Is this a gardening forum?

[piskieinboots]

Discuss .............

[SarzWix]

Oh aye I spend at least as much time looking at Vegging Out & Allotment Advice as I do on anything else, and answer questions if I think I know an answer. It's usually veg growing queries that get people on here I reckon, then they find out we is nice peeps and decide to chat about other stuff too

[lynda66]

gardening? i thought it was a site for buying odd shaped vibrators?

[rustylady]

Well I thought it was when I joined, but I'm not so sure anymore. I'm OK with general chitchat, that's good, but I'm not sure about the new stuff.

[Alice]

Off course it's a gardening forum Piskie. There's a lot of other stuff besides but it's like the telly, you choose the buttons you want to use. And gardening has always been about blethering over the fence. The benefit here is you're not stuck with it. If you don't want to blether don't press the button. But you do a bit of blethering yourself.

[Nicos]

I love the ability to go between the gardening and social bit.
I spend loads of time Googling about people's gardening questions if I don't already know the answer ( or even if I do!)
I'm learning loads from the peeps here and the research.
With the weather being so rubbish recently it's helped keep me focused on gardening when I've not been able to nip down to the lottie.

There's not enough time in the day to read all the posts now that the site has grown so much, so I do feel I miss out ( I'm SURE I do!) on lots of stuff.

Where else would you find such a grand group of peeps whose eye's don't glaze over at the first mention of cow poo?????

ERGO....this IS a gardening forum Piskie!

[TonyF]

I only look at a few of the sections in here plus the weather and the social bit. If there's a title I don't want to read or a subject that doesn't interest me - like allotments, only because I don't have one or need one nor do I live in the UK - I self-select and don't read it/them.

As for the social bit, I'm also choosy there, some things interest me and some don't.

But it's still the best gardening, proper gardening not fad gardening, forum on the Internet. So much expertise, so many GOOD gardeners, apart from the pics, who needs the magazine - which by the way, I've got the last edition of, which Jenny bought when she was back in the UK last week. Instead of having all the experts with their huge budget businesses contributing, why not have more ordinary people contributing to the magazine, may be even better then?

A chumlette was back in the Uk last week and went to get her hair done in her usual Uk hairdressers where her hairdresser was telling her about the latest 'must have', an allotment and her latest 'must grow your own' thing that's sweeping the UK. Jill sort of gently told her that she's been doing it for years and the hairdresser thought she was joking - it's a NEW thing for younger people.

Yeah, right ..................

[piskieinboots]

.... But you do a bit of blethering yourself.

I have a PhD in blether Alice

[Two_Sheds]

I still love the Grapevine.
I think anything "new" as regards updates, tends to frighten the less techie-minded among us (or those with Dial Up, which just can't cope)
Rather than say "I hate it, I can't do it" .... just ask how!

[piskieinboots]

my post wasn't a gripe about grapevine - I just got to thinking about all the changes going on and the fact that I had someone approach me about doing some work for them so I guess it's (Vine) now a real grown-up network

I have learnt and continue to learn tons of stuff on here and I wouldn't change it for anything. I'm comfortable with site changes in that they don't daunt me and so far I haven't found anything much to upset me

I'm not convinced that we needed 'Friends' and Groups but that is being discussed elsewhere - so I'm off back into my garden now

[sharonr]

It`s nice to bounce ideas off of other people, and if you can help or be helped I think thats great. I also like to stick my oar in on a manor of different subjects and I think it`s good to get stuff off you chest.

[Alison]

Think I've said it elsewhere before but I joined this forum to discuss gardening related stuff which I can quite happily stretch to the cooking and preserving bit. Don't have chooks so don't read those bits (apart from when I open them by accident, some of the titles have me very confused and I tend to read things based on what's in new posts rather than the separate directories) but would if I did if you see what I mean. Personally I don't understand why people post alot of of the chat stuff that's not related to gardening but loads of people reply so fair enough. However, if I wanted some general advice on something then it's highly unlikely I'd post here, much more likely to ask my work colleages, family or physical friends (as oppose to virtual ones). As somebody else has already said, not too sure about the friends / groups bit, just seems to complicate and make it a bit gimicky at the moment but presumably it's progress so will see how it goes.

[di]

We've not had the computer for long~I was always adamant we wouldn't let the evilnet into our house!!Then we got given an old one just to "play with",weeks later D started coming home with computer homework so we took the plunge & went on the net!Had a dabble with some of the less appealing social sites,tracking old friends etc,but soon discontinued membership as a lot of it was total tripe(in our eyes!)~Then we stumbled upon The Grapevine!!Our main(at the time only)reason for joining was the gardening side of things,but have rapidly found the benefit of virtual friends!Although most times friends/family would be the 1st port of call for "GC" sometimes it's nice to get an opinion from someone that doesn't really know you & doesn't therefore feel the need to give you the answer you want~also I can't expect "real" peeps to be there for a mindless chat when I'm trying to skive the housework!(not saying that the GC is mindless~apologies to you all!!)I'd still say the main appeal of the grapevine for me is the garden/chook advice but the GC has def won me over~admit the new bits are a tad confusing&the numbers game concerns me a bit,but overall I think the tone of the Grapevine compared to some of the"proper"social networking sites remains totally different~without wanting to sound cliched I think it's the people that make a forum what it is not the set up.
sorry for the waffle & hope it makes sense~tend to lose track after a drink!!

[HeyWayne]

Funny you should mention it pisk, I thought about this just the other day.

I suddenly became conscious that I don't contribute much in the way of gardening advice (because I don't know very much at all) but do linger in "General Chat" most of the time, and post some right tripe.

The main reason for me thinking about my contributions was the amount of newbies that have arrived over the recent months, no doubt looking for answers but having to trawl through pages of waffle to get to the answers.

Sorry newbies.

This week, I'm gong to make a concerted effort to post serious stuff...

[jackie j]

Heywayne you serious !!! I doubt that, you come up with some funny stuff ( as does piskie ) makes me laugh so much sometimes my sides ache. lol