Has Anyone Read This Months Prospect Magazine?

[General Woundwort]

... 'cos there was an essay about the demise of allotments as places to grow nutritious and essential food for yer bairns, and the rise of middle-classes putting bees before broccoli.

Subscription required.

Class tensions also thrive. Many middle-class plot-holders have sacrifice high production in favour of prettiness and wildlife conservation. They disdain the "industrial methods" of the peasants at the bottom of the field.

Hahahaha!

One hippie mum, a yoga teacher, dug a pong to encourage frogs and other wildlife only to find that someone stuck a garden fork through the liner in protest at this use of growing space.

Delicious.

[Florence Fennel]

Each to their own General and it does sound snobby to me, but have you seen Jules' post about turning a tennis court into an allotment? Topsy turvy world we live in.

[Rhona]

Undoubtedly fertile ground for discussion, but from what I was able to read, and your excerpts, it sounded a bit one-eyed and mean-spirited to be honest.

As FF sez; each to their own.

[bobleponge]

I wouldn't know read that publication out of principal. Shoking speling.

[Pumpkin Becki]

I wouldn't know read that publication out of principal. Shoking speling.

Norty Bobster!

Personally I feel that growing crops hand-in-hand with nature, rather than trying to fight it, actually improves productivity. We need bees to pollinate our crops, therefore it makes sense to encourage them onto the plot. Frogs and toads eat slugs and snails, therefore a pond is a totally valid use of allotment space. Putting a garden implement through someone's pond liner is not only vandalism, but also trespassing. This article seems to be written by someone stuck in the 60's and 70's, the heyday of insecticide and weedkiller. I'd rather garden my way thank you.

[General Woundwort]

Mea maxima culpa about the spelling typos [1]. I didn't have my log-in to hand, so typed out the excerpts.

As for the responses, although I ain't no Arthur Fowler or Flump, I see allotments (at least those on common land) as being for edible produce. The old timers, who'd started on Clapham Common in 1952 (as seen on public access), did so to feed their families during real bone-gnawing hunger; and - as a long-term unemployed who has felt the relief on his pocket from what bits of land he's scavanged - my sympathies would be with them (some of whom remain after 58 years) 100%, after six decades of keeping allotments running, to see whippersnappers come along and turn them into wildlife centres.

Sorry, community gardens exist for that. I know, 'cos I'm involved; and my home garden, on ground not suitable for vegetables, is a bee-haven.

The article spread its net wide. For instance, profiteering... one farmer was trying to charge one grand a year for a plot; or apparent queue jumping, with new-starts offering to help those near to the end.

There were also racial tensions. At the field where said hippie mum found out the rest of the world wasn't there to entertain her, there were tensions against one ethnic ground (unspecified) was accused by White working- and middle-classes (another jibe at the latter, who may thought of themselves as above this sort of thing) of using their "large, vocal families" to net-over plots (can't see the problem with that) and staging a well-timed manure grab.

There were also mundane discussions about legislation.

The article ended with the simple observation that, despite what the fusty contrarian noveau Quakers (oh, don't start, I'm one of those as well) may think about their being a direct link to the Levellers, the true Levellers were those "peasants at the bottom of the field".

We're not Christians up in Thurso. Christ stopped at Inverness.

[1] Whoops, after watching That Mitchell and Webb Look, I fear I will be shot with a silencer'd gun for this ghastly Americanism.

[Alison]

Not a mag I know but having clicked on a few of the links within the mag I found all the articles I read to be rather pious and irritating so not one I'll be subscribing to. Seemed a definite lack of understanding the live and let live ethos.

[zazen999]

Seemed a definite lack of understanding the live and let live ethos.

Anyone who thinks that sticking a fork into a pond is funny, really doesn't understand the live and let live ethos; esp when frogs eat slugs [der!].

[di]

Nope...not read it and from your quotes I have absolutely no intention of doing so.
What small minded tosh.

[HeyWayne]

Come and stick a fork through my pond liner and we'll see who ends up laughing.

Narrow-minded, ignorant and outmoded.

[General Woundwort]

Oh, dear, it's like being circled by a hyena pack.

This wasn't an established pond (and only one anecdote in the wider article), and live 'n let live works both ways: said old timers, who had kept the spirit of home-growing going for six decades of well-stocked supermarkets, were not well-disposed to seeing turned into recreational centres in return for the peppercorn rents.

In a community garden or private residence, by all means, but the argument was that common or council-owned land was at too much of a premium to be used in this fashion. I'd quite like my personal frog pond, but would expect to pay more than forty quid a year.

I recall when I co-tended a plot in the Central Belt, there was a ruckus with the organic crew and old boys who'd been there for decades [1] about artificial fertilizer running-off onto the former's areas.

It was war, I tells you!

Prospect is an essay collection, and this month included a bit from AC Grayling about Michel de Montaigne who started this genre - pieces which aim to try ('essayer') to assay oneself.

I wouldn't know read that publication out of principal. Shoking speling.

Hehe, just noticed the obvious (?) mistake. And not the second two.



[1] With the suggestion that a goodly proportion of the former weren't going to be still there in a few years.

[Seahorse]

I think you're missing the point re the pond GW A pond actually *helps* you grow more veg - as mentioned above, frogs are fabulous pest control. I'd be willing to bet quite a few 'old timers' would agree!

[zazen999]

[1] With the suggestion that a goodly proportion of the former weren't going to be still there in a few years.

Of course they won't be; with a bunch of [stupid?] old blokes driving them off the plot with ignorance and violence what else would you expect?

[General Woundwort]

Okay, rewind, I should have made clear the delicious bit was the image of a hippy mum who taught yoga. Obviously, I wouldn't advocate sticking a fork through a pond-liner any more than I would encourage those things the Griffin family do which make me laff.

Yes, amphibians control pests. So do pesticides, which relates to the conflict at my previous site. We took time to appreciate visit birds and hedgehogs and the local foxes (one was poisoned when a freak rainstorm washed away someone's supply of rat poison; that was a smelly fortnight in July).

There is another point about the nominal rent attached to such council-owned sites arguably means that new-starts should not expect to be able to impose arch-individualist plans without consideration for others.

Of course they won't be; with a bunch of [stupid?] old blokes driving them off the plot with ignorance and violence what else would you expect?

Never happened on my previous site. In fact, any brow-beating was being done by the new-starts who didn't trust the methods of those "peasants at the bottom of the field", and wanted them to stop.

I blame Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

~*lights blue touchpaper and retires*~

[Seahorse]

Could you clarify why the idea of a hippy mum who teaches yoga and has a pond is so 'delicious'?