Garden Monkey’s Guide To Books #16

I don't get offered freebies as a rule - if only!

Which makes it all the nicer when I do.

(That said, I did get a present from a groovy someone recently. Thanks sugar.)

Anyway, a few weeks back a very nice man at Simon and Schuster offered me a free copy of One Man and his Dig by Valentine Low (pub. Pocket Books). I got him to send it to Emma Townshend, which I think alarmed her a bit.

Subsequently I got my paws on another copy, but still I put off reading it.

To tell the truth I wanted to dislike this book. I'm not sure why. In some part because I suspected that this was a journo indulging in a bit of bandwagon jumping. But it was probably more that - I didn't think that the world needed another allotment based book. And also the title's a bit pants.

This is the third allotment book I've read - actually it's probably the fourth. Imagine telling people that? “No I haven't read anything from the latest Booker shortlist. But I have just read my fourth book on allotments.”

Well, it's always nice to have one’s negative perceptions overturned and I found that I really enjoyed the book. It‘s far from “an indispensable guide to allotment life”, as claimed on the cover, and I could personally have done without the history of allotments in general and in Acton in particular, but it does cover a lot of ground and it was the strong vein of humour which made the book for me.

So if you're one of those who loves growing food rather than becoming "little better than battery animals, passively consuming whatever slop our masters choose to feed us.", or are just happy to laugh knowingly at someone thinking they can contain horseradish in a washing up bowl with the bottom cut out, you'll find something to satisfy you in this book.

And, if you have been quick off the mark and read it already (it only came out 5th May) then you might want to catch up on the Acton Allotmenteers here, or Valentine's blog here.

Garden Monkey’s Guide to Lawnatics #8

There seems to have barely been an afternoon, or evening, lately that I haven’t been aurally assailed by some gormless sod mowing their lawn

[for which read grass infested with plantains/daises./clover etc] .

They are silent today, only because it’s been raining.

The racket always seems to start up just as you want a bit of peace and quiet.

It’s exactly like when you are sat in a train carriage simply wanting to get home and some braying arse starts yapping into their mobile, at around a million decibels, about some buttock-clenchingly tedious subject.

“Lawn mowers were invented by the devil and fiends love them.”

Henry Mitchell

Garden Monkey’s Odd Rambling Thoughts #10

Last night, whilst catching up on some of last week’s TV, a thought crossed my mind.

At Chelsea Flower Show the RHS insist that all timber must be FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified.

Has anybody asked the BBC whether the wooden Wesley Kerr, who they employ as part of their coverage of the event, is FSC certified?

Garden Monkey Guide to The Idiot Box #11

Gardeners' World

Speculation is already rife as to Monty Don’s successor, as the Gardeners' World lead presenter.

But how long before some halfwit in the media conjures up a story that no-one wants it - owing to "The Curse of Gardeners' World", citing Percy Thrower's fall from grace, Geoff Hamilton's sudden demise and Monty's illness?

Cue Skooby Doo-type eerie music

The Garden Monkey Internet Moment of the Week.#18

I was delighted earlier this week when I came across the blog of aristocratic plant looney Tom Hart Dyke.

(I've asked him to do a Hijack - hope he says yes.)

Tom's blog is sporadic in the extreme, but I loved the first entry, back in October 2006, when he went to retrieve a plant donation for his World Garden at Lullingstone Castle.

A tale involving digging up a dead cat, gathering enough of a crowd to warrant an ice-cream man setting up his pitch and then tanking up the motorway in an old Vauxhall Astra, with a 21 foot palm, one end swathed in a pink duvet, strapped to the roof.

Classic.

Garden Monkey Guide to The Idiot Box #10

Though not greatly saddened by news of Monty Don’s permanent departure from GW, it would be bad taste to start speculating straight away about his replacement, given the Lord of Cord’s health scare.

So I’ll start tomorrow.

Take it easy Monty.

Now, I wonder what Lionel Blair’s up to?

Garden Monkey’s Allotmental #3

JT was lumbering towards his plot, weighed down with a large coolbox of food and drink.

