Has Anyone Read This Months Prospect Magazine?

[HeyWayne]

There actually is an organic food company called Holy Food.

I wonder if there's a potato company called Holy Chit...

[General Woundwort]

I wonder if there's a potato company called Holy Chit...

Sounds like a load of bull to me.

[Alison]

Oh dear, I'm sounding like an Alison cheer leader

I have cucumbers and chillis on my windowsill as well! My point was this is summat I've done for some time, and that the local climate at my previous site was somewhat against such outdoor growing.

WTF? So it's OK to grow them if I do it in private and have been doing it for years, we all had a first time. So glad that attitude isn't prevelant on my plot, goodness knows what they'd think about my sweet potatoes

I understand that organic regulations allow for certain metals to be used in fungicides, allowing build-up in the soil.

Anything applied in too great a volume will build up but by rotating your crops round you minimise the need to add the same thing over and over again as different crops need different things and therefore the balance is better. Indeed there are some things technically allowed under the organic banner which I think are very dodgy, for example I don't want to spray my spuds with copper solution so select varieties which show some blight resistance where possible. There is a lot more to natural growing than simply picking things which say "organic" off the shelf in the DIY shop.

There actually is an organic food company called Holy Food.

Just googled it for interest and the only site I can find is one under development for a company which sells natural Indian food, not mention of organic but I do now fancy a curry for tea.........

[HeyWayne]

goodness knows what they'd think about my sweet potatoes

You dirty, dirty woman!

[General Woundwort]

WTF? So it's OK to grow them if I do it in private and have been doing it for years, we all had a first time.

Just as I'm trying to crawl back out of the compost heap, I loose my grip and fall back in.

I wasn't suggesting that, but I was suggesting they tried to run before they could walk. I grow them on my windowsill because that's a suitable mini-climate for them. Nowt to do with it being in private.

So glad that attitude isn't prevelant on my plot, goodness knows what they'd think about my sweet potatoes

Given that I doubt you'd give up if they fail, you have my vote. It's not instant gratification for you, as I'd do if when I have the space to give over to artichokes or asparagus.

[Alison]

Given that I doubt you'd give up if they fail, you have my vote. It's not instant gratification for you, as I'd do if when I have the space to give over to artichokes or asparagus.

To be honest, they're on their last chance, if they don't do something this year, in a polytunnel, then the space will be used for something else but at least I've tried. Next year will be the year of the asparagus, have squashes in that bed this year and am attempting to get it as weed free as I can before planting crowns out next spring - currently have a load of small plants grown from seed in pots in the back garden. Don't like artichokes so won't be growing those even though I do think they're very pretty

[General Woundwort]

As for Holy Food, I remember it from some years ago, but can't find it now.

To each their own, of course, and I have little desire to cover my crops which chemicals.

I stand by my assertion that the organic industry has edged towards that concept. Other religiously-mandated dietry restrictions, such as kashrut, are the result of thousands of years of traditions and faith (before I'm accused of anything else, this is a religion which I'd have no objection to being mistaken as a follower of).

Organic devotees have made similar empirical observations of the surrounding world, but at the height of the Age of Science. Like the difference between homeopathic method and chiropracty.

~*dragged away from keyboad by dark swirling forces of overpowering intensity*~

[Hilary B]

This one has gone weird. The initial bit I could see points on both sides. Plenty of allotments restrict the amount of space you can use for non-edible crops don't they?
It would be nice to think that a big site could make some allowance for keeping the organic growers a bit further away from the OTHER religious lot (Let Us Spray, weekly) by having the 'chemicals in emergencies only' people in a central section, but of course you could only really do that by having separate waiting lists, and that just wouldn't work.
I can see why those 'traditionalists' would find it annoying if the highly organic lady grower invited in wildlife by neglecting her plot, and the weeds seeded all over everyone else's patches, and would have some sympathy. There ARE those who only 'do' allotments because it has become fashionable (and I've seen a fair few threads deploring these types) and abandon the idea after a little while.
I don't think I'd want to use an allotment in the Thurso area. You'd need a really good windbreak to grow anything above ground apart from kale! Gales with a hefty windchill factor for 2 months in spring and 2 in autumn would kill of almost everything else.
I lived in Orkney for 15 years (left 10 years ago) and still have some 'contacts' that far North.

