Thursday, Jun 26, 2008
Get your filthy hands off my gherkin!
Telegraph: Allotments thefts rise as credit crisis causes vegetable crimewave
Allan Rees, chairman of the National Society of Allotments and Leisure Gardening, is concerned the problem could get worse as the economic outlook worsens.
"Families are getting poorer and this is one way of putting food on the table," he said. "I believe they are being sold on. Thieves stole potatoes from my own plot and put the stalks back in place so it was two or three days before I noticed."
Posted by gardeniadotnet @ 06:08 PM (1991 views) Add Comment
85 Comments
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1. gardeniadotnet said...
It really doesn't have to be like this.
G.
2. gardeniadotnet said...
Work with me here...
Q: Who is at the top of this year's Forbes Rich List, and how did he make his £31bn?
3. gardeniadotnet said...
Sorry, too slow.
The answer is Warren Buffett. He made his fortune simply by investing.
4. gardeniadotnet said...
Next question....
He made his fortune over 50 years, making a profit in nearly every one of those years.
Now, ask yourself, has this phenomenal success rate been due to sheer good luck?
5. gardeniadotnet said...
I'm going to have to hurry you......
6. gardeniadotnet said...
Sorry time's up.
The answer is, no there are 2 main factors in his success story and luck doesn't really come into it.
7. gardeniadotnet said...
The first of the 2 factors I referred to previously is ...
- He can read a balance sheet like noone else, to choose only the best companies to invest in.
I admire him for this and I couldn't emulate him no matter how much research I did.
8. gardeniadotnet said...
The 2nd factor was easier for me to understand, though I've always considered mathematics as one of my weaker subjects.
He employed a technique known as compound interest, or exponential growth if you will.
9. flintster1994 said...
It must be great to be able to hold a conversation with yourself!
10. gardeniadotnet said...
By living relatively modestly and reinvesting his profits, his fortune grew exponentially - one of the most powerful mathematical functions known to mankind.
You will probably remember the graph from school.
If you'e not sure what I'm talking about, google Professor Albert Bartlett's video on the subject - it's a REAL eye opener.
11. gardeniadotnet said...
Be patient flintster (and webmasters) and see where I'm going with this. I promise - no conspiracy theories!
12. Janice said...
Magic 8 ball says "prospects of you being banned from HPC seem good".
13. gardeniadotnet said...
Now, as a former primary school teacher, if I had to exponential function in the simplest terms, I'd describe it as the "doubling rate" and I may use an example like this...
If a commodity doubled monthly starting with 50, the numbers would look like this...
Jan 50
Feb 100
March 200
April 400
May 800
June 1600
July 3200
August 6400
September 12, 800 etc etc etc.
Now if you're interested, try extrapolating those figures over another 12 months and see what happens.
14. gardeniadotnet said...
Just over a year ago I said to myself (and this is where you may want to switch to another thread), I'm no investor, but I can grow plants.
And I also know this...
- a plant, eg a tomato, is a commodity with a value just like any other commodity.
- if I can double that commodity very rapidly, I will soon have a large quantity of that commodity.
15. malct said...
flintster1994 07:08PM
flint where's your manners? don't interrupt a bloke when he's talking to himself
G - you are a fruitcake
16. gardeniadotnet said...
The way I double plants is by cloning. It's nothing special, most gardeners do it. You need a suitable plant a knife and some compost.
I set to work...
I soon had the doubling time down to one month.
17. gardeniadotnet said...
If I've still got anyone's attention, I'm sorry I have to take a break. My wife's just told me our chicken run's flooding!
18. flintster1994 said...
g,
You've been harping on about this for weeks now. We get the picture. When should we expect this to go mainstream and change the supply of food, as we know it, forever?
p.s apologies for interupting you!
19. titaniccaptain said...
I enjoyed that....you mad git
20. waiting for the crash said...
Nothing taken from my allotment - yet! - and now I'm getting all the families veg from the allotment. What a saving! All fresh and delicious.
How this relates to HPC I'm not sure - but more families may find it useful to dig up the lawn and grow veg, saving some money and be able to reduce their debts.
To acheive Exponential growth in the veg department - grow cress or 'cut and come again leaves'
21. titaniccaptain said...
Do you have a web address I could go to so I can read up more on plant cloning?
22. plato said...
While G's giving the chickens CPR, can't wait for the next bit. Have mercy Webmaster.
23. icarus said...
