Thank you very much Pillbug, I was wondering about that and will try it as it would solve the immediate problem as there are only 2 of us to eat 9 big butternuts! Jaci

Thank you very much John for your reply, there re still a few more to pick so I will follow your suggestion and will have to do a bit of giving to get the existing ones all eaten up quickly. Hope to have better luck next year. Jaci

About a week ago I pulled seven butternut squashes and laid them in a cool place. The skins were perfect when pulled but now they have developed dark yellowish brown patches and I cannot find anything in Hessayon to explain them. Has anyone else come across this and does anyone know if they are stil...

Hello Newatallthis. Calabrese has a medium large head which just before it shows colour should be picked and eaten, and when you have eaten all the central heads you wait for about 4-5 weeks for a lot of little side shoots to appear, when it is, rather like purple sprouting I suppose. You pick these...

Not a daft question at all,Weed, it is an important one to know especially with something that takes years to crop properly as apparently these do. Pigletwillie says that his oldest bush is 5 years old and has had 6 lbs of fruit so perhaps that will help. Don't know if that is typical, though. Sound...

Better late than never! I have just read your posting, Pigwillie and wish I had read it earlier but never mind. I have three one year plants (offer from Kitchen Garden) and they really are nice plants, I have potted them on in ericaceous compost into 9" pots and water them with rainwater, and a...

I have been reading this correspondence with interest as I did not know that the fruit should be restricted, but I will probably keep on growing as I did last year because there are only two of us and we got as many as eight butternut squashes from one plant and each one was used twice with just suf...

What I do with my calabrese, about 4-6 weeks after it has been planted out, is sprinkle a little Nitro Chalk around the bed at a rate of 1 oz per square metre, and always have a good crop. I should not think it is too late to do that now and it keeps the plants growing along well. Last time I bought...

Dear Allan and Sprout, have just seen your messages and am delighted with the website address, and have ordered from it the telescopic weed knife for home and the grass whip and long-handled bulb planter for the allotment. Next I am off to get two kneelers, what a good idea because however much you ...

Thanks Sprout. Glad you liked it.

Sorry for all the smilies, one was meant to be at the end of "more hopeful" but not having used them before thoght they weren't going in!
Jaci

My goodness, what a lovely lot of replies today when I sat down to reply to Lizzie! Thank you, Peter, that sounds like a brilliant idea and I know someone who works in metal and is quite ingenious so will run it past him. Thank you too Allan, for your suggestion and you, too, Sprout - I have a dibbe...

Thank you Lizzie, that is one that I had not thought about and would be better in some cases than using a long handled trowel so I will certainly use it. Once the hole is dug, though, it is the getting of the plant into the hole - but come to think about it, perhaps paper in the bottom of a bulb pla...

Having a very bad back, I manage all right with broad beans and potatoes (I use piping) but plants are incredibly painful to put in and as my soil is very light and sandy, seeds do not do very well so I like to grow in modules, growing on into bigger pots then planting but now it is almost impossibl...