Topic: Greenhouses on Gardeners World

[OllieC]

I was more referring to the minefield of Health & Safety & Risk Assessments type thing. And at the risk of being superstitious am not going to comment on Annabelle or Thurston's safety record so far... But I do think you can reason with my 3 year old & she does what you tell her. Mostly.

[ACE]

.

I know I will be shot down for this but am I bothered?

I am sick of going out shopping for eg and seeing young kids allowed to run riot.The young parents now seem to have no idea how to keep their kids safe.

How many three year old can understand this world and its dangers.?

We won't shoot you down for caring.  I agree totally with you if you are talking about shopping. One of the many reasons I will not use tesco. They take their rugrats shopping then totally disregard their actions. It does not happen in M&S or Waitrose.

But sites with known hazards. Building sites, allotments, working parts of the garden, keep them out. I was lucky I could chastise my children, (I am not talking about excessive force) All the new parents get taken to court nowadays. A little smack to show my displeasure worked wonders in keeping them out of danger.

Now I will be shot down ;)

[grawrc]

It's the usual knee jerk reaction thing that governments seem to be into today - some people abuse their children so treat everyone as though they were a potential abuser. if a distressed 11year old comes to me in tears I'm not supposed to put my arm round his/her shoulders or smoothe their hair or wipe their tears away or give them a hug. cos they could say i'd abused them and I'd get sent home till it was disproved.

I so don't care about PC nonsense.

Anyway no-one gets on my lottie without my say so, so if my greenhouse falls on their heads they've got no-one but themselves to blame. Anyway the greenhouse is only big enough for one person at a time and it's tricky to open (warped and distorted wood) so the very young and the very old couldn't get in there..

Time to shut up.. I'm rambling. :-X :-X :-X

[Borlotti]

The point I was trying to make, perhaps not very clearly, was not that every greenhouse has to have safety glass, but if people were thinking of putting one on their allotment (if allowed) and if they had children it may be better to look at new ones with safety glass rather than buy a second hand one which may be difficult to transport, put up and to just check the glass so you know what you are buying.  I just thought Toby Buckland could just have said 'check the glass is safe', I know this is obvious but not everyone thinks about these things.  We have plenty of children and grandchildren on our site, with their parents, grandparents and they are well behaved.  We will soon be full of schoolchildren as the local school has taken over one site.  I think they will come one class at a time.  The Council has rotavated it for them so it is all ready to go, should be interesting to see what they grow on it. The Council runs the site so I suppose they have to be careful about safety as it is not a private site. I am quite happy with the way it is run and we have an allotment man come round and look at any new structures or to check no-one is causing problems.  Sheds are not allowed as they encourage vandalism (so I am told).  Anyhow greenhouses are not allowed so it doesn't affect me.  I am quite happy with my little Argos mini greenhouse covered with zip up polythene, but if I win the lottery and have a big garden would like a new greenhouse with safety glass.  Better go and get some free compost which the Council has kindly delivered.  grawrc I know what you mean I am frightened to admire babies, talk to children in supermarkets and heaven knows what would happen if you offered them sweets.  If I find a lost child in a shop always call the assistant as am afraid I will get arrested.  My OH was eating a sandwich with his friend during his lunch break near a park and was told to move away as they were both men and looked suspicious. He was most upset.  I'm rambling now must go to the lovely allotment.

[Mrs Ava]

I am nearly 38 and during my entire childhood mum and dad have a large pond filled with koi and a greenhouse and low and behold, both my sister and I are still here, having learnt that the pond isn't a toy and not to play around the greenhouse.  Now my children are 9 and 8 and there has been a pond in our garden since they were born, a greenhouse without safety glass, and I grow plants which are poisonous.  They play in our garden constantly, without me standing over them telling them to be careful.  I don't have 30 years mothering experience, but I have mananged to teach them that open water can be dangerous if treated without respect, that the greenhouse is not a house made out of green but a house made out of glass which can break and can cut, and that they never eat anything from the garden unless me, and only me, have told them it is safe to.  They won't even eat strawberries without checking first.  Don't get me wrong, they are the most precious things to me EVER but they are children and have to learn right from wrong, and what is safe and what is dangerous.

Toby Buckland is the best thing to have happened to GW since Geoff H, infact, I am already starting to see similarities, and Toby is a allotmenteer of old.  Sorry for the rant, but I had to get that off my chest.

