Fork'n Monkey Blog Awards

The Winners

2008-05-21T01:04:00.000-07:00

A shade later than planned I’m afraid, but at last I can, with pleasure, announce the winning entrants in each category as follows:

Is There Anybody Out There? goes to Esther

The Favourite Way of Wasting Time award goes to Shedworking

The Adam Pasco Award goes to Frankie at her Veg Plot

Proud Parent - Fuggles for the dancing frog beansprout photo

Vegetable Matter - Bifurcated Carrots

What’s New Pussycat - Wilb at Big Sofa, since especially as his presence is, like most sensible cats, occasional and at his own convenience

Inky/Green Fingers - Blogging at Blackpitts

We Are All in the Gutter - VP at Veg Plotting

Crash Bang Wallop goes to Cleve West’s poppadom photograph

The Jeeves award goes the Monty Don, the Lord Of Cord

One again deepest thanks to everyone who took part.

If this were on TV, I would at this point break into a rather awful rendition of “Wind Beneath My Wings”.

I love you all.

The Garden Monkey

Your Patience is Appreciated

2008-05-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, voting has closed and the judging process is underway.

Results will be announced on Tuesday.

Where it is a straightforward majority decision, some winners will already be able to see who they are [subject to any stewards enquiry], and so, as you read this, will probably be popping the cork on a bottle of Moet.

On behalf of myself and Angus, I would like to send sincere thanks to everybody who took the time to stop by, particularly those who voted, and most of all….in the style of some sickly Hollywood speech acceptance speech….. to all the garden bloggers, without which the F’nM awards would have been a bit thin on content.

Voting is closed

2008-05-16T15:41:00.001-07:00

Thank you and goodnight.

More soon.

Welcome, Villkommen, et Bienvenue

2008-04-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

I am thrilled and delighted to announce the all-star launch of a new set of Awards for Garden Blogs and Websites.

Move over Oscar, Budge up BAFTA, Naff off Nobel - the all singing, all dancing Fork ‘n Monkey Awards are here.

The Awards are divided into ten categories covering most aspects of the internet gardener’s life.

I hope that, over time, they will become as established and respected as the Nobel Prizes (although without the cheques or having to go to Sweden) with the great, the good and the slightly unhinged yearning to append a Fork ‘n Monkey title to their name.

There are, of course, other (better established) Garden Blog awards out there: the Fork ‘n Monkey Awards are by no means in competition with them, but instead are seeking to reward and acknowledge different facets of the little corner of the Internet that is populated by gardeners.

Get out there and vote by adding comments to the relevant sections of this Blog. You may propose as many nominees as you wish for each category. You are encouraged not to vote more than once for any particular nominee. Anonymous votes are acceptable - although any suspicious Mugabeism in the ballot boxes will be investigated fully.

You may, of course, vote for yourself.

Nominations for the Awards will close on May 16th with the Winners and Runners Up being announced on Tuesday 20th May - to coincide with the awarding of Royal Horticultural Society Medals at the Chelsea Flower Show.

This is A Garden Monkey Production (with all the ramshackle nonsense that that implies).

Is There Anybody Out There?

2008-04-07T12:14:00.000-07:00

One of the most important things about the internationally renowned Fork n' Monkey Awards is that they salute the unusual.

In that spirit we would like submissions for the Heather Mills Al Fayed Award.

This will celebrate an aspect of life that is usually unappreciated by the general population.

In this category we include entire Blogs, single Blog Posts, Websites or whatever.

We go further: provided that somewhere on the site (no matter how miniscule or immaterial) there is some whisper of gardens then it qualifies for this award.

It will be a celebration of an unusual passion (not, you will notice, an unnatural passion: we are not that kind of Awards committee).

You're My Favourite Way of Wasting Time

2008-04-07T12:11:00.000-07:00

Everything has a website from Supermarkets to Sunday league football teams.

As a result there are a lot of gardening websites out there some good, some ghastly.

This Award is for the Most Entertaining Gardening Website.

We are not looking for anything particularly practical (that would be far too serious) or useful.

The successful nomination will be a good place to waste a few minutes. It can be a blog, a commercial site, a designer, a nursery - anything provided is has a a very slight horticultural bent.

