Gardener's World Friday 5th March 2010 - Page 3

 



We were out last night and didn't see GW but I have to agree with
Martin on this one.  There are so many food allergies, or potential
skin allergies, etc. to plants, that if every one is to be named and
cautioned against on GW, it will be a health programme, not a gardening
one.  They could perhaps do an episode just on that subject but I can't
really see that it works as a 'trickle through' feature at all times.  
Introducing new varieties of foods is another topic altogether and of
course, it's appropriate to a gardening programme.  It's the business
of GW to teach people how to garden and how to grow good plants,
whether they're ornamental or vegetable.  But it's not its job to teach
them to manage their food allergies.  One of the previous criticisms of
GW was that it jumped about too much and was too fragmented.  
Introducing another topic seems to be a certain way to ensure a lack of
cohesion, IMO.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon

 


Sacha wrote:


Good points, well made.

I hazard a guess that none of the presenters have arthritis, or have
other ways (medication or whatever) of dealing with it. I take your
point that this isn't a health programme, even though there is a close
relationship between food and health.

I didn't have in mind a continuous series on the topic, but it could
have enough in it to make a programme, and would be far more relevant
than one on garden gnomes, for example.

Another idea might be a programme aimed at first-time gardeners. Take
seed-planting, as it featured prominently last night. There may be all
sorts of ways of planting seeds, but if a newcomer had bought or been
given a clutch of seeds, what general-purpose seed-planting routine
(that could be easily remembered) would be adequate for most of them?
It seems to me that there is plenty of specific advice on GW, but what
general routine is there that would be recalled and used, and would
stand a chance of giving useful results?

After all, we all came to gardening one way or another, and it's the
newcomers that are the next generation - they need to be attracted in.

I really hope that GW doesn't continue in last night's vein.

TF

 



   If, as you posted earlier,  you have been gardening since Geoff
Hamilton's time then you surely know there is no
 general purpose seed-planting routine. It is always specific, depending
on the type of plant, the size of seed, the time of year

    Janet
  

  

 



Only since Geoff Hamiltons time?
No wonder you are still learning, now in My day with Gardening club
with Percy Thrower Taught you so much more, like keeping your foot on
the turf as you used a hollow tine fork to stop the turf comming up
stuck to the fork, that if you had a greenhouse on the roof of
broadcasting house then it didn't need glass and much more, but in
those days programmes were broadcast live and mistakes had to be
covered.
They didn't have the advantage that TV cooks Like Philip Harben had of
going to the oven for the "One I prepared Earlier" (Yes it was Philip
Harben and not Blue Peter that originated that phrase).
But my gardening education started much earlier with  Adam the
Gardener who was in the News of the World.
I would toddle off to our Land lady out on Llyne peninsular in Sarn
Bach where she would sit me on her knee and read Adam the Gardener to
me every Sunday, from just after the end of the war.
Ahhhhhhhhh!
Those were the days.

David Hill

 


Janet Baraclough wrote:


Yes, I personally know that; but a newcomer might not. General advice
that works most of the time, which can easily be remembered, would be
of use to such a group. After all, one wants to attract people in the
hobby, not repel them with too much specificity.

It might not work all the time, but would give the newbie a base on
which to start. They can refine the technique in the decades that
follow.

TF