks of any one shape or scent - plant flowers among the vegies and vegies among the flowers for a productive (and beautiful) pest deceiving garden.

After all, this is what companion planting is about - letting your garden do the work for you , while you sit back and enjoy the flowers and bounty.

www.jackiefrench.com

Natural Control Of Garden Pests

Jackie French proves once again that she is a life giver, not a death-dealer with her wise, balanced and practical approach to the plants and creatures that inhabit our gardens. Rather than carpet bomb with toxic chemicals, she encourages us to grow crops well, as the best antidote to pest or disease problems. Organic Pest Remedies –Natural Pest Control Calendar – Bird-attracting Plants – Companion Plants.

Jackie French's Top Ten Vegetables

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Herbs For The Home Garden

Herbs have many uses - culinary, medicinal and decorative. In Herbs for the Home Garden, Jackie French provides inspiration and good, sound information about herbs, how to grow them and how to use them. She illustrates how to create your own lush herb garden, which will not only beautify your home but will add a new dimension to your appreciated herbs.

The 'Herbal Alphabet' details each herb, with notes on it's origin and preferred growing conditions, as well as it's uses, from the popular to the not so well known. It includes recipes for food and for home herbal remedies, as well as recipes for herbal cosmetics, household cleansers, insect repellents and gift ideas.

With advice on how to propagate herbs, the best herbs for certain climatic conditions, how to combat pests and diseases and how to care for your herb garden, Herbs for the Home Garden is a handy and practical reference, indispensable to anyone interested in growing herbs.