[betula]

You still sometimes hear on the news about children drowning in unprotected garden ponds.Not a risk I would like to take.

[Froglegs]

I am nearly 38 and during my entire childhood mum and dad have a large pond filled with koi and a greenhouse and low and behold, both my sister and I are still here, having learnt that the pond isn't a toy and not to play around the greenhouse.  Now my children are 9 and 8 and there has been a pond in our garden since they were born, a greenhouse without safety glass, and I grow plants which are poisonous.  They play in our garden constantly, without me standing over them telling them to be careful.  I don't have 30 years mothering experience, but I have mananged to teach them that open water can be dangerous if treated without respect, that the greenhouse is not a house made out of green but a house made out of glass which can break and can cut, and that they never eat anything from the garden unless me, and only me, have told them it is safe to.  They won't even eat strawberries without checking first.  Don't get me wrong, they are the most precious things to me EVER but they are children and have to learn right from wrong, and what is safe and what is dangerous.

I agree EJ my two grew up with a glasshouse and pond in the garden and now my granddaughter plays in the garden when she comes for a visit.

[Borlotti]

My grandchildren were brought up in a flat with no garden.  When they got their house, in London with a small garden, the youngest was due at any minute and they knocked the greenhouse down (while I was so old it more or less fell down) and then filled in the pond so the 3 and 5 year old could play in the garden whilst Mum looked after the new baby whilst obviously watching out of the kitchen window.   I was brought up in a large house with a large garden and we had a greenhouse where my rabbit lived but it was at the side of the house.  There was a lot of lawn area to play and run about but in London gardens are small so I think it was the best decision to make the garden safe with 3 small children under the age of 7.  I think greenhouses and ponds are lovely but they also have other children to visit and Mum cannot watch them all the time so I am pleased the old greenhouse and pond went.  I think it is just 'horses for courses' whatever that means and country children know the dangers whereas children brought up in London don't nessarily know the dangers.  I think we we lucky to have such a lovely childhood, but we do have to be more careful nowadays.  I think being a grandparent ones sees the dangers more than with ones own children.  My son fell in the lake whilst fishing but luckily I was beside him and managed to fish him out.  He was a little S..D and if anyone fell in a pond or rode his bike into the greenhouse it would have been him.  I suppose all I mean to say is you have to know your own children and their limitations.

[grawrc]

Borlotti I appreciate what you are saying and of course one takes the decisions that seem right at the time and are in the interests of one's own children/ grandchildren. What you do on your own property is in any case to a large extent up to you. And you're right : it IS horses for courses. However, I don't think you can generalise from personal experience.
 
I was brought up in the city (Glasgow) and never had a problem when I went to my grannie's country house (from birth up) with large (and very beautiful) Victorian conservatory and stream running through the garden.

On the other hand, on a visit to beautiful Bath at age 5, I went to the Roman baths  and skipping along at the edge thought I saw something at the bottom and bent over so far that I fell in. Luckily for us all they did not decide that the baths were too dangerous for children and that they would a) exclude children and b) shut down and fill in the Roman baths. And I'm still here to tell the tale!! Nor did they charge my parents with lack of care, say that they were incapable of looking after children and take me away from them. Anyway I could swim from an early age so didn't have a problem.


We have 2 ponds in my current garden. The only people to fall in were my son (aged 23) and his cousin (aged 24) when we had a mega BBQ and they stepped back (to let people pass) straight into the wildlife pond. None of my 9 grandchildren  (including the autistic one) has ever had a problem either in the garden or on the allotment.

[OllieC]

We had a net on the pond with a frame made by my dad. I suspect that if we'd fallen in we would've got tangled up and been unable to climb back out! Dad is to DIY what Stephen Hawking is to juggling.

[Mrs Ava]

In the nicest way,  :D at your comment Ollie.

Sorry for my rant yesterday, I have the dreaded lurgey and it is wearing me down.  It is definately a case of each to their own, but I do believe education is the important factor.  My mum grew up beside the sea in North Devon and nobody netted or drained Westward Ho!.  However Borlotti,  you say we have to be more careful these days.  Why?  I am not being difficult, I am just curious.