Is it the people living in the hastily built 'rabbit hutches' who are taking the veggies? (The veggies in the original article. Remember that?.)
24. gardeniadotnet said...
Crisis over! (at a local level, I mean).
The hens are now safely ensconced in the warmth of the greenhouse.
Flinster said: We get the picture.
Not yet you don't. Eventually, I hope you'll be part of the picture. What I'm proposing depends on the support of the public at large.
25. gardeniadotnet said...
Please don't treat the following as an ego trip, or salesmanship. I'm not here to sell anything. I'm just stating facts.
To the bemusement of my friends, family, neighbours etc. I continued doubling my plants, building greenhouses from wood and plastic sheeting as I went.
I now have approximately 300, 000 plants.
I could stop doubling now and, with help, produce 300 000 plants every month, potentially forever.
I'm not stopping. Next month I'll have 600 000.
In August I'll have 1, 200 000, and so on.
26. gardeniadotnet said...
Off stage whisper: Get to the point!
I'm not sure what the point is. I know I'm achieving something significant, but it's too big for one person.
Some relevant facts to consider:
I'm now doubling potatoes, tomatoes soya beans and other food crops using the same method.
I have my doubling time down for some crops down to 2 weeks - enter that rate of growth into an Excel spreadsheet and see what happens.
27. gardeniadotnet said...
I'll finish now... (Thank Heavens for that - Ed)
Just a few more things to consider...
The method described above, can easily be taught to virtually anyone - my young children regularly help me.
Because the plants are grown intensively, a surprisingly small amount of space and water is needed.
In spite of urbanisation, a look at Google Earth will show you that England (and the wider UK of course) is still predomiantly a green and pleasant land.
If my instincts are right, this method of food production could mean that starvation across the world could be significantly reduced.
28. gardeniadotnet said...
er... that should read predominantly. (and I was doing so well).
29. malct said...
g@08:20PM
and presumeably house prices would rise again as demand increased due to greater affordability
because grocery bills would return to normal!
and there was me thinking 'what has this to do with house prices'
James, take him away
30. icarus said...
gardenia - are you going to eat all those vegetables or have you got a deal to supply Sainsburys?
31. markj69 str05 said...
I really enjoyed reading the ramblings of a mad man (mad or genius?). However, I don't particularly want to turn green England into one large plastic poly-tunnel.
Why don't the taliban just switch from poppies to food-stuff? - Now there's a thought. I'd be interested to see a comparison of figures.
32. gardeniadotnet said...
I can't tell you my next step - I'd be accused (justifiably) of spamming.
33. sold 2 rent 1 said...
"James, take him away"
James only clicks the report comment link when the NWO is mentioned
34. rumble said...
300 000? You're going to spend the next month, knife in hand, with your (lucky) young children, cutting and planting 300 000 clones? 10 000 each day? Last month you did 5000 each day? What on earth are you talking about?
35. gardeniadotnet said...
33. rumble said...
>300 000? You're going to spend the next month, knife in hand, with your (lucky) young children, cutting and planting 300 000 clones? 10 000 each day? Last month you did 5000 each day? What on earth are you talking about?
I'm finding that volunteers come forward readily for the right cause.
36. flintster1994 said...
g,
I think I might just be starting to get you.
37. malct said...
g is your method dependent upon crude oil futures?
38. enuii said...
A seedling tray measure 20cmx15cm and contains 12 plants, so 5000 plants would fill 416 trays covering a floor area of 12.48m2 per day or 87m2 per week filling a 5x20m (very big for a garden) greenhouse. Cloned Plants in Greenhouses generally need watering twice a day and transplanting into larger containers unless you are selling them quickly on to other growers.
Are you growing Salvia Pot plants for sale at the St Helens town show in Sherdley Park?
39. quiet guy said...
@gardeniadotnet
Well the monologue earlier today was a bit different from our usual diet!
Do see yourself fitting Charles Hugh Smith's description of a 'Remnant'?
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjun08/remnant6-08.html
40. icarus said...
Webmaster - delete all the above.
41. sold 2 rent 1 said...
"I'm finding that volunteers come forward readily for the right cause."
Sounds like a move towards co-creation.
You will need to recruit voluteers exponentially
42. uncle chris said...
Anyone want some courgettes - got more of them than I can shake a stick at, and I'm sure I'll be bored of courgette soup (nice though it is) by the winter. Incidentally, if you buy tatties and they start sprouting - just stick in the garden - much easier way of achieving @gardendementia's multiplication thing - or whatever it was he was trying to say. Stuck 6 in back in April and now have a sackfull.