The Adam Pasco Award

2008-04-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

Most Blogs have a photograph in their sidebar: mostly, though not exclusively, of the author.

Readers of Gardeners World Magazine will notice that the (very knowledgeable) editor, Adam Pasco features a lot. Photographs of Adam dibbing, Adam composting, Adam tweaking his greenhouse, Adam mowing etc etc.

In his honour we have established the Adam Pasco Award For Most Interesting Self-Portrait on a gardening website or Blog.

The Judges are not necessarily looking for beauty but for originality.

The Proud Parent Award

2008-04-07T12:08:00.001-07:00

We all love babies.

Cute dimpled buttocks, wispy hair and that wonderful smell of sweetly regurgitated milk and baby powder.
The garden equivalent is the seedling.

We invite nominations for your favourite seedling photograph.

(Some seedlings are only interesting to their parents)

Vegetable Matter

2008-04-07T12:06:00.000-07:00

Cyril Fletcher (1913-2005) was an integral part of That's Life (a 1970s hodge podge of consumer stuff, real life stories and Esther Rantzen). He sat in an armchair wearing a velvet smoking jacket and a self satisfied expression.

One of the favourite items on this programme was the gardening public sending in photographs of vulgarly shaped vegetables so, in honour of this great British tradition and in memory of the smug Cyril, we invite nominations for most unusual Vegetable based blog.

This does not necessarily have to include vulgar vegetables but such inclusions would be smiled upon by the judges.

What's New Pussycat?

2008-04-07T12:05:00.000-07:00

It is a fact of life that many Garden Bloggers are extraordinarily fond of cats.

Some of them take this fondness to a slightly worrying level.

We ask you to nominate your favourite cat-heavy blog.

Sites with exclusive cat content and, especially, those that are written as if seen through the eyes of a cat are disqualified on the grounds of Cat Nutterdom.

Green Fingers, Inky Fingers.

2008-04-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

The world of horticulture has produced some great writers.

My own favourites include Christopher Lloyd, Henry Mitchell, Beth Chatto, Charles Elliot, Josef Capek and Beverly Nichols.

That said it's also produced some stinkers. Alan Titchmarsh won a Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award for his novel Mr Mac Gregor

But is any of the writing that’s to be found in blogs, of exemplary quality?

Or is it just ephemeral chaff.

Is there a blog that is always a joy to read?

Or a single post that you enjoy so much that you have read it a number of times?

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stairs

2008-04-02T14:09:00.000-07:00

Gardens seem to inspire people to write verse.

Myself included.

My garden sings to me,
In symphonies,
That make whalesong,
Sound like geese.

I was very proud of that when I wrote it.

It wasn't until I'd recited it to a good number of people (some more than once), that someone took me aside and said, “Look, I know you love your garden, but your poetry stinks.”

“OK” I said, “How about this? -
There was a young actress from Kew,
Who said as the Bishop..."

I digress - sorry - the question is, which blog contains gardening-inspired poetry that should, with the best will in the world, be consigned to the compost heap.

Crash, Bang, Wallop!

2008-03-27T13:34:00.000-07:00

Not all photographs can be perfectly framed, photo-journalistic gems. Even the greatest photographers occasionally have an off day.

In gardening we often take pictures that, to the uninitiated, seem extraordinarily snore inducing.
Where is your favourite picture of empty vegetable patches/ vacant borders/ compost heap or similar specialist subject ?"

Jeeves Award For Worst Dressed Celebrity Gardener

2008-03-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

Common, or garden gardeners dress themselves in clothes suitable for gardening - although we all find ourselves doing some task that as just crossed our mind, as we are on the way out of the door in our best togs.

The celebrity gardener is faced with a quandary. Do they dress for gardening, or for television? Or as what they think a gardener should look like?

Most navigate this dilemma with some success, but there are a few who undoubtedly, as the Kinks put it..

“….thinks he is a flower to be looked at, And when he pulls his frilly nylon panties right up tight, He feels a dedicated follower of fashion.”

So who is the worst dressed, or who is the worst dressed for gardening?