[asbean]

You can't always keep an eye on them.  My son (aged 39) recently told me that he and his friend used to go scrumping at 6 in the morning when they were about 11-12 years old.  Apparently he used to wait till I was in bed at night, then sneak downstairs and open the dining room window (so he could get back in).  Then in the morning he would drop out of his bedroom window onto the porch roof, and I was none the wiser.

When I was a child we lived by the sea and whenever I got bored at school I would play truant and go off to the beach.  Until I bumped into the head teacher on my way down the road.  And I was younger than 9 then.

 :o :o :o :o

[ACE]

Blimey! you lot have had a very sheltered life. I remember my childhood and we were out all day from as young as I can remember. Playing in bombsites, climbing under the barbed wire to go swimming in the sea, collecting bullets and gunshells and using them as toys. Throwing bricks into the minefields on the beach so we could plot our way to the water.

Still here though, 2 of everything I should have, No father figure to whack us, mine was away in the far east, fighting, mother must have been very young to realise what dangers we were in.

I still say though that it is the parents responsibility to keep their children safe. Then the rest of use can get on with our lives and hobbies without all the nanny state rules and regulations. I am surprised that councils still let most of us have unsafe sheds and greenhouses. As it only takes one whining person to bring in blanket bans.

[littlebabybird]

i have for a long time fostered children, i have a glass coldframe in my garden its horti glass, it has been stepped in by one person, female 40 who had had 1 glass of wine
i also have very sharp knives in my kitchen again only one person has cut themselves, me and it hurt
i have poisenous berrys in thwe garden no one eats them
i have a gas cooker no one gets burnt
ditto my kettle and the iron
i now have a car the keys live in the bowl any one can take them but no one does
i have oven cleaner
i have a bath they could all drown


these kids are not all well brought up well loved kids,
most of them are pretty for want of a better description feral when we get them
but we have rules, and they are respected by every one
i am sorry for my rant
i'm upset at the moment that we cant grow anything at school with berrys
lbb

[Froglegs]

However Borlotti,  you say we have to be more careful these days.  Why?  I am not being difficult, I am just curious.

So i'm i, i think the more we wrap kids in cotton wool the more we rob them of there childhood.

[Borlotti]

Depends on the age of the child.  You wouldn't leave an iron on with the flex hanging down with a child crawling about.  We have fire guards, safety plugs, stair gates etc for young children.  I see nothing wrong with that.  Safety glass in green houses is a good thing for young and old.  Car seats for children and seat belts are good.  I suppose I am a 'helicopter grandmother' if you have heard that expression.  I cannot understand why everyone is so against me stating the obvious that safety glass in greenhouses in a good thing.  I didn't say anyone had to knock their greenhouses down or replace the glass, just said if it was said on TV to buy old greenhouses for allotments then they should have pointed out that nowadays most glass is safety glass for obvious reasons.

[Mrs Ava]

But you didn't answer my question Borlotti.  Why do we have to be more careful these days?  Surely things are safer these days than when we were young?  I guess the BBC can't comment on every health and safety issue in every program otherwise they would have to last twice as long, after all, they built a pond but I don't remember them ever discussing netting, childproof gates and fences etc.

[betula]

Perhaps being a tad pedantic EJ :)

[Amazin]

I think you make a good point, EJ. I think the safety issue is a bit like the home cooking issue.
 
I don't know if this makes sense (and I don't make a habit of it) but the way I see it is:

We recognise a danger so we introduce a safety measure. The next generation comes along afterwards seeing only the new, safer version, without any knowledge of the previous danger so there's a need to be more careful - sounds perverse I know!
 
Similarly with home cooking there was a desire for labour saving, hence the introduction of ready meals and fast food. The next generation, unless shown otherwise, would take that as normal. And so on.

It's swings and roundabouts - for every new device, skill or ability we gain, one disappears. What would we - or could we - do if there was an almighty power cut?

Maybe that's for another thread - what skills (or tools) do we have that we could use?

(blimey, I don't half ramble when I'm hungry, where's that cheese?)

[Borlotti]

Read the other topic on here, not by me 'children and greenhouses' so other people think like me.  He didn't have to spend the whole programme talking about it just one little sentence would have done 'if you have children on the allotment consider safety glass'.  Why do we have to be more careful well I am more careful with the grandchildren than I was with my own children as am older now, see more danger and they are my responsibility whilst looking after them.