Just found a new gardening magazine

Larumbelle

I have to admit I am wary of this kind of part-work publication. I know plenty of people who have had real trouble trying to stop their 'no strings' subscriptions, and the cost overall is pretty horrific for what you actually get. I guarantee you can get everything this magazine offers cheaper, and what's more you can choose what to buy and when to buy it.

My advice is that for total beginners, a couple of good books will work out far cheaper, take up less space, and will contain the same information in a far more organised and easy to read manner.

Buy, swap, or scrounge seed - there are loads of us just itching to give it away to interested people - and get the varieties you want to grow. By relying on someone else to pick your varieties you're missing out on one of the best bits of growing your own, and judging by the first set supplied it doesn't sound like these will be anything new or exciting.

The free gifts aren't all that dear to buy either - the going rate for those mini-greenhouses round here is about £5-6 in the 'bargain' shops and the patio growers are only worth a few quid (and there are plenty of other things you could improvise with).

The seed-holder is useless without the seed tins and while the cute ickle tins might look tempting to us seed fetishists (I gather there are quite a few of us on this forum ) they aren't exactly necessary either, and the chances of them happening to produce tins for the exact varieties you like to grow... pretty remote, so you'll still end up with tatty seed packets in a roses tin - or obsessively organised alphabetised envelopes in a decorated shoe-box in the freezer, if you're me .

If you were getting all of the free gifts in one hit and could guarantee that you could stop the subscription straight away I'd say it was pretty good, but I can't see it happening that easily, and for that reason, I'm out.

Lotus-eater

I think I'm a seed fetishshsest person

But I am with you silvercharming, I'm definitely out as well, this publisher has a record of very cheap starting off magazines which become very expensive, very quickly. With small cheap presents as the draw, you of course have to keep the subscription going to get the whole set, The first cheap "gift" is almost always absolutely useless without the rest of the attachments.

HariboJunkie

I agree that this is expensive for what you get.

I have just started buying Garden News which is more of a weekly newspaper and come with really nice Mr Fothergill's seeds every week. Because it is weekly it is very helpful with ideas on what you should be doing every week. It's £1.80 per week or £1 if you subscribe and the seeds alone are worth more than that. If you don't fancy the seeds the website is good for information.

Using Tesco Clubcard points I also subscribe to Gardener's World and Grow your Own. (Both of which I would recommend but would pay full price for as it really adds up). All the info you need in on the net anyway but I do love my magazines.

nervousmother

HariboJunkie wrote: »

Using Tesco Clubcard points I also subscribe to Gardener's World and Grow your Own. (Both of which I would recommend but would pay full price for as it really adds up). All the info you need in on the net anyway but I do love my magazines.

Thank you for that tip, I have just ordered it as I had £20 in tokens

Spooky_Pooky

I can't find grow your own magazine on tesco deals - but I really want to subscribe to it... am I being stupid?!

Primrose

Moneymaker is a very old variety. I've grown it, amongst others, for years and in our garden have normally found it fairly blight resistant, which in these days of unreliable summer weather, is a big plus when growing tomatoes outdoors.
Another good magazine, if you like to concentrate on growing vegetables is Kitchen Garden. They often have free vegetables seeds with the magazine and when I renewed my subscription last time, I got three large plastic potato planter containers which I have just put to very good use. They would have cost me about £12 if I'd had to buy them in a garden centre. the magazine always has reader special offers too, for getting cheaper seeds.

HariboJunkie

Spooky_Pooky wrote: »

I can't find grow your own magazine on tesco deals - but I really want to subscribe to it... am I being stupid?!

No you're not. I am.

I subscribed to Gardener's world through clubcard but did GYO with a half price subscription offer they had on a while ago. Sorry.

If you subscribe now you can save 35%.

Money_maker

When I checked out tesco today, there was one magazine (apparently exclusive to tesco) with several packets of bog standard seeds in it for £4.99 and this was a promotional price! Also large growing mag with some sort of starter kit for £7.99!
Talk about getting on the gravy train for all the new grow your own beginners.

soon2bjobless

Try second hand shops for old gardening magazines - although they wont have any free seeds - I got 7 copies of Amateur Gardening on Saturday for 29p each - they are £1.80 to buy!

Primrose

The other good place to look for second-hand gardening magazines (and other magazines too) is Libraries. They normally order a fair selection of magazines and often don't know what to do with the old ones so may let you have them for nothing as they probably put them out for recycling.