I think Monty is a thoroughly decent person. But he does have his own agenda and has 'misspoken' before when a couple of years ago he said that the ONLY way to deal with lily beetle is to pick them off and crush them. Well, there is another way - there are plenty of insecticides that will also kill lily beetles. I understand where he's coming from, but he gave incorrect information. I recall he did get some flack for that.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
I think Monty is a thoroughly decent person. But he does have his own agenda and has 'misspoken' before when a couple of years ago he said that the ONLY way to deal with lily beetle is to pick them off and crush them. Well, there is another way - there are plenty of insecticides that will also kill lily beetles. I understand where he's coming from, but he gave incorrect information. I recall he did get some flack for that.
he's also said " the only way to get rid of ground elder is to dig it up" Weedkillers work. He states his preferences, and choices, as facts. Which is often not the case.
I love how people twist his broadcast views as universal truth. He's just a single person with views that stem from his experience in his garden. That's all, don't think any reasonable person would think his options are encyclopaedic but a reflection of his gardening experience. You have to decide you want to hear what he has to say or just go and find another source of information, last time I checked Google was still free.
As for the logic of Monty's argument, if he doesn't want peat in his garden, it really doesn't matter if it is recycled it still denuded an ecosystem in order to make it to the growing facility.
We all can, and should, make choices when sourcing anything we use in the garden, to feed and clothe ourselves or to indulge our pleasures.
As long as we are complacent, manufacturers with an eye only to profit margins and shareholders will get away with what they can whether they're at home or abroad. Apart from environmental concerns there are the ethics of transporting goods over long distances and the conditions in which the labour forces are working so think on next time you buy goods from China which has a long history of abuses including using Ouiga slave labour to produce high end goods for high street chains.
Think too about the labour conditions of people quarrying Indian sandstone or the minerals for battery powered cars or the cotton for your clothes, not to mention the sweat shops in Asia and all the environmental ipacts of the mining, growing, processing.
Lastly, don't take pundits' words for gospel without checking for yourself how sound is their reasoning.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Monty can be as factually inaccurate as he likes I still like him I don't follow all of his advice to the letter anyway I'm not a sheep.
many novice gardeners tune into GW for accurate information. They don't have the experience, time or knowledge to automatically doubt , or cross check information .
We are the market. There is nobody else. If we buy it, people will make it.
I think it is the other way round. We can only buy what is available, be that food, flooring, boilers, cars, whatever. Saving the planet has to start at the manufacturing end of things ... which doesn't happen because we live in an economy skewed by the concept of shareholder gain.
But that just shifts responsibity to them, away from us. For producers the only real consideration is the financial bottom line, unless regulated. They will make anything if they think they can flog it and make a profit. They are usually not interested in ethics but are always desperately interested in what punters will buy. Buyers have a lot of consumer power in their pocket, if they would only use it.
We can only buy what is available
There are often a lot of options, esp in the Uk and online. We can avoid companies we don't like (such as Amazon) or products that contain elements we don't want (like peat, industrial meat, air miles or palm oil). It's never been easier
But it is the responsibility of manufacturers. For example, it is DuPont's responsibility that almost every living thing on the planet is contaminated with forever chemicals. They knew the risks ... and did it anyway. The world managed without Teflon till they introduced it. Customers could not have known the damage its production was causing and had no say as to whether items using PFOAs were available.
And the same goes for much else. Food producers make stuff in the full knowledge it will create health problems. Candle factories churn out their wares in the full knowledge of the pollution these cause. Etc, etc, etc.
The bottom line is so revered that any collateral damage is seen as acceptable, even the destruction of the planet. Consumers can only do so much and can never overturn trends when something comes to dominate the market place.
Of course individuals can make small changes. I boycott Amazon as I believe Bezos has irreparably damaged worker conditions in a way that quickly seeped across society. But I can't erase the harms that should not have been allowed to happen in the first place. And people on tight budgets have far less choice, which in a world where more and more resources are held by fewer and fewer means, in reality, we are all being dragged towards the consumer ends foisted upon us by corporate greed.
(Have just finished an excellent book called Exposure by Robert Bilott, the lawyer who stood up to DuPont. It is crushingly depressing that any large corporation should behave as it did.)
Posts
But he does have his own agenda and has 'misspoken' before when a couple of years ago he said that the ONLY way to deal with lily beetle is to pick them off and crush them.
Well, there is another way - there are plenty of insecticides that will also kill lily beetles.
I understand where he's coming from, but he gave incorrect information.
I recall he did get some flack for that.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Weedkillers work.
He states his preferences, and choices, as facts. Which is often not the case.
As for the logic of Monty's argument, if he doesn't want peat in his garden, it really doesn't matter if it is recycled it still denuded an ecosystem in order to make it to the growing facility.
As long as we are complacent, manufacturers with an eye only to profit margins and shareholders will get away with what they can whether they're at home or abroad. Apart from environmental concerns there are the ethics of transporting goods over long distances and the conditions in which the labour forces are working so think on next time you buy goods from China which has a long history of abuses including using Ouiga slave labour to produce high end goods for high street chains.
Think too about the labour conditions of people quarrying Indian sandstone or the minerals for battery powered cars or the cotton for your clothes, not to mention the sweat shops in Asia and all the environmental ipacts of the mining, growing, processing.
Lastly, don't take pundits' words for gospel without checking for yourself how sound is their reasoning.
They don't have the experience, time or knowledge to automatically doubt , or cross check information .
And the same goes for much else. Food producers make stuff in the full knowledge it will create health problems. Candle factories churn out their wares in the full knowledge of the pollution these cause. Etc, etc, etc.
The bottom line is so revered that any collateral damage is seen as acceptable, even the destruction of the planet. Consumers can only do so much and can never overturn trends when something comes to dominate the market place.
(Have just finished an excellent book called Exposure by Robert Bilott, the lawyer who stood up to DuPont. It is crushingly depressing that any large corporation should behave as it did.)