Hmm well I forked out 3.25 for the first issue, which is a bit steep
considering it's supposed to be about 'Fresh food from your garden' and
not likely to appeal the more profligate of gardeners! It's in a silly
size, large and almost square 230 x 300, about the same size as the
Photoshop magazines. Terribly, terribly glossy and artfully designed,
with upmarket 'shiny' paper and four colour work throughout. (There
that's a printer talking) A sort of coffee table vegetable magazine if
that's not an anachronism

Has free seeds on cover, Romanesco and globe carrots which suit a
container. Lots of full colour very chic adverts about chicken arks and
Hartley Botanic greenhouses, log splitters and 'Eglus' (a very
futuristic shaped hen house). I realise people who grow vegetables can
also be very upmarket but it just doesn't gel.....
Recipes galore for very useful mid week meals such as 'tear and share
venison with salsa Verde' and 'cockle chowder'. Yeah right
...............

It has an immense amount of cooking articles and news about the new
reality/gardening show where families have to grow their own food for a
year.

On the plus side it has some interesting and, probably to a lot of
readers, useful stuff on varieties of Italian tomatoes (with recipes),
Parmex carrots (with recipes), keeping chickens with the doyen of
smallholding Katie Thear (with recipes), starting with cows, goats and
pigs (recipes probably to come), topical cooking (with recipes), ground
elder with a large glossy photo of hand weeding out ........
chickweed,

The magazine is a good sized 98 pages in all, with some heavyweight
contributors such as Jekka McVicar and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Maybe it's just me being old and picky, but somehow glossy gives me the
impression that the information is tempered by (god forbid) design
criteria. The size and shape of the magazine would mean that useful
stuff will be difficult to store. Even their special offer strawberry
plants have pink flowers albeit from Browns!
Not sure that people who commit to livestock and allotments and growing
sensible stuff such as vegetables would pay this much money for this
amount of art work and style.
Might get the next one to see if it continues to give good advice, if I
feel wealthy.

One thing did amaze me, a letters page contributed by people who obvious
have second sight as the magazine only launched with this issue so how
did they know about the letters page?
Silly remark typical of the magazine, someone maintained two secrets to
allotments, digging and manure but the comment was that Grow Your Own
may be the third but that they were biased (what? After one issue?)

Good ploy, You can't look inside it in the shop as it comes in a plastic
cover. Will now pass it on and keep Garden News and Garden Answers for
the next few issues at least

Janet
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:56:40 +0000, Janet Tweedy
wrote:

Hmm well I forked out 3.25 for the first issue, which is a bit steep
considering it's supposed to be about 'Fresh food from your garden'

When I read the subject line I thought I was going to get seeds from
which I could "grow my own magazine"! LOL

Pam in Bristol

When I read the subject line I thought I was going to get seeds from
which I could "grow my own magazine"! LOL

Pam in Bristol

Plant a few trees???????? ;-)

"Janet Tweedy" wrote in message
...
Hmm well I forked out 3.25 for the first issue, which is a bit steep
considering it's supposed to be about 'Fresh food from your garden' and
SNIP

When we got our allotment a few years ago someone gave us a complete bound
set of "grow your own" from the seventies, and I think it's great. I still
refer to it quite frequently, and when I saw the header I thought this was
the same publication. Is it published by Marshall Cavendish by any chance?

Steve

SNIP

When we got our allotment a few years ago someone gave us a complete bound
set of "grow your own" from the seventies, and I think it's great. I still
refer to it quite frequently, and when I saw the header I thought this was
the same publication. Is it published by Marshall Cavendish by any chance?


I have a bound set of this and it really is very good - athough some bits
are a little dated (eg garden chemicals/machinary etc)

I think that there was a follow-up series - was it about flowers? I'd like
to get my hands on that for sure.

Anyway the excellent Kitchen garden magazine is for me a must read - if only
i had a full set!



Paul

In article , P Williamson
wrote:

(snip)Anyway the excellent Kitchen garden magazine is for me a must
read - if only i had a full set!

Current holder of the Gardening Magazine of the Year Award, bestowed by
the Garden Writers' Guild.

Janet Baraclough wrote:
You might prefer "Kitchen Garden", if it's still published, less
gloss but more down to earth. I've recently become disenchanted with

Yes, Kitchen Garden is still available, and I'm 5 issues into my years
subsricption.

I like it a lot - it only covers veg, its practical, down to earth, good
photos and not too many adverts. It does have a 2 page chicken section
every month. Theres an article by Bob Flowerdew every month, and they
have just added Joy Larkcom and Joyce Russel to the contributing autors

Much much better than GW magazine for my taste. Got 6 packets of seed
when I joined (through an offer in the Telegraph my parents found) and
have had 4 packets of freebie seeds so far stuck on the front covers.

HTH,

Sarah

In article , Sarah Dale
wrote:

Janet Baraclough wrote:
You might prefer "Kitchen Garden", if it's still published, less
gloss but more down to earth. I've recently become disenchanted with

Yes, Kitchen Garden is still available, and I'm 5 issues into my years
subsricption.

I like it a lot - it only covers veg, its practical, down to earth, good
photos and not too many adverts. It does have a 2 page chicken section
every month. Theres an article by Bob Flowerdew every month, and they
have just added Joy Larkcom and Joyce Russel to the contributing autors

Joy Larkcom has been a regular contributor for several years.

In article , shazzbat
writes

Is it published by Marshall Cavendish by any chance?

Steve




It says Aceville Publications 2001 and Publisher Matthew Tudor
Design reprographics etc done by Ace Pre-press

There's no web site and the magazine address is given as Hawkins Road,
Colchester. With Katie Thear contributing I wondered if it was a sort of
glammed up offshoot of 'The Smallholder' which was a really good
magazine, very practical and unassuming and very few recipes!

janet
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

In article , Janet Tweedy
wrote:

In article , shazzbat
writes

Is it published by Marshall Cavendish by any chance?

It says Aceville Publications 2001 and Publisher Matthew Tudor
Design reprographics etc done by Ace Pre-press

There's no web site and the magazine address is given as Hawkins Road,
Colchester. With Katie Thear contributing I wondered if it was a sort of
glammed up offshoot of 'The Smallholder' which was a really good
magazine, very practical and unassuming and very few recipes!

Same publishing house as Gardens Monthly.

In article , Janet Baraclough
writes

You might prefer "Kitchen Garden", if it's still published,

Yes I get it sometimes, don't know why I don't put a regular order in
for it, as I find it very good . I sometimes read the Organic gardener
one, (can't remember the title) I wondered if the new 'revised'
Plantsman might be interesting, it seemed a little too esoteric for me
before but according to the RHS Garden, the Plantsman has been
regenerated and brought down to keen gardeners levels.

So, did you have torn veal for tea, or make do with cockles on toast ?

Janet.


It was a difficult decision but tuna steaks with basil and oil grilled
tomatoes and rice won in the end
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk