Topic: Your Inspiration

[sandersj89]

Who is or are the main reasons for you getting into gardening or allotmenteering?

I have always seemed to have an interest in gardening, I remember watching Percy Thrower on Blue Peter back in the 70’s and being fascinated and when I was given a spot of my parents garden to grow a few things. At first I grew only veg, but coming from a farming family that is hardly surprising.

All through my school life when living at home I helped in the garden, used to spend hours mowing the lawns but loved every minute of it, doing the winter digging in the veg garden was not a chore.

Then other gardeners came to my attention, people like Peter Seabrook and Roy Lancaster. I used go out of my way to find books by them or hear them on gardeners question time. Very few of the current crop of “designer” TV gardeners do little for me.

But my main inspiration has to be my parents. Most farmers have a reputation for be rubbish gardeners but both my parents have an instinctive approach to gardener  and a real passion for plants. You can see some of their garden here. Pictures taken this time last year:

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y222/sandersj89/Farm%20May%202005/

So who inspires/inspired you?

Jerry

[cookie]

My Gramps, bless him. Endless paitence with me. He had a large veg plot behind his terraced house in Bristol, lots of fruit bushes and the hens!!! Every time we went to Nan and Gramp's house, it was boots on, and into the garden. :) :) :) :)

[mat]

The truth to this question is "I don't know" ???  ::)

My parents have a huge "garden", but it has always been more of a "small paddock" (literally at one point when our field flooded and the horse and sheep came back to our city garden for 8 weeks!!!)  I wanted to garden as a kid, but was always given a small weedy patch, which always made me give up.

I worked in agriculture for several years, but I wasn't interested in horticlture at all (though I enjoyed my college gap on a PYO farm)

My grandmother, although she always lived in a old peoples flats for all the years I have been alive (warden, then "inmate"!), they did have nice gardens which I always walked around and admired, even as a very young kid.  I still remember the fantastic rosemary hedge along the full length of the flats!  I used to pick and keep bits! (but then again, I was a kid who used to "hide" wild garlic under my bed pillow!!!)

I think I have to partially attribute it to good old Geoff Hamilton who I used to watch when I bought my house in 1993...  I still mourn the loss, GW has never been the same since...

I like to think it is in my "genes" as my paternal grandparents grew their own veg (I hated parsnips then, and now love them!) and my maternal grandfather (who I never knew) had an allotment when my mother was a kid.

mat

[grotbag]

Never really got inspired ,got fed up doing nowt in the evenings, OH was on net a lot .I knew chairperson of local lotties.That was 4 years ago and now im hooked.

[slippy fly]

Ours is mostly down to Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall.We watch the reruns on sky and met him at our local garden centre.The way he lived his life on the programme made us want to try and grow our own veg.Peoples kindness at our site is refreshing in todays climate.

[SMP1704]

Not really inspired, just always been around gardens and things growing.

My first memories of being in a garden is at my Grandparent's house, a standard terraced house garden.  There was a path down the middle, leading to the shed at the end, grass either sides with flower beds against the fence and standard rose trees set in small beds in the lawn.  Down by the shed, Grandad grew beans and tomatoes on top of the coal bunker in the conservatory (or lean to as it was called then)  Everytime I smell a fresh tomato, it sends me back to being 4 and being in the lean-to!

My Mum has had an allotment for the last 12 years or so, so listening to her exploits and helping out from time to time gave me an idea of what was involved in growing veggies.

When I looked around my postage stamp garden last and realised there wasn't really anything left to do, other than maintenance and coupled with being 40, I decided I was finally ready for an allotment - didn't bargain on the horsetail tho :o

Thinking about it, I have been inspired - by my Grandad and my Mum

[sarah]

its a good question. I cant remember why i got into gardening, i didnt reeally have an inspiration until i started and then it was my mum in law. its one of those things that grows on you (scuse the pun).

Anyway i have just looked through your pictures sanders and you are now my inspiration, your garden and veg plot are really stunningly neat and beautiful.

[carrot-cruncher]

Dad and Grandpa.......and an overwhelming anger at being ripped off by our local Tesco/Sainsbury/Asda/Morrisons when I went to buy organic veg.

