Selfsufficientish.com

Or as an alternative title- "When surveys just can't be right"

I don't often buy magazines but recently did buy "Grow it" when out with my daughter. She had just brough a magazine and was saying I should have one of my own too.There was an article that also seemed to tie in with my post on here about what to do with a field. That and the packets of seeds on the cover tempted me. Anyway I digress.
Inside was a survey undertaken by B&Q and the results came to me as a surprise and quite frankly I just don't believe it.
The survey came to the conclusion that 60% of Brits grow their own food to eat. Now I have a gardening round and out of 30 customers only 1 has anything edible in their gardens. Also it gives me the opptunatey to "glance" over neighbours gardens and vegatable plots are few and far between.
I can't help thinking that this survey was carried out next to the vegatable seed display at B&Q and probably a better way would be to go on google earth.
Anyway if you haven't seen the survey here it is on line-
http://www.housewareslive.net/news/news ... B%26Q+poll


Pete

not sure about anywhere else but it's +/- 17% here. I live in a row of six houses and I'm the only one in the row with edibles in the garden.

Don't forget allotments, window ledges and such like. Gardens are not the only place to grow vegetables.

I think 60% is the number that have dug a patch, planted things and watched as slugs eat, weeds choke and the weather blights all the hard work before a single carrot is pulled and eaten.

Tried growing 60%, yes, actually grow and eat in a sustainable and reliable way all the time, no way!

My Rhubarb can be seen from space, like the great wall of china, and Ikea in Bristol.

To be honest boboff I wouldn't like to compare my rhubarb with Ikea, the phrase "tasteless crap " springs to mind


Pete

boboff wrote:I think 60% is the number that have dug a patch, planted things and watched as slugs eat, weeds choke and the weather blights all the hard work before a single carrot is pulled and eaten.

people next door do the same thing every year plant peas and runner beans and let them dry out on plants than straight in the wasted bin
and they never use any of the rhubarb what a waste
in a row of 40 Victoria Terrence house were i live and only one other house grows veg
one more got a large amount of red currants bushes they let rot year on year
until last year when I asked if I could have them
now sitting in my cupboard ageing

A survey like this can only represent those who take part. In this case 60% of participants grow their own. Certainly we're not seeing a huge grow your own boom round here, our allotment site waiting list has dropped from 38 down to about five.

Yes our allotment site is full of people now who are actually working their plots.
In fact I am off down there this morning as we have nice weather for a change on a Sunday .

If you do a survey of B&Q customers you're likely to get an overestimate of gardening - not saying that's how the survey was done, but you'd have to know how it was done to interpret possible bias. If your sample is thirty people who employ a gardener or gardening services, I would expect a low proportion of vegetable growers just from the inherent sample bias of that population.

You'd also have to define what they mean by "growing their own food" - does cress on the windowsill count, or a pot of growing herbs, or do you need to grow 20-pounds of potatoes to qualify?


PS
I'll get confirmation at the committee meeting this week, but apparently our allotment site waiting list is currently either 0 or -1, i.e. we may have one empty plot and no waiting list. Although we're self-managed and don't feature on the LA waiting list, so it's influenced more by who knows the site exists rather than local demand.

Do a survey of this village and I reckon 250 of the 300 households will have a veg garden. Surveys are mostly about deciding what answer you want and then going out to pick the right sample

So basically ,the only thing worth surveying is your veg patch...from a distance with pride/despair.

oldjerry wrote:So basically ,the only thing worth surveying is your veg patch...from a distance with pride/despair.

Or frustration. I've had to replant rather too much this season due to stuff dying of cold. Not frost, just consistent low temperatures slowing them down until they drop.

So in short and it's hardly a ground breaking discovery-
surveys are basically not worth the time and effort .
I'd already thought this , but it beats me how a sample of only 2000 people can be taken as a serious indication of the lifestyles of 60 million. I can't help thinking the survey could do with re running at a macdonalds or in a chip shop and see what conclusions could be drawn.


Pete