Organic Gardening Magazine

Your complete guide to gardening - naturally!

Editor's update

I’m writing this from Shetland, where we’ve staged a strategic retreat after a difficult winter in Glasgow. We left behind a spring already well advanced – the daffodils were old news – and arrived here this morning to the first glimpses of gold amidst the huge blocks of green leaves which line the road north. The inhabitants of the northern isles plant daffodils by the thousand, their defiant blaze of glory heralding the return of the light.

There is still snow on the hills – Easter was white here – and the boat fought its way north against a force eight, but today the sun is shining.

Those who have read my editorials over the years will know that cycles, seasonal and otherwise, figure largely with me – they’re one of the (few) ways of making sense of it all – and this issue sees Organic Gardening move into new cycles of its own. This is the first magazine of OG’s third decade, the first of its second year under the ownership of Mortons Media Group… and, to my huge regret, it is my last.

In the final phase of the handover to Mortons, the editorship will pass next month to Sarah Lawson, formerly editor of Tastes of Britain. I’ve produced 117 magazines, which means that, to my chagrin, Basil Caplan, OG’s founder and former editor, retains his title with 119… but so, of course, he should.

I’ll still be writing for the magazine – I’m not going quietly – and I’m looking forward to new challenges and, yes, spending more time with my family. None of my children remember a time when ‘press day’ wasn’t the event around which our lives are organised. I might even find time for some gardening – the non-virtual kind which, I seem to recall, involves green things and soil.

Acknowledgements are traditionally the preserve of books, but after some 7000 pages this has been a bigger undertaking than any book, so bear with me. I’ve self-indulgently thought of this as ‘my’ magazine, but of course it has always been a team production, with a cast of hundreds over the ten years, to all of whom I’m indebted. My particular thanks to Basil Caplan, for giving me the chance to do this in the first place; to Geoff Bevan, with whom I shared the highs and lows of running the business over nine years; to Jean Armin, our office manager, whose efficiency will go down in legend; to the contributors, who have been a delight to work with; and of course to you, the readers.

OG has been, and remains, a unique magazine, and I’m hugely proud of what it has become. It’s time, now, for me to let it move on to the next stage of its growth. If (this doesn’t seem like the moment to resist a perfectly good horticultural cliché) Basil Caplan propagated the seed and I’ve nurtured the seedling, it’s time now for it to flourish and bear fruit in the open ground.

My very best wishes to all who will be involved with that process.

 

Gaby Bartai
Editor

For all the news stories, check the magazine. Available now

Copyright information

All content is © Mortons Media Group 2008 • Kitchen Garden magazine | Subscribe to OG | Buy current issue