Topic: dig or no dig

[undercarriage plan]

I have to say, I do begin to wonder why some people even bother having kids....I mean if you can shove them out the door at 6am and pick them up at 8, when do you spend any time with them? And isn't it showing them, that money and things are most imortant? Family and life come where?

[jennym]

Well in the next few weeks i shall be taking some practical action on this front by getting my school growing club under way.  I...2 is open to suggestions.....  come on guys stop theorising and help me out here.  What next.....

How about giving them a lesson on how plants grow, what they need for growth, how seeds germinate? Do some quick ones first like broad beans, so they can see the shoots. If you need any text, I've got some reasonably straightforward stuff from college. How old are these children by the way?

[terrace max]

Hmm, that feels like a successful problem found for every solution.

Solutions have to bear some relation to social and economic reality.

there are plenty of other sources of energy.

Can you name one which will replace cheap oil/gas? (please don't say hydrogen or renewables)

[terrace max]

How about giving them a lesson on how plants grow, what they need for growth, how seeds germinate? Do some quick ones first like broad beans, so they can see the shoots. If you need any text, I've got some reasonably straightforward stuff from college. How old are these children by the way?

HDRA have some really good info online for school gardening clubs...

[Nathan]

Kids are all boys aged 11 to 18.   My daughters are convinced I will have no takers for a growing club but I am more optimistic.  I have the belief that if I find something enjoyable it must be inherently enjoyable to anyone with the ability or willingness to give it a try...  An egotistic view of the world I admit but one which is obviously true. Lol.

Keep those suggestions coming!

[terrace max]

Take some cut out pictures of some veg plants and the names of the veg - and get 'em to match them up. Breaks the ice and gets them talking about food...

[jennym]

...Keep those suggestions coming!

Giant pumpkin competition? maybe not enough room, but some sort of competition?

[undercarriage plan]

Tallest sunflower, longest marrow, heaviest onion, longest bean....
I started off asking the kids what they were interested in, some were the roses, flowers etc....lull them in with a false sense of security....craftily get them planting seeds for you....and when those liittle darlings see their babies germinating..you gottem!!
Have to say, I was so chuffed, cos one of the lads I had in the Gardening Club, left in September for High School, and blow me down, he's started a Gardenng Club there!! Nathan, if you just get one whose interested, then it's so worth while... Good luck!

[Derekthefox]

I like the idea of some friendly competition, in groups, so individuals don't feel pressured. Some may just enjoy being there though ...

[Robert_Brenchley]

Teachers are not a cause of the school system...

I should think not; it drives a lot of us round the twist! If it was up to me, no class would have more than ten kids, that way we'd really get time to teach them. As it is, you get a class of 25-30, sometimes more, and out of an hour's lesson, you've got about two minutes for each one. Very often, most of the hour is spent dealing with minor disorder, and the better-behaved ones just have to be left to get on with it. That's not to mention the restrictions of an imposed, and often thoroughly boring, syllabus, and a load of other issues on tyop.

[amphibian]

I think the skills we learn - and pass on - as allotmenters will be pretty valuable in the peak oil age...

Without cheap fossil fuels (2010?) I can't see how large scale agriculture of any sort can work...

It is a worry. Though fertilisers can be manufactured from coal as readily as oil, though there seems to be no hurry to instigate such changes, nor would that solve the problem that exists in modern farming practice.

Sometimes it seems to me that the peak of human achievment was high farming, and everything else is mere ephemera, that has allowed the human race to reach levels of global unsustainability and generate problems for which we have no answer.

Consider the following:

• Oil -- it has nurtured progress and devlopment in industry, travel, communications, agriculture, health; but we are so reliant on it as a resourse, we have transformed marginal lands and revolutionised sterility (through plastics) but now where, when it is gone what can replace it.
• Modern medicine -- so good for so long, but now we have discovered that we have unwittingly bred a race of superbugs, resistant to the medicines we have. The modern world with its high movement is not equipped to deal with even the temporary breakdown of allopathies effectivness.
• Modern agriculture -- an illusion of progress, an insipid destruction of land and farmer and of genetic diversity, so reliant on the above two that when one or both fail what happens to all the marginal land on which the burgoning global population now rely. There is no fail safe mechanism, and yet failure is a certainty if we carry on like this.

Now all I need is a sandwich board with, "The end is nigh!" emblazoned on it ;)

[aquilegia]

It's all very well giving parents the choice to go to work, but many of us do not have the choice my mum had, to stay at home and bring up our children.

We don't have any yet, simply because the main thing stopping us is the fact that we cannot survive on one salary. I do not see the point of having children only for someone else to look after them as I do not believe this is good for the child and I do not want them growing up learning values that I disagree with.

At the moment I do not see how we can afford to have children and bring them up in this way, though. (Especially as our current home is just a two-bed flat - we couldn't afford the mortgage on some place bigger and we do not buy extravagant things.