[lizzylemon]

i wonder if there's a potato company called holy chit...

hahahahah outloud

[zazen999]

Zazen's site disallows sheds and greenhouses,

What are you on about? My site doesn't disallow sheds or greenhouses.....And if it did; what's that got to do with
a = you?
b = this thread?
c = life, the universe, anything?

You responded to Two Shed's tongue 'n cheek remark about Tesco's cut-price range with the statement that the benefits system was similar. If you weren't saying those on benefits are comfortable with their positions, I apologize, but it was the way it looked.

No, I'm saying that BECAUSE nobody in this country is having to intensively farm every square inch of allotment space [because we HAVE a benefits system as well as supermarket food being relatively cheap]; nobody needs to go round demanding that EVERYONE on EVERY allotment site must farm EVERY square inch...in the way that you were stating in the first post; and thus people [hippies, non-hippes] can be left to their own devices and have as many ponds as they want.

May I please ask what the heck you are actually on about?

If you have a point, you seem to be arguing against it from one sentence to the next.

Either make the point or move on. Life's too short.

[General Woundwort]

What are you on about? My site doesn't disallow sheds or greenhouses.

My apologies, it was HeyWayne.

No, I'm saying that BECAUSE nobody in this country is having to intensively farm every square inch of allotment space ~*snipples*~

Then you weren't having a jibe at those on benefits, so I take that back; but I wasn't saying that. My beef was with those who saw allotments as proxies for their backgardens (but without the need for stonking mortgages), regardless of how the peasants at the bottoms of the fields felt... the ones who'd kept the places above water over the past 60 years.

The issue of frog ponds have been analysed to destruction, and I wouldn't advocate skewering them. Whilst they are benign (apart to inquisitive toddlers), sites general do have rules against stuff like bee-hives.

I could have both ponds and hives in my backgarden, and if ponds can come onto allotments, why not hives? Seriously.

Communal or council-owned land is a strange place for arch-individualists to come along to.

Can everyone stop hitting me?

[FionaH]

c = life, the universe, anything?

42

I have a tied dyed dress, does that make me a hippy, or middle class? If it's the latter hang on while I go tell me Dad, He will be dead pleased I've got on in the world

[zazen999]

Can everyone stop hitting me?

I think you'll find your opening post of skewering a pond and finding it 'delicious' may be part of the reason that people are 'hitting' you.

Anyhow - I'm off to feed some worms, feed some comfrey tea to the toms, play with the ducks, watch the bees in the hives in next door's garden, eat some veggie chilli and call Fi's dad and tell him to take a seat as I think he's gonna need it.

[General Woundwort]

I can see why those 'traditionalists' would find it annoying if the highly organic lady grower invited in wildlife by neglecting her plot, and the weeds seeded all over everyone else's patches, and would have some sympathy.

HILARY B

Before I came back up north, there was an adjacent plot-holder who did just that.

I don't think I'd want to use an allotment in the Thurso area. You'd need a really good windbreak to grow anything above ground apart from kale!

That's what I feared until I started. Here's my current patch, as I started last year. It's enclosed by buildings, and I currently have sunflowers as well as beans/peas on simple bamboo sticks.

There used to be three allotment sites in Thurso, including one opposite the sea-front caravan park you'd have driven past whenever using Scrabster, with a total of 60 or so plots. The site I'm trying to resurrect has an exposed front, but is protected on the other three sides.

A scheme started up at Lybster this year,

Orkney is much exposed.

[General Woundwort]

I think you'll find your opening post of skewering a pond and finding it 'delicious' may be part of the reason that people are 'hitting' you.

I have said at several points that that wasn't what I found delicious: instead it was someone who, according to the created wordscene at least, had previously thought the world was there to entertain her finding out that it wasn't.

I also have admitted I phrased it badly, but I gotta ask... did you remonstrate with the telly when Blackadder would beat-up Baldrick?