How active a gardener are you?

[veggiechicken]

Are you Proactive - take action to prevent disasters - like netting your brassicas as soon as planted out?

Are you Reactive - spot disasters in the making and react to them - like cabbage white butterflies hovering around your cabbages - so net them (cabbages or butterflies) .

Are you Inactive - spot caterpillars and holes on your brassicas, shrug your shoulders and say that you don't like cabbages anyway.

Brassicas are just an example - it could be protecting fruit from birds, fleecing your crops if cold weather is likely, etc, etc.

Please give examples of your activity levels.

[burnie]

A mixture of all three at times, given up on brassicas(again) I use netting on strawberries and currants, but I will not be buying any more when this lot has gone, cutting out plastics where I can. I do use fleece and chicken wire to protect crops though and they go on in advance of problems.
I used to be indecisive...…………………………….but I'm not sure now.

[Chrissyteacup]

I think I’m a mixture depending on what it is... I did net my brassicas but don’t tend to pull weeds till there well grown I really should hoe them before they get that established.

[bramble]

Proactive, definitely.
But then again, I have probably learned that from trial and error over many years.
As soon as I plant out any type of crop I add some kind of cover to protect the plants and seeds.

[Thelma Sanders]

I'm a bit mixed up! as well.. I net the brassicas, that's an obvious part of the routine as I plant them, and usually plant through membrane, but a bit lazy about other stuff, like weeding and mowing … thinking I'll do that tomorrow *blush*

[greenishfing]

I'm a mixture too. I tend to pamper my "babies", but then as they grow I leave them to it.
Weeds tend to turn to triffids before I decide I really must do something about them.
Predictive text had my weeds turning to truffles rather than triffids then. I wish!!!

[nickdub]

generally I'm in the asleep category, but I occasionally have short fits of enthusiasm.

I'd recommend fruit growing for anyone-else similar, as its more tolerant of neglect.

[Greenleaves]

I like to plan for pests etc and hate weeds so always got the hoe at the ready.

Unfortunately with having a month long summer holiday, I have to switch to reactive mode

[Bren In Pots]

I erected my brassica cage around the same time as sowing the seeds, same goes for pea and bean frames I don't like to leave things until the last minute. So I'm thinking that makes me proactive.

[Baldy]

Generally reactive - though I usually enter this sort of time of year full of good intentions to fix things that went awry this season. So, for example, its within the realms of possibility that I will have built a fruit cage ready to defeat the birds next summer. (Its not likely but it is possible)

[chillithyme]

I was proactive when I first got my allotment and have downgraded to reactiveish. For example I bought netted tunnel hoops before I had an allotment in prep. I have yet to use the hoops. I also transported with some help pallets for a fence, which are still piled up and being used as a bench

[SarrissUK]

I would like to think I am proactive, or at least reactive... and sometimes I do things properly from the start... but actually, most of the time I do nothing at all about things like pests. I have netting but not really used it, I have fleeced very little, and only very early on.

[mothhawk]

I think I'm mostly a sleeper. I know the kale won't make it but each year I sow seeds, then leave them to fend for themselves. And I don't grow fussy crops that need cosseting. Well I may, but they don't get any cosseting. As I recall Penelope Keith saying once in an interview, "I plant them carefully, then say - Grow you bu**ers!"

For instance my two surviving kale plants are just now growing leaves that make it to bigger than three inches. The slugs had the rest of the seedlings in spring, and the caterpillars have been nipping off each new leaf through the summer. I don't know where the little devils hide, I search the leaves but never seem to find them till they are almost full grown. Maybe I need new glasses....

I expect my plants to survive, and if they can't be bothered, why should I worry? The ones that do generally give a bonanza harvest.

[veggiechicken]

I'm asking these questions because, as I weeded the blackcurrants, I realised I hadn't picked any fruit off then for a couple of years.! Either the chickens or the smaller birds are there before me.
If I took some proactive action next year, put a cage/netting over them, I could pick blackcurrants to my heart's content.
However, do I really like blackcurrants? I'm not sure that I do! Should I go to the effort of protecting them or do nothing and leave them for the birds.

In this case. I'm falling into the Inactive category.

[Nicos]

I'm a mixture too! Perhaps with a slight leaning towards reactive.
I prefer the idea of survival of the fittest/ what's the weather like...
I am happy to nothing apart from wander around admiring nature and reaping/cooking/eating the results of my previous efforts....back to working my arris off for several days until I can hardly move