I thik you need the patience of a saint to go through that whole process. i reckon we'll try the 72 hours brining.

The problem is that we're picking daily and taking off 4 or 5 at a time. Bottling piecemeal.

Thanks for that. I'll try it. It seems to make more sense than just dragging out all the water.

We're having another bumper year of mini cucumbers for gherkin making. And now encountering a problem I thought we had overcome last year. But we haven't. Before placing the gherkins into their sweetened vinegar, we have been covering them in salt for 24 hours to remove much of the moisture, as inst...

Nemaslug. Does this, apparent lifesaver of the allotment, work? We're despairing and at times getting to the point of giving up, as it seems often pointless to even plant anything as slugs seem to love our plot on the allotment. We have tried one small batch of nemaslug which may have done something...

I'm staggerd you've been picking cucumbers. Ours are an inch if that and the whole plant very short stubby. We're picking the Adam and pickling them no problem, but marketmore - nothing.

Thanks for the response. They are marketmore. It just seems all the instructions you get about cucmbers on the packets don't actually seem to apply. Not a lot of space on the allotment fro cucumbers trailing along the ground which is why I went ofr the climbing.

It's Manchester so it must be magpies. And they don't care, they eat while I work a matter of yards away.

For th esecond year I am attempting to grow cucmbers outside and up a support to safe space. The packet says I can. Am I making life really hard for myself. It seems a very slow process with false starts and drooping stems, suddenly changing their mind and growing again. My 'gherkins' Adam, are havi...

We have brazen magpies on our allotment, by the score. This year I have covered all the brassicas in polythene tunnels to protect them and their growth has been outstanding. Not bad for a plot that I believed was riddled with clubroot. When does it become safe to remove the sheeting? Do magpies ever...

A friend of mine is bravley putting a 4'x 8' raised bed in a section of her lawn. I would like to get her a good beginners book to help her with this. A book that won't scare her. I know that KG ran some articles about growing in a small space, but I seem to think there was a book about this also. A...