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Articles like this always make me a bit sad, as a keen gardener. It usually involves some "hip" but impractical course from a fancily named company who are mask

by ErrantX 14y ago

Articles like this always make me a bit sad, as a keen gardener. It usually involves some "hip" but impractical course from a fancily named company who are masking over the fact that 90% of successful gardening is digging a hole and watering. In fact it boils down to two things: * Basic gardening is not hard * Fancy equipment is no substitution for practice & experience All of the equipment (and money) he mentioned did little to impact the problems faced when growing tomatoes; he still struggled with the common diseases (why do courses like that not teach about such things!!). Also, why are they handing round seeds with no sensible advice on flavour, treatment and scale! Aren't they supposed to be experts? Some tomato basics: * Tomatoes are great, they generally need very little attention and will fruit under even the worst gardener. BUT initially they do need a very small amount of daily attention! * They grow bigger than you expect. BUT if you only give it a common garden cane to grow up this will help limit its growth :) * General advice for all vegetable growing: plant in stages. And spend time picking your varieties depending on the time they fruit. I generally plant seeds once every fortnight during the early part of the year, to make sure everything doesn't crop at once! It seems this "love apple" totally failed to give this basic, and obvious, advice. It depresses me how many hacks are around selling these gardening courses, when the reality is that it's simple to just get out there and have a go. First year round it won't work so well - but within 4 or 5 years you'll be a dab hand. I recommend trying lettuce as a first attempt - you can plant it straight out in the garden, it grows really quickly, requires minimal attention, and is basically impossible to get wrong (just don't plant the whole pack at once :D). In fact, pretty much anything you can plant out in rows and grows close to the ground will be easy to tend. Most seed packets come with solid instructions to get the best from your plants, so don't neglect reading them. Oh, another helpful tip is to learn how to dig over & fertilise a garden properly [1], as well as the basics of crop rotation - this will do a lot of improving your success rate. To finish with an analogy; what "love apple" seem to be advising here, is similar to a non-programmer sitting down with the fresh install of Rails and reading a single page "How To" on "Cloning Amazon in three weeks". 1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/soil_digging1.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/soil_diggin...

hp50g 14y ago
you hit the nail on the head with that. Snake oil salesmen. People seem to want to pay to be told something you can read in a book. Its taking money off fools. Buy a book and read it. This one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grow-Your-Own-Vegetables-Larkcom/dp/071121963X http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grow-Your-Own-Vegetables-Larkcom/dp/... This is the only gardening book i own. People keep buying me new trendy ones etc endorsed by celebrity morons but they usually end up being re-gifted. This is good for anywhere in the world as well even though it primarily targets northern hemisphere. Decades of advice, concisely compiled. Its the SICP of gardening.
- calinet6 14y ago
  To be fair, there's something about hands-on learning that some people enjoy or even require to learn best. Even as a fairly experienced gardener, I'd relish the opportunity to spend a little time learning from someone who farms for a living, as long as it's not too expensive. Books are good too, but nothing beats getting out in the garden and watching an experienced gardener do the real thing.
RyanMcGreal 14y ago
> Tomatoes are great, they generally need very little attention and will fruit under even the worst gardener. I'll attest to that. We had a garden last summer for the first time in my life and we planted about 30 tomato plants. We started them in trays, transferred them into turned-and-fertilized ground when they were about 5 inches tall, watered them regularly, fertilized them occasionally, spent an hour or two weeding each week, and pinched off the suckers from time to time. That's pretty much it - and they produced an impressive outpouring of the most delicious ripe tomatoes. That was during a brutally hot summer with hardly any rain (and the rain we did get was torrential). Granted, we got lucky with the tomatoes, but not everything turned out as well. The carrots were tasty but small, and we didn't get any squash, peas or Brussels sprouts. However, the herbs did great, and we got lots of golden beets, onions, leeks and scallions (we froze the latter at the end of the season and we're still eating them). We got some cucumber but not as many as I would have liked. Our first batch of lettuce was completely clearcut by local bunnies, but our second and third batches were much more successful. We even planted mustard greens and Russian kale in early August, and we enjoyed them right up to mid-December when we got a hard frost and a heavy snowfall. One of the highlights of our summer was the period when everything aligned and we were able to enjoy salads composed entirely of stuff from our garden (plus dressing). I'm already looking forward to gardening again this year. I learned a few things (the hard way) last year and hope to learn plenty more in future.

by ErrantX 14y ago

hp50g 14y ago

you hit the nail on the head with that. Snake oil salesmen. People seem to want to pay to be told something you can read in a book. Its taking money off fools. Buy a book and read it. This one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grow-Your-Own-Vegetables-Larkcom/dp/071121963X http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grow-Your-Own-Vegetables-Larkcom/dp/... This is the only gardening book i own. People keep buying me new trendy ones etc endorsed by celebrity morons but they usually end up being re-gifted. This is good for anywhere in the world as well even though it primarily targets northern hemisphere. Decades of advice, concisely compiled. Its the SICP of gardening.

calinet6 14y ago
To be fair, there's something about hands-on learning that some people enjoy or even require to learn best. Even as a fairly experienced gardener, I'd relish the opportunity to spend a little time learning from someone who farms for a living, as long as it's not too expensive. Books are good too, but nothing beats getting out in the garden and watching an experienced gardener do the real thing.

RyanMcGreal 14y ago

> Tomatoes are great, they generally need very little attention and will fruit under even the worst gardener. I'll attest to that. We had a garden last summer for the first time in my life and we planted about 30 tomato plants. We started them in trays, transferred them into turned-and-fertilized ground when they were about 5 inches tall, watered them regularly, fertilized them occasionally, spent an hour or two weeding each week, and pinched off the suckers from time to time. That's pretty much it - and they produced an impressive outpouring of the most delicious ripe tomatoes. That was during a brutally hot summer with hardly any rain (and the rain we did get was torrential). Granted, we got lucky with the tomatoes, but not everything turned out as well. The carrots were tasty but small, and we didn't get any squash, peas or Brussels sprouts. However, the herbs did great, and we got lots of golden beets, onions, leeks and scallions (we froze the latter at the end of the season and we're still eating them). We got some cucumber but not as many as I would have liked. Our first batch of lettuce was completely clearcut by local bunnies, but our second and third batches were much more successful. We even planted mustard greens and Russian kale in early August, and we enjoyed them right up to mid-December when we got a hard frost and a heavy snowfall. One of the highlights of our summer was the period when everything aligned and we were able to enjoy salads composed entirely of stuff from our garden (plus dressing). I'm already looking forward to gardening again this year. I learned a few things (the hard way) last year and hope to learn plenty more in future.