Gardening

[gintonic]

Not heard of this. I thought that a degree (in anything) could be followed by a one year PGCE which involved chalk-face experience

no I did a 4 year BEd(hons) - (1984-1988) specialist in teaching CDT (my subjects were woodwork and technology (ICT)). A BEd was a mixture of teaching practice (16 weeks per year), teaching theory etc and subject based knowledge - it crammed in alot - hence stretched over 4 years.

Did a PgCert in HE teaching in about 1993.

Whilst i was on the BEd, we had all sorts of teaching practice. I was sent on secondment to a YTS programme, and had to teach screen printing of T-shirts, and bricklaying......i had fun but it was a joke.

 

[Copperjacket]

Back on topic: do I have to use titanium /carbon/ ceramic / Damascus steel scissors to remove the apical stem from my French and runner bean plants or will pinching them out with my fingernails do?

 

[Vinny]

Back on topic: do I have to use titanium /carbon/ ceramic / Damascus steel scissors to remove the apical stem from my French and runner bean plants or will pinching them out with my fingernails do?

Why would you want to pinch them out?
I have never heard of it being done and have certainly never done it.
In runners, you just wind the extended growth into the support. Climbing French beans you do the same. I have never known dwarf French to grow any great height although they can crop so heavily that they may need heeling-in, especially on light soil, to stop them toppling over.

 

[Joe Hutch]

Whereas the great majority of people live in the real world.......................................................

I tried that. Was bored before I even began.

 

[webster]

Why would you want to pinch them out?
I have never heard of it being done and have certainly never done it.
In runners, you just wind the extended growth into the support. Climbing French beans you do the same. I have never known dwarf French to grow any great height although they can crop so heavily that they may need heeling-in, especially on light soil, to stop them toppling over.

I've been growing beans in France for approaching 20 years and never heard of it - I assumed it was some sort of joke.

 

[Rockmeister]

Don't worry...'all my fault' are the most (over ) used words chez rock

 

[Joe Hutch]

C to F or F to C: ask Google or use a nice app. More interesting things to fill my brain with, than remembering pointless formulae.

as an aside we never maintain our garden, but we have a rose, that produces most amazing white flowers pretty much all year round. It's never been touched, pruned or anything in nearly 30 years.

I was never much cop at maths anyway, but the maths I really hated was the sort of problem where a train travelling at 40 mph is being followed by a car travelling at 50 mph, which left the same starting point an hour later, so how long will it take for the car to overtake the train? Stop staring out of the window boy, the answer’s not out there!

My father, whose maths was no better than mine, would try to help me with such problems if they were set for homework, but usually in vain. I’d just bung some random number in and hope for the best.

I’ve been having a major sort-out in the garden ahead of the heatwave. There’s a rose bush in the fro garden which I’ve just rediscovered after pruning back some overgrown shrubs.

 

[Mike Reed]

but the maths I really hated was the sort of problem where a train travelling at 40 mph is being followed by a car travelling at 50 mph, which left the same starting point an hour later, so how long will it take for the car to overtake the train? Stop staring out of the window boy, the answer’s not out there!

Guess you simply went on strike; it's all the rage in the railway industry.

steel scissors to remove the apical stem from my French and runner bean plants

Nice word, apical (admit, I had to look the adjective up.) Like others, I've never heard of truncating climbing beans. In fact, I'm only happy when mine form a canopy over my 3 metre high rectangular (3 sided) bean plot. Had to use the stepladder to harvest above the growth a few years ago, but unless we get some rain very soon, this won't happen this year. Runners don't like temp's above 25 degrees and my new beans are looking old before they lengthen. french beans are a little lmore forgiving. Bloody heatwave! Don't they know this is Britain?

no I did a 4 year BEd(hons)

Ah, yes; same as at my college and I could've extended the course (I think) but couldn't wait to earn a crust (despite generous grant).

and had to teach screen printing of T-shirts,

Ah, brings back my final tie-dyeing and screen-printing exhibition (bit of a joke really but I couldn't stand Shakespeare so swapped in year one)

 

[gintonic]

college

I know nothing about colleges, I was at Leeds Uni

 

[Darth Vader]

I was never much cop at maths anyway, but the maths I really hated was the sort of problem where a train travelling at 40 mph is being followed by a car travelling at 50 mph, which left the same starting point an hour later, so how long will it take for the car to overtake the train? Stop staring out of the window boy, the answer’s not out there!

My father, whose maths was no better than mine, would try to help me with such problems if they were set for homework, but usually in vain. I’d just bung some random number in and hope for the best.

I’ve been having a major sort-out in the garden ahead of the heatwave. There’s a rose bush in the fro garden which I’ve just rediscovered after pruning back some overgrown shrubs.

Thats really dead simple to work out and the sort of question I was asked at around the age of 9 or 10. I just did it in my head. These maths foundations should have been laid down in the junior school.

DV

 

[Darth Vader]

I know nothing about colleges, I was at Leeds Uni

Small World. My Graduate Certificate in Education was awarded by Leeds University!

DV

 

[Joe Hutch]

Thats really dead simple to work out and the sort of question I was asked at around the age of 9 or 10. I just did it in my head. These maths foundations should have been laid down in the junior school.

DV

Actually I was great at mental arithmetic at primary school; top of the class every year. First couple of years at secondary school weren’t too bad either. Algebra was where it all went horribly wrong. As for graphs, I remember looking round as everyone else’s took shape, wondering why mine looked nothing like theirs. It was only when the mad Irish monk who had been teaching us was replaced by a normal teacher that I began to get more of a grasp of the subject. He very patiently took me, step by step, back to the point at which I’d lost the plot, and talked me through the problem. I managed to pass the O level at the first attempt, then the wonderful realisation occurred that I need never sit through a single maths lesson ever again.

