Kitchen Garden Forum

I was heartened to read in the week-end press reports that the RHS had criticised the BBC for the dumbing down their gardening programmes. Hopefully the BBC will now take on board these professional criticisms and do something to improve the content of Gardeners World and other gardening programmes in future. They seem to have become so entrapped the cult of 'celebrity' that they've woefully neglected the professional side of gardening and the fact that these programmes should be designed to educate and inform. I don't know who advises the producers of these programmes, because I think their influence is partly the problem. Maybe the BBC should appoint somebody from the RHS to work with them and advise them. They could certainly do with some more professional input. I suspect that if they had a member of the RHS helping to produce future programmes rather than somebody who had achieved a third rate Media Studies degree, we might end up with better quality gardening programmes. Or am I just being cynical?

Dear Primrose, far from being cynical, i think that is a first class idea.

There are some programmes you just can't jazz up, gardening being one of them.

oldherbaceous wrote:There are some programmes you just can't jazz up, gardening being one of them.

That fact won't stop them trying to jazz it up.

Hi Primrose, Yes good idea, they could make it more thought provoking, more variation perhaps showing different approaches, and gardening can be fun, not just hard labour.

Or they could purchase the old "CLACK'S FARM" series from one of the commercial stations.

What I would like to see in future Gardeners World programmes, now that growing your own vegetables has become so popular is some concentration on the real basics, teaching people the elementary realities of which new growers are often so ignorant, and which then cause growers to be so disappointed and disillusioned at their first attempts.
For example, people need to be taught that sowing outdoor tomatoes in January will not be a success because of low light levels, resultant spindly plants and the fact that they can't be planted outdoors until June because of frosts and cold nights.
People need to understand why seed germination fails, (too hot, too cold, compost is too wet, allowed to dry out).
How best to sow seed, pot on, transplant, etc.
It's often basic hurdles like these which people need to understand better.
I don't think this process is "dumbing down" because if you don't get the basics right, you can never progress successfully. It's all the gimmicks and "ce;lebrity stuff" surrounding these processes which are the distractions. That's why I used to like Geoff Hamilton so much. He got the basics right yet never allowed his charismatic personality to detract from the information he was sharing.

Hi Primrose,
I think that what should be instilled into those new to gardening is that they must very carefully read the instructions on the seed packet before jumping in with both feet.
JB.

Example. New plot-holder was given four packets of cabbage seed by his grandaughter, He sowed all four packets in a one thirty foot row.

And funny but rather sad was the person who bought a courgette plant in a 3 inch pot from a garden centre and thought she would be able to grow and pick courgettes by placing it on her window sill.
I know everybody has to start learning how to grow more or less from scratch but it does illustrate how far divorced many people are about understanding how their food is sourced.

And the starry eyed new plot holder on our site who chirped, "Why don`t we get together one day and get rid of all the bindweed on our plots at the same time so we`d be shot of it forever."
Yeah, right.
Bless her.

Elderflower - And when she rid your plot of bindweed, would she please come to mine and eliminate all the oxallis. I spend literally hours on my hands and knees every year trying to dig out every little nodule I can find and I'm very diligent about destroying it all, but the more I dig it out, the more it seems to return the following year.
Perhaps I should try planting £2 coins to see if they behave in a similar way

Primrose wrote:Perhaps I should try planting £2 coins to see if they behave in a similar way

Sorry Primrose, it's only £1 coins that grow

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