As a kid on a farm we always grew our own veg but when we lost the farm & had to move into a council house with no garden we had to start buying veg.   I was (and am still) horrified by the prices charged for what is a basic of life.   I'm also very much put off by the wilted and tired looking veg I often see on the shelves.

CC

[DolphinGarden]

Well, Percy Thrower on BP too, Tom and Barbara in The Good Life, (I thought it was real when I was young!)
Richard Briars looked like an oulfella when I watched it. Now he IS an oulfella, and I must remember that I am perceived as an oulfella to peeps in their teens...oh dear.


My grandmother and then my aunt used to grow veg in the back garden, and I'd get roped in to cut the hedge and dig over the plot once a year, and get fed with lemonade and cake.Ah brilliant.

[Merry Tiller]

1. My dear departed Dad, one of my earliest memories is watching him dig up spuds from our back garden. He wasn't exactly a keen gardener but he knew his stuff, always good for advice

2. My Uncle Ray, immaculate garden and the chrysanths he grows for Christmas are legendary

3. My Uncle Ken, RHS, gladioli, chrysanth and dahlia show judge

4. My biology teacher, Mr Schofield, the only inspiring teacher I ever had, his descriptions of the workings of plants were wonderful

5. Geoff Hamilton, the greatest TV gardener in my opinion, his enthusiasm was infectious and he explained everything so well

6. Me, I'm sure growing things is in my blood somewhere. My bedroom when I was a teenager was a jungle of houseplants and I've been growing stuff from seed since I can remember, I bought my first greenhouse at the age of 21 and it still feels wonderful when life springs from the earth every year. I had a year working in the trade a few years ago too. It was inevitable that I would now be growing my own food, I suppose it was when I got married & had a family that it started in earnest and it makes me very happy to see them all enjoying the fruits of my labour ;D

[Jesse]

My mum and dad, they introduced me to growing all manner of edibles and non-edibles from way back when I was little, the novelty of gardening has never worn off for me. :)

[Mrs Ava]

Taxi Bob, my mums dad, my lovely grandad, the one you hear me nattering on about.  He is and has always been right up there as one of the most important men in my life.  There are 4, and will only ever be 4, my boy, my darling, my darling dad, and my darling Taxi Bob.  Why Taxi?  When I was a baby my Nan would look after me, and Taxi drove a black cab in London.  I would hear that diesel engine driving down The Avenue and into Wandle Road in Morden and I would say 'Here comes Taxi', and to this day, because of me...he is and will always be Taxi Bob!  (He was Beaver Bob in Appledore as they owned and ran the Beaver pub at the bottom of Appledore, and sleepy in the RAF as he was always the one that would doze off between flights)  Anyhow, now I have wandered back through memory lane I just want to say that he is my inspiration.  He showed me how to split perrenials, sow seeds, grow fruit, take cuttings, all from his lovely long garden down the Wandle, backing on to Ravensbury Park.  Blimey, been whisked right back to my childhood!

[Wicker]

Lovely memories, EJ - only hope our g'kids remember us and our lottie with such fondness. 

My Dad always grew "stuff" - even had a few chains of tatties at a nearby farm - and I balanced on the bar of his bike when he cycled there and back, I used to firmly believe that getting to pick the tatties was a real privilege.  Mr W's Dad always had a lottie too so I guess we were both brought up to it - tho we are the only ones in our families who do

[beejay]

I suppose my Dad has to be my gardening hero & inspiration. We lived in Cumbria, right on the scottish border so a fairly tough gardening environment. We had a large garden, with nearly half being for the use of the school of which he was headmaster. He used to teach the senior boys ( I suspect not girls then) up to school leaving age. When the (tiny) school move to infant/junior he took over that garden himself. He was always out there working & bringing in fresh fruit & veg. How often did we say "No more strawberries!" I remember getting a freezer (we didn't have electricity until I was about 8 or so) & then all summer it would seem that we would be blanching & freezing. He also instigated the setting up of the local horticultural & produce show which took loads of work every year.

He was so pleased when I first took an interest in plants. When I got my first proper garden we got loads of plants from his garden. Sadly he died before seeing how obsessed I have now become with a crammed garden, 2 allotments & doing it for other people!

[katynewbie]

My parents loved their gardens, Dad was really into Begonias and they mostly concentrated on flowers. When they retired and got a bigger garden there was space for veg. Although I had left home by then it was always the first place i went to when i visited. All my mums family had been farmers from way back and three of the children from my generation have allotments/smallholdings/huge gardens...Mum says it must be in the genes!

Celebrity gardeners don't do it for me really, but I did watch Geoff Hamilton as a teenager when the garden programmes were on (pretending to be totally disinterested, obviously!) so I guess he was the closest to an influence I have.

So to answer the question: Inspiration is from my Dad, my genes, and Geoff Hamilton!

[robkb]

Family-wise my inspiration comes from my dad, who also kept a well-tended veg plot in our garden, and my grandmother, who grew most of her own veg and also truckloads of fruit. I have very fond memories of picking gooseberries and red- and blackcurrants from her garden. And I used to love the results of her marathon jam-making sessions!

Celeb-wise, I guess it's Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall and Monty Don. Their books (more than the tv shows) have inspired me to get an allotment and try to break the supermarket stranglehold on what I eat.

Cheers,
Rob ;)

[Emagggie]

My Dear Old Dad also, he was a greengrocer for many years,we lived on a small holding and he sold the produce in his shop.I remember selling cherries at the end of our drive on a Sunday (never one to miss an opportunity) and sticking our initials on green tomatoes.
We all helped and we all still think of growing our own food as a great pleasure.
Sometimes wish I had a hotline to Heaven to ask for his advice !!  :)

[tabbycat]

My mum, and possibly my Gran, but she died when i was 7, so although i remember spending time in the garden with her, I can't remember if we actually gardened.

My mum used to grow all our veg when I was little and we used to have half of our good sized garden as a veg plot. It was out of necessity as well as interest as in the 70's we had hardly any money (like most people), so Mum tried to be as self-sufficient as possible. She baked her own bread as well, and me & my friends always seemed to turn up as it was just fresh out of the oven.

She also worked at a local nursery so all my school holidays were spent there. I used to help her pot up and fill the seed trays ready for pricking out (she wouldn't let me help prick out i got bigger & learned to be more delicate with the seedlings). The smell of a hot greenhouse or wet compost takes me right back there. (They built a supermarket on it about 10 years ago). One of my jobs was to regularly untangle all the new growth on the clematis waiting to be sold, so that they didn't knit themselves into each other.

 One of the two brothers that owned it was such a lovely guy and taught me all about birds and wild flowers. He loved plants but not people and I always used to warn him when there were customers, so that he could go and hide!

I grew up in Somerset, in a really small village, so as a kid i was surrounded by farms, smallholdings and allotments. Every adult I knew grew something and was happy to let me help them. Am an only child so always seemed to prefer the company of grown-ups. Hand-in-hand with the "lessons" in growing went lessons in cooking. Jam making and bottling fruit especially. Also how to skin a rabbit and draw & pluck a chicken (not so keen on that as i was at jam making!)

On TV, too young to appreciate Geoff H so my GW presenter was Alan T (I never liked Ground Force). I read his autobiography a few years ago, and he's one of the few celebrities that I've still liked after reading about them. The sheer joy that he finds in plants and gardens is very inspiring.

Tabbycat

[MollyBloom]

I think it must be in my genes, although it didn't manifest itself until I was well into my 30s. Even though we lived in London, my dad was a keen amateur gardener, providing almost all the fruit & veg for our family of 5. His father was a smallholder in the New Forest, and all of that side of my family were agricultural workers in Wiltshire, back as far as I can trace (early 1600s). I've never had the kind of sentimentalised view of gardening which the tv shows play up nowadays and I was never really inspired as such, I just started doing what was necessary when I bought a house with a large garden. Twenty years on, I can't imagine NOT growing stuff.

[lorna]

A4A!!    For years all we grew were fu*hsias and geraniums and one or two shrubs. Then I asked "What are Hellebores" on BBC site I was pointed to A4A to look at some photos. That was last year and now I am getting more and more interested. I only have a small garden  but I do have a greenhouse . Removed four largish conifers to make way for more shrubs and even salad, squashes, and  pumpkin. My first EVER pumpkin has flowers on it. Yipee!!
Lorna