 

[Copperjacket]

Why would you want to pinch them out?
I have never heard of it being done and have certainly never done it.
In runners, you just wind the extended growth into the support. Climbing French beans you do the same. I have never known dwarf French to grow any great height although they can crop so heavily that they may need heeling-in, especially on light soil, to stop them toppling over.

You pinch the tip out when they reach the top of whatever supports you are using. This prevents the plants growing over tall and encourages them to bush out, flower and start the pod production process.

 

[Vinny]

You pinch the tip out when they reach the top of whatever supports you are using. This prevents the plants growing over tall and encourages them to bush out, flower and start the pod production process.

My father and his two brothers very obviously spent a combined 200 years doing it wrong. Mike Reed likewise can add a few years to that, plus my 60.
You will get more crop by simply lowering the plant tip and getting it climbing again.

The idea of removing the growing tip is as barmy as removing the tendrils from sweetpeas.

 

[Darth Vader]

Actually I was great at mental arithmetic at primary school; top of the class every year. First couple of years at secondary school weren’t too bad either. Algebra was where it all went horribly wrong. As for graphs, I remember looking round as everyone else’s took shape, wondering why mine looked nothing like theirs. It was only when the mad Irish monk who had been teaching us was replaced by a normal teacher that I began to get more of a grasp of the subject. He very patiently took me, step by step, back to the point at which I’d lost the plot, and talked me through the problem. I managed to pass the O level at the first attempt, then the wonderful realisation occurred that I need never sit through a single maths lesson ever again.

Anyway its now water under the bridge. We are where we are. Mathematics is so important as its the only tool that can help us understand the Universe and our place within it. My wife is similar. A highly intelligent person who shuns maths and science because it was so badly taught at school and she went to a fee paying school! Nuns. Do I have to say any more.

When I left Uni after shunning the chance of a PhD I went blindly into teaching. No training and never before a class. I applied very late and was surprisingly interviewed by the county science chappy. Very nice guy. After questions about my whole life he told me that he could only offer me one teaching placement as all the others had gone. It was the toughest school in the City. "Will you take it?" "Of course I said".

It was an eye opener and I began to realise that I didn't actually understand a lot of what I was taught and could use. I learned more when teaching than I ever did before.

Today I see the Universe through totally different eyes. Some of you would think I'm crazy as I relate with everything at the quantum-level. Photons reacting with electrons within atoms and the strength of the electromagnetic force that stops me walking through walls (Pauli exclusion principle).

Mention logarithms and a lot of people will shudder at the thought. However our basic number system is logarithmic Th H T U that goes back to our infant school and how we learnt numbers is a logarithmic scale.

As they say once a teech always a teech.

DV

 

[Mike Reed]

Mathematics is so important as its the only tool that can help us understand the Universe and our place within it.

Maybe, but rather pointless if you can't communicate, and one needs language for that.

I learned more when teaching than I ever did before.

Ditto. It was in teaching the grammatical mechanics of English that I understood the fundamentals. A bit like reverse engineering in language, I s'pose.

It was only when the mad Irish monk who had been teaching us was replaced by a normal teacher that I began to get more of a grasp of the subject. /QUOTE]

I was useless at maths because the teacher, 'Tot' (I can still remember his nickname some 65 years on. He was bald, hence name). He taught over our heads and by throwing wooded board erasers. I stayed on to take maths again under the friendly P.E. teacher and passed with flying colours (O level, that is). It really IS the teacher who enthuses students in a subject; his maths knowledge was way behind Tot but it didn't matter because he could explain and clarify.

 

[Joe Hutch]

Maths teachers are often weird. The first one we had used to shuffle in in slippers, write some problems on the blackboard, stretch out on a radiator, Rees-Mogg style, and fall asleep. Then it was the mad Irish monk, who thought that the way to instil understanding was by shouting loudly, and periodically smacking the desk with a leather strap. What was truly bizarre was that we weren't streamed for maths, so that the super-brainy types were taught in the same class as the less-bright and the downright clueless.

 

[TalYWaun]

I was never much cop at maths anyway, but the maths I really hated was the sort of problem where a train travelling at 40 mph is being followed by a car travelling at 50 mph, which left the same starting point an hour later, so how long will it take for the car to overtake the train? Stop staring out of the window boy, the answer’s not out there!

If I had been asked this in school I would have just quickly written the answer and then been accused of cheating for not showing my working (again), for me, its how you look at the problem. The problem starts with the train 40 miles from the car. Assume you are stood on the train (frame of reference, so assume 0MPH) and you pointed a speed gun at the car which would show it closing at 10MPH. 40/10 = 4Hrs. From there I had to work out the steps to get to the solution. Sometimes that would be wrong so the reasoning went; your workings are wrong so to get the correct answer you must have cheated. Grr, how I hated school, but loved higher education. I wonder how many people didn’t go on to achieve their full potential because of poor secondary school teachers.

 

[Copperjacket]

My father and his two brothers very obviously spent a combined 200 years doing it wrong. Mike Reed likewise can add a few years to that, plus my 60.
You will get more crop by simply lowering the plant tip and getting it climbing again.

The idea of removing the growing tip is as barmy as removing the tendrils from sweetpeas.

I am in no way saying you are wrong but am relying on advice received from a variety of keen gardeners which I have checked on both the Royal Horticultural Society and Garners World websites

 

[ks.234]

Recommend me some pocket snips?

Love my current snips, hold an edge for ages, but a bit weighty in the pocket for the evening patrol of the estate perimeter with the guard dog….

Looking for something for pottering, something small, light, that holds an edge and is suitable for very light pruning, something that can be whipped out of the pocket at the first sign of an intruder.