43. inbreda said...
I can't quite beleive I just read all that crap.
3 quarters of an hour of my life I shall never see again.
44. gardeniadotnet said...
>A seedling tray measure 20cmx15cm and contains 12 plants.
12 plants? - and the rest. As I said, I'm growing intensively.
>(very big for a garden) greenhouse.
Through gentle persuasion I've now managed to store my plants on 5 local sites.
>Cloned Plants in Greenhouses generally need watering twice a day and transplanting into larger containers
unless you are selling them quickly on to other growers.
"Generally" yes, but the old rules no longer apply.
>Are you growing Salvia Pot plants for sale at the St Helens town show in Sherdley Park?
No, I won't be selling ANY Salvia plants. They're simply an effective way of gaining attention, as your response has proved.
45. icarus said...
Webmaster - please delete all of the above so that nobody else has to go through what inbreda @42 has been through.
46. yoyo1 said...
@24.
gardenia dot net said = note sad trading idea :-
"I now have approximately 300, 000 plants.
I could stop doubling now and, with help, produce 300 000 plants every month, potentially forever.
I'm not stopping. Next month I'll have 600 000.
In August I'll have 1, 200 000, and so on."
Less talk more action!
47. gardeniadotnet said...
And another thing....
Many of you will have recognised that if my method is to have an impact on a global scale we need manpower.
If there's one commodity that's NOT in short supply at the moment, it's manpower.
Ask China.
48. p. doff said...
Is that Gardeniadotnet, or Gardenidiot? LOL
P.S. At chez Doff there seems to be a conflict between the wildlife and garden produce. I plant carrot seeds etc in tubs on the patio - meanwhile Mrs Doff buys carrots from Tesco to feed those cute wild rabbits on the lawn. The rabbits tell their friends,who join the party and soon the bought carrots run out, so they start on mine. While they're at it, they scalp the radish tops and mixed salad leaves.
Meanwhile, the baby malard ducks have stripped the pond of anything remotely green (those water lillies took ages to mature and spread).
All of which suggests that it's not the plant reproduction in vast quantities that's the problem (apart from the intensive labour, which is not usually free). It's the growing on and maintenance where your method is likely to fall down.
49. gardeniadotnet said...
>All of which suggests that it's not the plant reproduction in vast quantities that's the problem (apart from the intensive labour, which is not usually free). It's the growing on and maintenance where your method is likely to fall down.
P. Doff, though we disagree on many issues, I can see that you are an informed and intelligent person.
However, it's as clear as day to me that you just don't "get" the concept of exponential growth.
Don't feel bad about this: my wife is a teacher and openly admits she doesn't "get" it.
Watch Professor Bartlett's video then get back to me when the penny has dropped.
50. gardeniadotnet said...
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Isaac Newton
51. gardeniadotnet said...
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.
Albert Bartlett
52. gardeniadotnet said...
And this above all unto thine own self be true and it shall follow as the day the night - thou can'st not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare
53. gardeniadotnet said...
As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.
William James
54. gardeniadotnet said...
The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.
William Gibson
55. gardeniadotnet said...
Careful. We don't want to learn from this.
Bill Watterson
56. gardeniadotnet said...
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.
Arthur Koestler
57. gardeniadotnet said...
When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.
Abraham Lincoln
58. gardeniadotnet said...
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.
Mark Twain
59. gardeniadotnet said...
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
Marie Curie
60. gardeniadotnet said...
One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.
George Bernard Shaw
61. gardeniadotnet said...
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Arthur Schopenhauer
62. gardeniadotnet said...
A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
63. gardeniadotnet said...
Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.
Howard Aiken
64. gardeniadotnet said...
Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
65. gardeniadotnet said...
Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.
Bill Vaughan
66. gardeniadotnet said...
You wake me up early in the morning to tell me I am right? Please wait until I am wrong.
Johann von Neumann
67. gardeniadotnet said...
I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.
Rita Mae Brown
68. gardeniadotnet said...
A quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. Somerset Maugham
69. gardeniadotnet said...
Good night.
70. p. doff said...
Yep, Gardenidiot I think!!
Seriously G, nobody knows what the heck you are on about. I don't know how what you are saying relates to Albert Bartletts stuff, but there certainly are similarities between the exponential growth of the human race and your method of plant reproduction - both are unsustainable in the long term.
71. gardeniadotnet said...