I'm sure we're not alone in this. The government just wants to keep as many of us as possible in the work force, so we are happy little consumers paying taxes so we might be able to retire at 86.

One day, we will find a way...

[John_H]

Sproutings could be a good introduction to growing things at this time of year, a quick result from mung beans or alphalpha would help get some basic discussions going about how seeds work, the need for water and some warmth and the idea that different sized seeds need to be planted at different depths. You could even use some of the spoutings to experiment with transplanting things before you move on to soil based crops in a couple of months time.

[grawrc]

Reading through the variety of comments I realise that for me the issue is one of accountability.

For example here in Edinburgh the council has made so many changes to traffic and roads in the centre that even the police think they are unworkable and don't fine drivers contravening the constantly changing regulations.
These changes are costing millions. They have made traffic jams worse hence increasing pollution. There is no evidence of holistic planning whatever. Meantime the next article in the newspaper warns us of impending huge increases in council tax..... The council is not accountable since changing our councillors would not put a stop to the stupidity of these actions. They are not sacked, they are not fined, they are not made to fix what they have got wrong.

The same is true of schools and education. I started teaching in 1972 and since then there have been constant, unnecessary changes billed as innovation but often reverting to previous systems by another name and usually decreasing the amount of time I have available for what I do best : teach. I don't think the content of the curriculum matters too much provided that there is breadth and progression. e.g. I loathed Home Economics at school and opted to take my dental appointments then yet I'm a skilled and successful cook (or so my mates tell me ;)) and I've done everything from reupholstering chairs to crocheting bedspreads. Self taught when I wanted the skills because I knew how to learn.
 
The same is true of a series of governments going back over a century at least which have made it impossible for most young people to get qualifications, a job, a spouse, a house and a family without putting their children in the care of someone else for the greater part of their young lives.

Phew! Now I've got that off my chest ... ;D

We have slanted the school garden club towards ecology - preserving local plants and habitats as well as providing sensual gardens: up till now touchy, feelly plants and scented plants for the blind. The youngsters have really enjoyed researching this. Young people really care about ecological issues when they understand them. They sometimes need some help to know what they can do to make things better. The numbers attending vary - sometimes there are more staff helpers than young people! but there is a core of about 8-10 regular attenders.

[John_H]

Yes, but lots of people who express frustration about the amount of traffic in urban centres are the same people who insist on driving all the way in and all the way out again every day. I wish I had a quid for every driver who told me they would take public transport if only it was better; studies show that the quality of provision only makes a very small impact on shifting motorists into other forms of transport. I think David Begg once observed that the greatest factor which inspired people to switch to public transport in urban centres was when traffic congestion got so bad that they simply couldn't move around by car (London is quite a good example of that).

The thing which really hacked me off most about what I saw concerning Edinburgh was the political party who spent lots of time being in favour of less road spending and more regulation at a national level but then opposed congestion charging locally.  As for the council tax point, the only way any council will be more accountable is if more of the cost of services they provide is actually raised locally rather than through central taxation or unified business rates and somewhere along the line that means voting for more local revenue raising powers rather than less (but that’s another story).

I accept that it may not be the view of some others but I think we have made considerable advances over the last century in almost every sphere of life, this idea that things were better in the past is just simply wrong. Universal education, public health provision, descent homes and increased life expectancy are all testament to that. I don’t believe there was ever some kind of  19th century ideal, in fact for most people life was nasty, short, brutish and cruel. I cast my vote for the inspiring possibilities that a technological future can offer, combined with the active involvement of as many people as possible in shaping how it takes place.   

[terrace max]

I accept that it may not be the view of some others but I think we have made considerable advances over the last century in almost every sphere of life, this idea that things were better in the past is just simply wrong. Universal education, public health provision, descent homes and increased life expectancy are all testament to that.

At one, superficial, level this is all true. Unfortunately every 'success' you list is limited to a privileged few in developed countries. Stand in a 'labour ward' in Mali, for example and tell me your values have been a success...You can't.

Moreover, all your successes have come at a terrible costs to 'others' (e.g. they were built on slavery or exploitation) and/or the environment.

If you weigh the successes of industrial society against the damage to our children's planet I'm afraid you wouldn't even break even. The corollary of blind material progress is always going to be environmental degradation. Until we unlock this conundrum we're behaving like a snake eating its own tail...

I would cast my vote for people who can see past the hype of greed and consumerism, or 'our way of life' as Blair calls it. In other words I stay at home on polling day and plant some seeds instead...

[terrace max]

Thanks Clanger.  :)

IMHO politicians can't justifiably accuse anybody of anything. I just don't feel answerable to them in any sense, ethical or otherwise.

[terrace max]

Shouldn't that outfit be black?  ;)

[RSJK]

Wardy I am with you and my answer is

                                    To Dig

[lynndan16]

I agree   dig