It might not be your fault
Published:
THOSE of you who subscribe to the Consumer Association’s Which? Gardening publication will already know the reason for my heading.
The publication reported recently that in a series of trials carried out during the 2008 growing season, they were able to show that some packets of seeds, when grown under quite normal conditions, did not produce as many young plants as they should have, because some of the seeds were dead before they were put in the soil. In the worst-case scenario, all nine pepper seeds in one packet were dead.
In February 2008, five anonymous shoppers each bought three packets of vegetable seed – parsley, parsnip and sweet pepper and three packets of flower seed – pansy, salvia and delphinium from 17 leading online suppliers. Where available, the shoppers were asked by Which? Gardening to buy the same variety from all 17 suppliers. The seeds were then sown in laboratory-controlled conditions and each type was given the precise conditions of temperature and moisture to maximise germination.
They were certainly pretty thorough because each seed that failed to germinate was dissected under a microscope to determine whether it was dead or not.
I don’t intend to name and shame the companies but Which? Gardening does. In one case, 57% of the company’s delphinium seeds and 80% of the parsnip seeds were found to be unviable. In another case, for the second year running, only 60% of a particular company’s seed produced healthy seedlings.
These are pretty shocking statistics especially when we are led to believe that minimum seed viability rates are guaranteed. Needless to say, it is also true that price per packet seems to go up with some regularity whilst there is a suspicion that seed count in packets goes down.
It is a funny thing but I have found over the years that gardeners in general will almost immediately ask what they have done wrong when something goes awry. So often they are too ready to blame themselves but this report proves otherwise.
There will be many of you who have always dealt with company X or company Y without ever doubting the quality of their seeds and that is how it should be. This report will perhaps teach us to be a little bit more observant when we are seed sowing, especially when the braird (germination) is not what you might expect.
Next Generation
For the first time in many months, I watched Gardeners’ World the other night. Was there a reason? Well, yes, one of my colleagues made a very favourable comment the other day about the new presenter Toby Buckland. From there, I went on to read a brief biography of the new man so I was interested to see how he operates.
I have to say I was very favourably impressed by the young fellow. I liked his style and look forward to watching him again and who knows, I might even get to meet him one of these days. Therein lies a very unusual story, which I might have told you before but here goes anyway. In the sixties, long before I had ever been near a radio studio let alone a television studio and whilst I worked in Shropshire, the television gardening guru of the day was Percy Thrower.
At that time he was superintendent of parks in Shrewsbury and I had some dealings with him and his staff. My next job took me to Leicestershire and in 1973, before coming to Aberdeen, one of my last tasks was to advise a young chap who wanted to set up a nursery/garden centre on the outskirts of Corby. That fellow was Geoff Hamilton – quite a coincidence, considering what was to happen to me.
To my mind, young Mr Buckland is out of the same mould as those guys and I wish him well because I think he has much to give. It is sad, however, that he has already been taken to task in the press by some people suffering from a touch of the ‘tunnel vision syndrome’ but thankfully, the BBC has risen to his defence.
The fact is we may appear on a screen in the corner of every household in the land and so our coverage is quite general. By introducing new ideas, new varieties, new techniques and new philosophies (or old ones being re-born which have lapsed or been superseded) we aim to help people to garden more effectively, therefore, we have to mirror the attitudes and methods of the majority.
What heinous crime did he commit? He talked about using peat and in the same programme referred to the use of herbicide. I watched both of these pieces and the cynics who read this will say ‘we would expect McColl to take this view’ to which I would reply that there is nothing quite like being consistent and pragmatic, because I did agree with his comments.
Firstly, some plants still require a measure of peat in their diet to do well. That does not mean to say that there will never be a suitable alternative because people are working their socks off right now trying to find one that is reliable and I have no doubt in my mind that it will happen, but in the meantime . . .
The second reference was about the use of glyphosate and basically it echoes my comments a few weeks ago about setting up allotments on ground that is riddled with invasive plant species. For the time being, the use of glyphosate is legal and safe to use and has been assessed as being of minimal danger to the environment and I for one still recommend its use when circumstances require such drastic action.
As I recall, one of the critics was accusing Mr Buckland of being lazy, taking the easy way out in recommending the use of herbicide. That just emphasises the unreal world that some occupy – what about the people who may neither have the skill or the strength to adopt some of the more rigorous physical methods of weed eradication?
As I have said before, I believe that there is a general mood within the gardening fraternity to move away from practices, like the use of peat and the use of pesticides, as reliable and consistent alternatives are developed. Let that feeling grow as it will, there is little point in beating people over the head with a succession of moral arguments whilst governments and big corporations still ignore some of the big issues that would really make a difference.
When an angler casts his line into a great pool of water, he is tempting that big fish to try something different for supper, and patience and skill are needed. Surely that is a much better approach than wading into the pool with a great club expecting to bludgeon the inhabitants into submission.
The fact is the successful angler with that lightweight sensitive split cane rod will have a great many more successful conquests at the end of the day.
I wish Toby Buckland well and look forward to him having a decent stint in a very important role.
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