Building sites, growbags and bent carrots
It’s here, folks: 2009′s most egregiously ignorant example of allotment bandwagon-jumping.
Laughed? I nearly shat. Growing vegetables on a brownfield building site – with or without bags, but definitely with industrial pollution heritage and a grandstand view of a builder’s arse crack – is just what I’ve always dreamed of.
But wait, there’s more. If you get past the first par without splitting a side, check this out:
The grow bags idea came from a music festival where she saw huge sandbags being moved around by fork-lift trucks. “I was thinking how flexible they could be. Grow bags would allow people to grow carrots and peas.”
Grow bags are – what? – 4-5″ deep. So the City of London has bred a carrot that grows sideways??
Honestly. I’ve spent 40 years hoovering the dustiest corners of Human Ignorance. I expect human beings to be wankers. But the profound dimness of Homo Stultissimus continues to blow my mind.
Anyone else spotted any good examples of allotment bullshit and bandwagon-ism? Please let me know. There’s a prize, for the best example, of something utterly irresistible (OK, so I’m lying about the ‘utterly’ part, and probably the ‘irresistible’ too. But you get the point).
PS Apologies to copyright holders of the pics I’ve bastardised here. Get in touch and I’ll apologise and pay in full (that’s if you accept payment in leek seeds).
I hate to disagree with you Soilman, but I quite like this idea. They seem to mean giant grow-bags, not the regular garden-centre type, like those big bags that builders’ merchants use for loads of topsoil or sand. Then it doesn’t matter if the site is rubbish – you start off with decent compost in the bag and grow the veg in that. Better than not having any soil to grow things in, I’d have thought – a movable raised bed, really.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Ah ha! I see what you mean. I may have been a little harsh there Amanda. But you know, I’m still tittering at the thought of growing veg on a building site surrounded by industrial machinery and builder’s fundaments…
June 16th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
I think the Guardian, BBC, Skynews and the extended british media is so full of shit, we could use their offices as a giant growbags.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:58 am
The RHS in at least 4 different campaigns.
BBC free seed giveaway-I’ve paid for mine thru licence fee but haven’t got any. So they’re not free then are they?
National trust seed and tomato plant giveaway-the trust ordered 150,000 tomato plants from B&Q but decided they didn’t want them when they found they had been grown in peat. So they were chucked.
Queen’s ‘allotment’. when is a veg patch an allotment?
Obama similar.
I hear Gordon brown is next. But everyone hates him so this will be when this bandwagon breaks down.
most gardening hacks-especially the ones with headscarves-always being boring about GYO.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/
http://community.hortweek.com/blogs/matthew/archive/2009/06/04/alan-titchmarsh-hackwatch-jordan-future-gardens-adultery.aspx
June 17th, 2009 at 11:25 am
The royal gold-leafed bandwagon.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/real_food/article6494252.ece
June 17th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Soilman, like Amanda I think it’s a good idea and has been talked about for quite a while, so I’m glad to see something might be done about it at last. I believe they’re going to use those giant bags used for holding building materials like gravel and sand (slightly ironic, no?), but filled with compost so their vast depth could mean those carrots might just rival any regular allotmenteers entry for the longest carrot or parsnip prize at the local show
June 17th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Some strong contenders there, Cazaux and Matthew, for Allotment Bandwagon Prize 2009.
The Buck House veg patch is in the lead, for me; have to confess I was astounded to hear that there haven’t been vegetables grown in the royal garden since the war. The Queen is the patron of the RHS, for God’s sake. So all the time the RHS has been going on about growing veg for the last 60 yrs (including model veg garden at Wisley etc), their own patron hasn’t grown a single lettuce leaf in anger… despite that vast palace acreage in SW1?
Quite extraordinary.
June 17th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I suppose when people are given bad advice to start with, their veggies don’t grow – so they give up and never try again. Sad.
June 21st, 2009 at 6:56 am
I’ve seen mention of builders’ bags used as (more or less) temporary gardening space in several places. Unfortunately, searching right now leaves me frustrated since I can’t find any pictures for you. It seems like an obvious idea, especially for industrial sites that want to avoid using the contaminated soil below.
As for not liking the view, not everyone is as fortunate as you must be, living in a scenic spot. I say it’s much better to have gardens to brighten up the urban landscape. And if you’re worried about pollution, perhaps you might want to stop eating, breathing or drinking water — or even absorbing anything through your skin — as we’re all contaminated with industrial chemicals now, as quite a few studies have shown.
June 21st, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I read somewhere, Carol, that if you were born in the 1960s (as I was), you automatically have a higher level of radioactive Strontium 90 in your bones than other generations; there was so much of it kicking about from atmospheric nuclear testing in the 50s that babies born in that era started life with an unwanted little ‘extra’.
Mind, I’ve done all right on it so far.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:26 am
I watched a programme once where an old brown field site with flats nearby used the builders rubble bags, and the local residents had a bag each to grow their veg in, or flowers. I thought it was a good idea of getting people to grow stuff in inner cities. I, like Carol, have tried to Google, and I cannot find it. But I thought it was good. You’re just grumpy SM.
And it seems that the Queens veg patch is about 30ft square. The whole grounds are 40 acres. Now THATS some size! Er….not.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Apparently the queen’s veg patch is at Windsor. Its called Home Farm so I imagine it’s quite big. I suppose I could find out but I won’t.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:55 pm
30ft square???!
Er, that makes about 30 cabbages. Tops.
Super.
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:29 am
The one at Bukky Pally. read it over the weekend. As Simon says, her ‘main Veg patch’ may be elsewhere! x
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:03 am
Have bee studying various types of topsoil but am unsure about how the certification works,does anyone know what
different types of grading mean,
or is ther a site dedicated to this subject.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:45 am