He stopped for a breather beside Mac’s plot and noticed the owner rooting around between his rows of spinach, a pointed stick in one hand and another large, shillelagh-like one in the other.

“What’s up?” he asked curiously.

“Rabbit!” said Mac without looking up.

“In here?” scoffed JT.

“Yes. In here.” scowled Mac.

Realising, he might get hit with a stick himself, but still disbelieving JT said “Are you sure it’s a rabbit?”

Mac stood upright and turned towards JT. “No, it might be a three-pound woodlouse, with a fur coat on. Of course it‘s a fookin‘ rabbit. You telling me I don‘t know a rabbit when I see one?”

“Er, what are you going to do when you find it?” gabbled JT.

“Kill it of course,” said Mac returning to his search.

“Kill it? That’s a bit bloodthirsty.”

“I‘ve killed bigger things than a fookin‘ rabbit laddie. Now, haven‘t you got some digging to do?”

JT wisely picked up his coolbox and made off

A bit further across the site Rick was beggaring around on his plot. His favourite theory was that allotments could be beautiful as well as functional. He was quite hung up on design, ever since he'd bumped into Diarmuid Gavin at a motorway service station.

Of course, what this meant was that he spent more time titting around with the layout of his plot than actually growing anything.

He was currently rebuilding and reconfiguring his raised beds into different sized squares and rectangles.

Old Nelson was watching him. "So what's wrong with those beds?"

"Nothing, I'm just trying to make them more interesting."

"And is this something else you've seen on the telly?" the old man smirked.

"No…” Rick paused as he realised he was being goaded. “I'm trying to get the effect of a Mondrian painting.” Immediately he regretted divulging the information.

“Who?”

“Mondrian. He was a famous French painter.”

“And he did a lot of gardening did he, this chap?”

“No, just paintings?”

“Hitler was a painter.”

With that Old Nelson shuffled off.

Rick was relieved he had gone, and stood up to survey his progress. It was then that it struck him. His raised beds now looked like a swastika.

“Oh God!” he groaned.

Garden Monkey’s Odd Rambling Thoughts #9

Is it just me, or does Nicki Chapman - currently presenting BBC’s daytime Chelsea coverage - remind anyone else of Marjorie Dawes?

Garden Monkey's Guide to the Chelsea Spat

Nevermind the Chelsea Chop, what about the Chelsea Spat? - something that's rapidly becoming part of the show.

The recent spats have generally involved Diarmuid Gavin, but this year's contretemps has come from an altogether more fragrant quarter.

In, what does actually sound like the work of a journalist stirring it, yesterday's Guardian reported:

"a row triggered by remarks made by Rachel de Thame, a presenter of the BBC show Gardeners' World.

De Thame said formal training was not necessary to design a garden for the show, and that an eye for design was more important. “Either you have an idea about how things should look as regards proportion and shape or you don't," she said. "It is something that can't be coaxed out but really it is innate."

Peter Thomas, the chairman of the Society of Garden Designers, countered: "Perhaps you can present a television programme on plant care without knowing about plants by reading a script. But it's a ludicrous idea that you can design a garden without specialist knowledge and understanding of the material required."

The Garden Monkey Internet Moment of the Week.#17

A good many parents use a pet word with their children, when talking about genitals. This is partly because it’s easier for the child to say, than the correct biological term, partly because it’s sweeter than some adult slang phrase and also because it’s a lot less embarrassing when they announce in Tescos, at full volume, “Mum, my vagina’s itchy!”

As a child, one of my friends and her sister, used to call their girly bits their “patch”.

She volunteered this information one time, as a group of us were watching TV and an advert came on for the Robin Williams’ film “Patch Adams”.

It was agreed by those present that though Robin Williams was formerly a comic genius, he now tended to be a right “patch.”

In the manner of adults who really should have better things to do and think about, we then went through a serious of alternative names for said film, by the simple device of swapping the word patch for another word with the same arcane meaning.

This has stuck with me over the years and I can’t see the word patch without smirking.

For that reason the title of this latest post from Sow and Sow blog amused me greatly.

One day I will grow up. Promise.

Just not yet.