>both are unsustainable in the long term.
The long term will look after itself, let's prepare for the short term.
72. gardeniadotnet said...
A bedtime poem...
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas
73. p. doff said...
Yeah! gonna get me a Holland and Holland double barrel.
74. Angonamo said...
G - Thank you for pointing out Albert Bartlett. I googled him as you suggested and spent an hour or so learning about something interesting. Perhaps if my teachers were as interesting as Mr Bartlett, I would have paid more attention at school.
Sorry mate, I really tried, honestly - but I still can't figure out what you were trying to tell us here.
75. James said...
Actually s2r1, I never click the report comment button - I believe in free speech, see? I do reserve my right to challenge guff, though. Such as asking why gold isn't at $1,500/oz like you said it would be. Is it because your models are guff? Still waiting for an answer on your 747 thread too.
So here we go.
Gardenia - you seem like a nice, though rather fruitcakish, chap. You don't resort to insulting people or claiming they're part of a malevolent conspiracy - unlike some people... However, as I understand it, the issue with horticulture is not persuading plants to reproduce. Reproduction is what they do. I remember strawberry plants in my Mum's back garden that put out runners and 'clone' themselves entirely naturally and very rapidly! I have no doubt that your technique does this efficiently.
But reproduction is only half of it - to harvest, you've got to get them to maturity, which requires nutrition and sunlight and space... I'd suggest that's the limiting factor on your 'exponential' growth - do you have any way round this?
76. James said...
I hope the chickens are well, by the way.
77. gardeniadotnet said...
James >But reproduction is only half of it - to harvest, you've got to get them to maturity, which requires nutrition and sunlight and space... I'd suggest that's the limiting factor on your 'exponential' growth - do you have any way round this?
OK. Lets scale things down a bit using tomatoes as an example ( because they lend themselves very well to my method.
I can raise a thousand plants from a standing start very cheaply and easily.
I can then give away or sell a thousand plants every month while maintaining my original stock.
Or I can continue doubling until I get to a level I am comfortable with, eg 64, 000, then give away or sell 64, 000 plants every month.
78. gardeniadotnet said...
James
The chickens are fine thanks, if a little disgruntled - no eggs today.
79. James said...
So what you're claiming is a way to make lots of plants quickly, but no reduction in the resources needed to get them to maturity? Sounds like a great cash generator through plant sales, but as you're as limited by the availability of resources as everyone else, it's not really going to result in any extra food...
80. gardeniadotnet said...
Say I gave away (or sold VERY cheaply, to maintain my business model) a million plants every month worldwide.
Only the recipients of those plants grow the plants to maturity.
Meanwhile, I and soon many more growers like me, are preparing the next millions.
I think it's me who is missing something here. Surely it's not THAT difficult to follow.
81. James said...
I follow what you mean gardenia - but you are missing that the plants have to grow *somewhere* and your method doesn't cut the resources needed to get a plant to maturity - the yield is exactly the same. If all the recipients dug up their gardens to put your plants in then, yes, you'd have more food cultivated, but it would be the increase in arable land that led to increased production, not your technique.
Put it this way - I rent a small flat in London, with a little backyard. I could, if I wanted to, expend time and effort and use it as an allotment. The reason I don't is because of the time and effort involved, not because of the difficulty or expense in getting hold of baby plants. A packet of seeds is only a couple of quid after all...
82. gardeniadotnet said...
I will be describing my propagation methods in detail, each day in the Lecture Theatre at Southport Flower Show 2008.
Note to webmasters, if this is post is against Blog rules, please delete just the post and not the whole thread - I've become quite attached to it.
83. gardeniadotnet said...
81. James said...
>I follow what you mean gardenia - but you are missing that the plants have to grow *somewhere* and your method doesn't cut the resources needed to get a plant to maturity - the yield is exactly the same.
I appreciate what you are saying James, but there is still more to it than meets the eye.
The plant I've used to prove my technique (to myself as much as anyone else), is called Tradescantia Blushing Bride.
IF the plant was edible, and IF we were starving in our village - we could use these plants to feed us all on the "cut and come again" principle referred to earlier.
The amount of plant material being produced already on a daily basis is amazing (in my opinion).
Ray
84. gardeniadotnet said...
James, I haven't addressed the issues you've raised have I?
I'm going to have to think of another way of explaining the benefits of my method.
I may be some time.
85. Ray said...
lets hope that this do,s not last all that long i would not no what to do if all my veg had gone walk about