Landscape Juice

Is gardening theft? Alex Lester thinks so

I had an alert come through on my google reader with the headline "Gardening is theft". I could not resist taking a look to find out what this actually meant.

Interestingly enough is was the headline of an essay written by the Radio 2 presenter Alex Lester.

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat

Yet another year is coming towards it's annual climax of Christmas. For many, it will be a time to put the gardening gloves and wellies away for a month - apart from any major clearance or pruning - and relax a bit.

Time to make lists of seeds for flowers and vegetables for the coming spring or maybe just potter around the shed, tinkering with the the mower or rotovator perhaps?

What would be your perfect present?

If you could choose just one item for Christmas that would make a huge difference to you gardening life, what would it be?

Is the Horticulture printed publication industry in deep trouble?

Take me back just ten years and I would not have been referring to the internet for industry news.

No, ten years ago I would have been happy to sit in my van, cup of steaming hot tea from the flask and a haslet and pickle sandwich, reading Horticulture Week.

If I wanted to advertise for a managerial position I too would turn to Hort Week, in the hope of casting my net far and wide to attract the right candidate.

Oh how times have changed and I really feel that decline may have set in for established printed magazines such as Hortweek, The Landscaper magazine, and Greenkeeper International - these three I would call the premier magazine of choice for their respective industries.

Is Carbendazim going to be banned as a worm killer?

I am hearing a lot of rumour about the banning of Carbendazim as a wholesale worm killer.

The debate about its use in horticulture and food production has been rattling about for years and will probably, never go away.

My understanding is, Carbendazim was found by accident, to interrupt the eating habits of worms but is primarily a fungicide.

Are you insured against bonfire accidents?

In a recent AA survey it was found that there is uninsured property to the value of £780 million at risk this bonfire night.

The AA say that many more of us have developed the outside space into an extra room and have spent a considerable amount of time and money in sprucing this space up.

I am not so sure that the AA have got the risks right though. Bonfire night is not the same any more and I suspect that only a small proportion of that £780 million property is at risk on November the 5th as political correctness - Oh how I hate that phrase. I prefer to call it the brigade who have discharged their collective responsibilities - has ensured that only the best of organised displays are allowed to continue.

Even the extremely successful, well organised, Oakhanger Village bonfire became a casualty of it's own success.

It closed about five years ago because hundreds of people attended what started of as a residents display on what is known as the old cricket pitch and the insurance became a problem.

When do you think that he'll come back?

The opening words of the famous poem by Rudyard Kipling about the fruitless search for his son John (Jack) who was killed by a mortar shell on the front line at Loos, north-eastern France, during the First World War.

Kipling never got over the death of his beloved son and was to go on to found the War Graves Commission, whose aim is to remember, with a headstone, the death of every known Commonwealth soldier that dies in conflict.

You could be the Garden Photographer of the Year

At this time of year, with Halloween, Guy Fawkes and Christmas, there are so many dates that we all have scratch into our diaries. With that in mind you can be forgiven for overlooking one important event.

The 31st of January is the closing date for entries into the Garden Photographer of the Year awards. Time is running short, so if you want to win it, you have to be in it.

There are five categories

My Garden
Garden Views
Plant portraits
Life in the Garden
Trees

The winners will have their work exhibited at the world renowned Kew Gardens.

The full moon - is there a significance?

I am just off to the agricultural supplies to purchase the cereals for drilling our fields.

My 5 hectares of fields are dry after a long month or so of late Indian summer sunshine and we now have a window of opportunity to drill the soil whilst the soil temperature is still optimised.

I had a visit from my neighbour who had reserved enough of the cereal for me when he collected his own. It is in short supply this year after a bumper run on the price, next year expected to be just as good tp all the farmers are clamouring over the stocks.

The price for the cereal harvest has doubled. Although farmers are never that happy a bunch they raised a smile this year.

Horticultural publishing job with whopping salary

It seems there is more money to be made in horticulture than if you actually get your hands dirty as a day job.

A London publishing house, responsible for over 60 titles and translating them into 23 languages, is looking for a publisher on £70,000 per year.

Garden Centre Television..............lights, camera and action!

Garden Centre television has set the cameras rolling and is now showing film 4 in it's fledgling service.

I wrote recently about the up and coming service and talked to Jim Greenfield who explained a bit about what they are trying to achieve and where they see the business going.

I had made a few assumptions and errors in the original post and Jim very kindly put me straight.

I would be interested to hear from garden centre managers who are using the service and what they think of it.