gqt

Gardeners question time has really disappointed me. I genuinly looked forward to listening to it but these days I just can't beleive them. A few weeks ago it made me so angry I sent them an email as I was listening and then promptly had to send a second message as later on in that episode they talked some more nonsence.

This is what I said in the first message...

There was a question a little while back from an allotment holder who asked if we should be more keen to embrace "weeds" that install themselves on our plots and in gardens as most can be useful in some way (food/medicine etc). I feel that the panel dismissed this idea all to quickly and should have been able to share a more progressive insight. Nettles, herb robert, daisy just to name 3 could be useful and save us a job in removing them. It would be nice to hear GQT providing a more progressive view towards the many plants that go wasted and unloved as appreciating their worth could go along way towards improving understanding of the natural world to a much wider public audience. As a park ranger and a new allotment holder I find myself constantly defending a range of plants that have been wildly considered as weeds when actually they are  providers of a free cup of tea or a nice free salad!

Unfortunately I forgot to copy the second message but it basically said how I couldn't believe that they totally dismissed a question from the audience. Was there was anything from the plot that would normally go on the compost heap that could be used up instead of wasted? What a sensible question, I thought. No, no proper answers at all, just a joke. How disappointing. I do not understand why the gardening world finds it so hard to really look to nature and see the value it holds.


I can see how maybe gardening is seen as a battle against nature but surely we can emerge from the other side of this view, honestly, in this age. It's really not that radical. People are so bound.

Here is a photo of green alkanet. I put it in as there is a nice patch around a house near mine that keeps getting strimmed back, in order to make room for the beauty that is scraggy dry bare earth with litter on it. You can use it's roots for something useful but off the top of my head I cant remember.