[Ali McDonald]

Hello there

Any gardening related problems you think should be solved?

I am a final year student studying BA (Hons) Graphic Design at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth. I am undertaking my final major project with the subject of sustainability and growing your own food.

I need a point of focus to solve. I am appealing to all you green fingered folk if there are any problems you have in the garden, when growing your own food. It can be absolutely anything at all none are too big or too small.

I'd like to hear from a variety of different experiences and types of gardeners
 
Any help or information about your growing problems would be most helpful.
Thank-you very much for your time, I look forward to hearing from you.
 
Ali McDonald

[peapod]

Personally? SNAILS!!
But not a problem that can be solved easily! But it depends what kind of problem you mean, growers are assaulted with myriad problems, from blight to weather to sourcing materials cheaply to having room to grow your own in the first place.

[Aunt Sally]

Onion white rot is one of my problems.  Solve that and I'll award you a PhD 

[mikem]

I know that it is on the "too difficult list" but the declining bee population.  See:-

http://www.greenfootsteps.com/missing-bees.html

[Ice]

Design me a bird scarer that is cheap and efective please.  It should look and fly like a bird of prey and have an audio feed of the alarm calls of pesky sparrows. 

[FCG]

Here is a good one for you, the interaction between the home and garden. There is virtually nothing designed for the home to have items grown in (i designed one). Basically there is the windowsill and nothing else. No special containers or anything - a lot of people can get a little plot in the garden but can't fit in a greenhouse. We have houses; so lets make them green.

[penance]

Poor drainage and club root, find a cure for club root and you'll be sorted!

[DD.]

Yes please to the club root!

(And pigeons)

[shaun]

clubroot here too

[Ian_P]

Hi Ali. I notice that you are a graphic design student so I would try to concentrate on problems that may have a graphics solution rather than a biology solution.

That means scare tactics for pests really, mostly birds but also mice and possibly rats. The things I had in mind were cheap and reusable and portable scarecrow things that might look like a man, a snake, a cat, or whatever else scares the birds and other away.

Finally a challenge. I have heard that the female carrot root fly is a very agressive and competitive little thing, and certainly a big headache for growers. But I have heard that if you plant small handbag mirrors in the soil along the egde of a row of carrots they will quite literally beat themselves to death because they think another female is trying to lay her eggs in the same spot. Now I have never tried this remedy because apart from anything else I would look stupid asking for a dozen handbag mirrors. Even I am not that vain. So is there a solution?

Good luck and be sure to tell us if you manage to design something.

I

[Ice]

Hi Ali. I notice that you are a graphic design student so I would try to concentrate on problems that may have a graphics solution rather than a biology solution.

That means scare tactics for pests really, mostly birds but also mice and possibly rats. The things I had in mind were cheap and reusable and portable scarecrow things that might look like a man, a snake, a cat, or whatever else scares the birds and other away.

Precisely Mr P.

[GrannieAnnie]

For me personally, I'd say something to stop the blight that last year even got into my polytunnel and destroyed a lot of my tomatoes, not just my potatoes, and Caterpillars!!!

I can't afford to cover everything to protect them from the dreaded caterpillar!!!!

[horsepooisgood]

Hi Ali and welcome to our forums,

A good and useful project might be something to keep cats from useing freshly cultivated ground as toilets.

All of the present deterrents have been tried and they all fail.

If you could come up with something that works then millions of people, gardeners and non gardeners alike would be grateful.

Of course the easy way would just be to educate irresponsible cat owners how anti social the action of just turning their cats out to go where they like is.
Mark

[Ali McDonald]

Hi agian,

Thanks very much for your quick responses these are great starting points for the project lots to be researching and looking into don't want to rule anything out at this stage. Any more are welcome to be added.

Cheers for now
Ali

[Ice]

I think it would be usefull if you were to explain more about your project aims.  After all, you are a graphic design student and not a horticultural one.  We could all make lots of suggestions, but most of those would be irrelevant.