Topic: Gardeners World Allotment

[grawrc]

rofl ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[sawfish]

I hope the old plotholders next door are there secretly filming the 20 gardeners they get in at night to secretly do all 'jo swifts' hard work.

Hee hee, I love being cynical.

[Baaaaaaaa]

In the next program I expect to see free greenhouses, water buts, coldframes, fruit bushes, fruit trees, plants and seeds, fertiliser, growbags that some garden centre just happens to find are surplus to requirements!!!

If Chris Beardshaw or Diarmuid Gavin were doing the allotment, you'd also need a few crates of Guinness that they need to drink while watching the 'extras' do the work.

[lancelotment]

just a thought but our TV licence fee is being used to pay two people to stay at home and work on their own gardens.  I wish!!!!!!!!

[albacore1854]

To take that a step further

the licence fee is being spent on two people doing their own gardens which will encourage others to ruin  a number of allotments by dumping stuff, and creating burial mounds, that our council tax will pay to have cleared when they give up because they aren't cut out for hard work, and even raised beds were too much for them.

Some plotholders have it given to them on a plate, free compost, leaf mulch, and bark delivered, yet they still can't hack it.

We have roughly a 75% failure rate on our plots.It was far more productive when a few of us all had 30 or 40 rods, then the council got a waiting list and asked for a few back.

[sarah]

i think that is such a pessimistic view.  i think people should be encouraged to have a go. yes a lot of people do underestimate how much work it is going to be but there are plenty of people out there who are willing to give it a go and do get on with it. i think i am  a prime example of that.  i had no  idea when i started out how much work it was going to be and by your estimation i should not have been given a chance, but after three years i have stuck it out and am becoming an experienced plotholder. i made loads of mistakes when i started and still do make a few.
instead of concentrating the seventy five percent failure rate why not focus on the twenty five percent success rate?  give people a chance for gawds sake.
whats wrong with offering free compost leaf mulch and bark?
how much of our licence fee is being spent on joes allotment? sixty five quid a year i think he said?

[betula]

Well said ;D

[albacore1854]

Interesting to note that of all the new starters the ones who turn up, and start digging from one end to the other are more likely to continue.

[cambourne7]

In the next program I expect to see free greenhouses, water buts, coldframes, fruit bushes, fruit trees, plants and seeds, fertiliser, growbags that some garden centre just happens to find are surplus to requirements!!!

Well i got a free greenhouse, fruit bushes, plants and seed its not totaly realistic and he does perhapse as being a garden designer have access to loads of contacts so thats realistic.

[Pumper]

My take on Gardeners' World is that they are there to show the RIGHT way to do it. Not how to make simple silly mistakes through being lazy.

If they DO get loads of people taking up allotments and doing it that way, they are BOUND to find it more difficult later, and end up chucking it in cos it's more than they expected.

I think that, in the longer term, the way Mr Swift approached this will have a detrimental effect to people encouraged to take on a new plot.

[sawfish]

I find myself agreeing more with Albacore, I dont like the way people sign up for an allotment, dont do anything with it for a year, then moan because they get told off by the allotment association.

If you find it hard because you have other commitments then DON'T GET ONE!

I find the whole jo's plot thing interesting'ish but rather fake.

I find Gardeners world problematic in that it always seemed aimed at a certain small group of people. I dont think the majority of us want to know how to make a naturalised pond or a grow a banana tree in their jungle garden, also who buys individual copper rings for each cabbage?

[albacore1854]

Well said Pumper.

[albacore1854]

I think if you want to learn anything about gardening you are best off looking at wartime books, up until Alan Titchmarsh era.

After that, it was dumbed down when the BMW 5 series brigade started getting downsizing ideas.River Cottage etc.

Now you just have some clueless individuals who transplant.

[Barnowl]

As a BMW owner who transplanted some leeks last year (forgot to sow any),  I resent that remark Albacore - but as this is only our third year I can't yet claim to have stuck it out ;D

(Ok, it's not a 5 series, it's 17 year old 3 series I kept when I was made redundant in 1994).

By making it look easier you could attract people it wouldn't previously have occurred to, who turn into real enthusiasts. I thought it would be easier than it turned out to be, but have become an allotment bore anyway. On the other hand I suppose a) they wouldn't have been watching in the first place and b) if GW show the wrong way to do, it they really should show how to do it properly as well.

[manicscousers]

next week, they should have some of the older guys on our plots, standing there, heads on one side, telling how it should be done  ;D

[thegreatgardener]

 
the truth is war time books are out date in most cases are just scaled down farming methods. the best books on proper veg gardening where written in America. In late 70's and early 80's respectively "How to grow more vegetables and square foot gardening.   Both books put most garden books to shame since they break it down to simple and easy steps that even longest going allotmenteer and newest newbie can understand.

[markfield rover]

Series 5,eighth season and site rep.

[Tin Shed]

Where exactly is this allotment in London?
Someone on here must know and can go and have a look!! :D

[thegreatgardener]

manicscousers to bad your garden info is out of date. Since, your info is how it was done not how it should be done.  May be joe will let you hold his hoe some time. But you can also tell him how you still plant in rows and then thin since you planted to thickly.
my bet joe will have better production in his allotment then you old timers  get 5 years.
Since he will be using modern techniques.

[cambourne7]

he lives in hackey and he said it was a 20 drive or 30 on the bike so dependant on the direction he went its got to be somewhere like lea valley, walthamstow or stoke newington.