Uproar in the allotments

If you think Facebook and Twitter are the current big thing, well you're sadly mistaken. It would seem that gardening, allotments, bee keeping and chickens are what's hip and happening. I've lost track of the number of people who have mentioned they indulge in one or more of the above. I would love one of those cute little Egloos, but so would Molly (pitured). Bee keeping will be my retirement pastime. Let's hope bees are not extinct by then.

Gardening does delight me, or rather, the buying of plants and containers and the photographing of results. Digging and weeding is less appealing, as is pest control (spraying, slug removal etc). My gran used to snip the slugs in half with a pair of scissors but I'm far too squeamish for that. I'd like to say that I use nematodes but you can't beat a good handful of slug pellets.

With gardening becoming so trendy, there is naturally quite a lot of snobbery. Apparently a lot of the old guard, who use Latin names when snapdragons would suffice, are up in arms about the new format of Gardener's World, where we are now shown how to sow seeds and create raised beds, and, gasp, there was even a feature on gnomes.

My solution is very simple. Keep Gardener's World the way it's always been, for the serious gardeners, and branch out with some new gardening progammes for novices. There will be more of us growing vegetables, so why not get in early?
My vote is to bring back Charlie Dimmock. We haven't seen nearly enough of her lately. Just Charlie, though. We don't need Tommy Walsh, decking or water features. A few veg, some raised beds and how to grow blueberries and goji berries would be very appealing. And maybe one or two gnomes.