Kitchen Garden Forum

Reported on the BBC news website the very sad news of the passing of Geoffrey Smith http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7916174.stm

I used to watch his Mr Smiths gardening series and bought the book from a book club when I was at junior school...

There he was on the television doing real gardening...proper winter digging etc, etc...just like I saw my Grandfather and Father doing..

..and telling it how it is...

...later with a certain special wit and humour.

Fairly recently, on the radio, I remember his answer to the question..Rabbits.?.. There was pause...and then he came back with a description of some particularly fine pastry.!! ...and then Squirels.?...same again...but with a canny addition here...Paid a bounty for producing the tail of the Squirel...and then paid again for the pie ingredients at local USAF base....

I see there is a ref to...This week's Gardeners' Question Time (Sunday, 1400 GMT) will carry a tribute to Mr Smith with contributions from his fellow panellists together with some of his broadcast contributions.


Clive.

Dear Clive, i was a big fan of Mr Smith too, he will be sadly missed.

Must catch GQT he was a great character. I remember his comments (the values might be wrong) about not putting a 10 bob plant in a 5 bob hole. I didn't realise he went to Harlow Carr so young - his stream garden is one of the great gardens.

Geoffrey was one of the all time Greats.
His down to earth basic vegetable growing series on TV ....... moons ago was what inspired me. His love and knowledge of the countryside was second to none. A delight to listen to. He will be very much missed.

Beryl.

RIP Geoffrey

No doubt tha'll already be fettling yon big garden in't sky.

Geoffrey Smith lived not far from us and when I met him in a local garden centre a few years ago, I had quite an argument with him about the length of tree you could safely transport in a short wheelbase Landrover! Can't remember the outcome but he sure made his opinion known!
The small BBC book on Mr Smith's garden became quite a "bible" to me when we first created a new garden where we live now, lots of common sense in there.

We were big fans of Geoffrey Smith as well, we watched his programme of the vegetable garden if my memory serves me right it was an allotment in Manchester in 1976, I can picture him now walking down the path with a spade on his shoulder to the tune of Piper in the meadow, he choose that tune as one of his favourites when he was on Desert Island Disk,?(spelling).
I have got both booklets Mr. Smith's Vegetable Garden and Mr Smith's favourites garden on my shelve they accompanied the programme's on TV. in 1976 and 1982, one was 60p and the other £1.50.
He also did a weekly diary in the Garden News for along time.
Two things that stuck in my memory of him on question time once they were discussing how to pronounce Clematis and he said it didn't matter as long as all the letters were in the word, the other was that he used the soil from Molehills for seed sowing , first getting permission from the neighbouring farmer to take it.
May he rest in peace.
Bren

Being a great fan Geoffrey's I would make a point of going to his meet at every available possible occasion and I only ever heard him get the slightest annoyed with anybody.
A titled lady tried to belittle him. She said I am Lady Soandso, how sound do you think the advice is that you give to people? (in a very nasty way)
Geoffrey paused,taken aback at the question, and said, well as sound as your title I suppose, paused and said, but remember madam there was a French revolution! People of France don't ask such questions anymore!
Not a verbatim account but the same idiom.
I simply fell about.
JB.

I thought the Garderener's Question Time event was so reminisence of the man himself. He would have been pleased.

Beryl wrote:Geoffrey was one of the all time Greats.
His down to earth basic vegetable growing series on TV ....... moons ago was what inspired me. His love and knowledge of the countryside was second to none. A delight to listen to. He will be very much missed.

Beryl.

It's a pity that the modern programs aren't like that, instead of being "entertainment" programs.

Dear Larkshall, i'm not even convinced it's entertainment at times.
What with the dreaded music, and the in and out of focus shots.

I do feel better for that.

OH. is it me but on these so called gardening programmes, why do the soil look as though it has come from Harrods .

Dear Shallot Man, i have never known you to be wrong yet.

Shallot Man wrote:OH. is it me but on these so called gardening programmes, why do the soil look as though it has come from Harrods .

Shallot Man, how do you know what soil from Harrods looks like?

Dear Peter, the answer is easy, it was our dear Shallot Man that delivered it to Harrods.

Yes, it came out of the treads on his work boots, whilst taking afternoon tea with Mr Fayed.