Sarah Raven,it is not polite to laugh but....

[Jeannine]

 does anyone actually buy from this source?

I have just got the catalogue again as I do most years, the prices are so high I find it amusing and I look for the silliest one each year.

How about 6 plant labels and a pen for £9. 45 plus £4.45 postage, that is the winner this year.

Maybe I am missing something  but will someone really pay £9.50 for 10 lettuce seedlings or £13.50 for 7 squash seedlings plus postage  for either.

How about  1.5 kg of seed potatoes for £8 95 plus postage.

I guess I live in a different world to her customers.

XX Jeannine

[Jeannine]

[Kea]

I think most of us do.(I meant live in a different world from her and her customers!.....not most of us buy from her).

[caroline7758]

Or 27.50 for a steel bucket! Nice pictures, though! ;D

[Deb P]

I'm afraid I use her catalogues as good reminders of what and when to sow for late summer flowers, I then go and source the seeds from cheaper sources!

[saddad]

I clearly live in a different world, as they don't even send me a catalogue!
;D

[betula]

Sarah needs to get down to a proper lottie and quick.....Recomend her book The great vegetable plot though ;D ;D ;D

[Jeannine]

I can just see her in her £90 wellies, shifting cow poo with her £70  pich fork and carting it in her designer wheel barrow that probably cost more than my car.

Who is she by the way, I truly don't know anything about her?

XX Jeannine

[Eristic]

Who is she by the way, I truly don't know anything about her?

Exactly.

[betula]

She is a presenter on Gardeners'world and she has this fab place she owns with everything a Gardener could want.She is obviously aiming for the top end of the market at those prices. :)

[Shirley]

I think she use to be a doctor before the children came along

[Just Vegging Out]

The old Gardener's World presenter I couldn't stand was Rachel De Thame - she had long manicured nails and was always posing and she lifted a shrub on one show and you could see where it had been in a pot and plonked in the hole read for her to lift it out.

The silliest gardening things I saw for sale - at the Chelsea Flower Show a few years back one of the stalls was selling shabby chic garden tools and accessories - as in old trowels with rotten split handles, old enamel buckets with big chips and dents.  It was a load of rubbish out of a skip basically fluffed up with raffia and there were all the ladies that lunch buying it.  It just struck me as very sad.  Its frightening that so called intelligent people have that amount of money to waste, its obscene actually.  If they want to throw their money away on rubbish - why not just give their money to some poor sod who is skint?

Yes - people would and do pay a tenner for a few lables and a pen.  I don't know why, but they do.

[Emagggie]

Ha ha. It is very true, sadly. I remember a florist telling me that the terracotta flower pot the plant arrangement was in was 'antique', thereby worth the silly price she was charging. That must make my pots worth a bomb then. ::)

[Jeannine]

Well in that case my old wooden greenhouse that should have fallen down 20 years ago must be worth a fortune.

For Sale..desirable glasshouse filled with character and olde world charm, tastefully adorned  with vintage algae and moss. Comes complete with several antique cracked terracotta flowerpots ,a collection of hand polished gardening tools naturally aged with a delightful rust, decorated with naturally soiled cotton string in a charming knotted design.

Serious offers  considered in the region of £4500

XX Jeannine

[Amazin]

You do realise that some sad soul will be Googling tonight for just such an item and will take you seriously. Just sit back and wait for the offers... er... can I be your agent (showbiz or estate, I don't mind)

;D

[Jeannine]

Absobloominglootely!! I will go halves with you

XX Jeannine

[Just Vegging Out]

But I put the idea in your heads so I want my cut too LOL

[Amazin]

Jeannine, I have spoken with my contact from 'Suvvabees' - 'Valuers and suppliers of bric-a-brac to the idle rich - No job too small'. As your agent I strongly advise you to put your treasure on e-bay. You might make enough to buy a brand new post-modern model.

Just Vegging Out - Have your people call my people...

;D

[Jeannine]

Sorry Folks I have decided to keep it for now, I will do a bit more work on it, pop the old wooden wheelbarrow on there , plus a few other antiquities(my old wellies). I think I could get alot more if I really tried.

I don't mind cutting you in Just vegging Out, I will give you half of Amazin's share!!

XX Jeannine

[Riffster]

There is a photo thread idea.  "Rustic, or not" - subtitled: "Make our old rust stuff look a million pounds".  We could sell the photos printed on cards to the rich.

[Ceratonia]

I think she use to be a doctor before the children came along

She was a doctor and then stayed home to look after the kids. Home being the small farm they'd just bought. Her dad is a fairly well known Cambidge University Botanist. She knows people like Monty Don & Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from university. Her husband is the grandson of Vita Sackville-West and grew up in Sissinghurst castle - probably one of the most famous/influential English gardens of the 20th century? 

One of my wife's friends went on one of Sarah Raven's courses. I was laughing at the price until she pointed out that it was less than a quarter of what my company charges for a day's training. As she said - you're not even on telly!

Rachel de Thame went to Royal Ballet school and then worked as a model & actress before doing a gardening course and getting the job on GW.