Gardeners' World

[Cider Boys]

I wonder did anyone see last night’s Gardeners’ World on the BBC. Part of it was devoted to Jo Swift clearing an overgrown weed infected allotment. The weeds were the usual couch grass and mares tail and the chosen method to clear the site was to scrape off the top with a mini digger. Jo Swift then clearly stated the problem that can arise with chopping up couch grass roots in that one plant can be divided into ten but carried on the cultivation by rotavating the site. As all experienced gardeners would spot - why oh why was the site not first sprayed with a glyphosphate weed killer before carrying out the cultivation?

As someone that has helped clear many sites in the past, if you first spray and wait for the weeds to dye then proceed with cultivation you at least give yourself a fighting chance. As many newcomers to allotments would be following this programme it is remise of the BBC to not mention the tried and tested solution to overgrown sites, namely GLYPHOSPHATE. However this would not be in keeping with the further social engineering that ‘everything has to be organic’ crap that our licence fee now is used for.

Gardeners' World are failing to inform the license payers of the facts.

What has happened to PRAGMATISM?

Barney

[mandylew]

Yes I watched it, If only it was as easy for the rest of us to start an allotment from scratch, free diggers, free wood and pallets, compost and bark chippings turning up for free just at the right time, I expect he had an army of free helpers behind the scenes too, who will no doubt be assisting in his fight against the mares tail and couch grass.

A real allotmenteer he would have got the kids down there with spades, bit of hard work never hurt anyone.

[seedling]

SMUG is the word which sums up gardeners world last night.Joe Swifts allotment antics are not in the real world. It all happened so easily - free wood (how handy), deliveries of compost, bark and diggers.Then he goes on about how the other allotmenteers "have never seen a triangle before"

Please stop. Gardeners world used to be a good programme - not impressed now

Seedling

[Di]

A major element of design is the concept of form following function. So you want triangles, fine, but have small ones - you have to be able to reach all the soil from the paths. Even that would mean a high proportion of path to productive soil... which is why most people go for rectangles, bloody obvious innit?

i usually like Joe Swift, seems very sincere in his love of gardening and design, but this is a bad case of being too clever for your own good.

[oldherbaceous]

Well i think Mr Swift is being very brave taking an allotment on from scratch and having it filmed.

He is in a no win situation really.

But i do find it quite funny how he has got caught in the beginers trap of wanting to get planting as soon as possible, and not getting his ground cleared properly. Whether it have been spraying or digging.

I know i wouldn't want the film crew round when all that couch grass and marestail starts errupting into life.

I feel that it's going to be quite stressful for him over the coming year, whats a shame really, as allotments are meant to be fun.
I suppose the money might take his mind off that a little though.

I do wish him well.

[oldherbaceous]

Just had another thought, if anyone knows what allotment site he is on, it might pay to pop round and tell him to join this forum for some advice.

[alan refail]

Just had another thought, if anyone knows what allotment site he is on, it might pay to pop round and tell him to join this forum for some advice.

Here's a clue.

[alan refail]

37 to chooses from

[vivienz]

I thought the allotment section was really disappointing last night, and that the rest of the programme was quite boring. Carol Klein is lovely and undoubtedly passionate about her subject, but that part of the prog took a good 15 minutes and the end result was one hazel branch from Wales. How sustainable and ecological, I wonder, was the journey from Devon to Wales and back, and for the camera crew, wherever they travelled from?
Joe Swift's allotment part, I thought, was equally dissatisfying. I felt that he was prickly that the 'old boys' on the allotment didn't think much of his ideas - one thing that is great about allotments is the wealth of experience around and free advice. If something is done with a common method for a long period of time, it's probably because it works and is efficient! It's great to have an allotment looking lovely, but surely its prime function is production of crops - I got the feeling that Joe's background as designer got in the way of that basic concept.
I wholeheartedly agree with OH on the ground clearance - it's rather misleading for people who are considering taking on an allotment to be given the impression that it only takes a couple of days rotavating; one of the main causes for newcomers giving up in the first year on our site is because they don't realise how much effort goes into keeping the plot relatively weed free. I will be very disappointed if the cameras AREN'T there when that chopped up couch grass starts to shoot up everywhere - one thing's for sure, having put in his triangular beds, he won't be able to get the rotavator onto them again with any ease.
Oh, for the days of Geoff Hamilton.

Vivien

[Barry]

I kept thinking: what a waste! What he should have done was to have told the digger to go away and instead levered the couch grass off in slabs using his fork. The recovered grass should then have been stacked, urinated on at every opportunity and ultimately fed back into the plot once it had composted. He should then have used his fork to dig out the roots, sticking them in a big tank full of water making fantastic liquid manure he could then have used later in the year. The digging would have told him more about his soil than any lab analysis, plus digging makes you feel really good about yourself too.
I like the design of his beds, but they were much too big. After all, the idea behind raised beds is that you don't disturb the soil by treading on it. By using 4ft by 3m beds you have the ideal shape and size.
By rotivating the soil, he did the WORST possible thing, because he will now have to completely dig up the beds again by standing on them and using a fork to get down at the roots, many of which will now be deeply buried. In effect, he doubled his work. Pillock!
Another thing. I use wood chip, but splashing is straight down on the soil to form your paths is mad. Wood chip needs to go on some form of membrane to be really effective, or it will simply disappear into the soil. He could have used old carpet, which is how I do it, or mypex.
I was also a bit worried about HOT green waste compost. I hope he is going to stack it for a bit; if he applies it as it is at the moment then he will burn his emerging plants.
The bet the old coggers who were milling around could have explained this to him. Ironic, wasn't it, that he initially said that his neighbourly plot holder Keith was going to give him lots of advice; then, when the advice being given wasn't what he wanted to hear, young Joe sulked.
Having said all that, thank goodness GW is doing a project like this, just to show people how to get started is great. Not that many places have available plots these days! So said the One show the other week...
PS. His mate Cleve wasn't doing him any favours either, was he? Giving him raspberry canes miles before he had anywhere to put them borders on the sheer daft.

[Mike Vogel]

Yes, Seedling, AND he had help with his shed. ANYBODY can put up a shed with another person to help. As you say, not in the real world.

mike

[Chantal]

Seedling and I were talking about the show this afternoon and we both thought that the manky old shed he paid £25 for wasn't the same shed that went up. The shed propped against the wall had wood that looked like rotten old teeth, but the shed on the plot looked fine.

I sat howling at the TV for most of the 30 minutes but interestingly Tim, who as most of you know is horticulturally challenged, thought the programme was pretty good. What bothers me is how many people will take on a plot and expect it all to fall into place like Joe's. Not in the real world folks

[Lurganspade]

.
Now! Now! don't criticise Joe Boy, or his dads TV wife might come and pay you a visit!

.

[Weed]

I am pleased that I was not the only one who wasn't too impressed by Joe's attitude towards his fellow allotmenteers.
Chantal...methinks you are right about a doppleganger shed....If it was me I would have walked away when I saw the state of the original shed he went to purchase.
He kept asking people basic questions that most, without any gardening knowledge, could have answered and he is allegedly has a gardening background ...was it recorded on April 1st...perhaps next week they will admit to it being a bit of a joke.

[pongeroon]

Just a small point here - lets not forget that this is TV, therefore principally entertainment. The programme is 'made', it doen't 'happen' like real life does. Don't be too hard on poor Joe, he has to toe the line in his job, same as most of us.