For anyone still using XP, you can download this tool which resizes very quickly and easily. http://download.cnet.com/Image-Resizer-Powertoy-for-Windows-XP/3000-18487_4-10905400.html whilst viwing an image you right-click it and select 'resize picture' then an images size to suit your needs.

We do feed the birds - there is a very healthy crop of niger seedlings under it. Are Figwort seeds used in bird seed mix? That would make sense, except none of the plants are near the feeder, and some are up at the top of the garden, much higher than the feeder is.

I'm not sure where the seeds would have scattered from? None of the gardens around us (our garden is up the side of a hill, there are gardens above and below) or to the side have it, and above the gardens is fields. It is all over our garden, in pots as well as in the ground, not just the odd plant,...

Will we see you Saturday? If not, I would like to take up your kind offer of some of your cow-poo mountain, so maybe I could come up next week some time with some bags...

You need a herd of bunnies to help you with all the lettuce you will have!

Richard - Neighbour who gave me the seed (and said it was Little Gem) has shown me her lettuces in the greenhouse - she says they are Little Gem, but are not hearting up, so perhaps the weather this year has something to do with it. Lettuce seedlings do tend to go very floppy when dug up, I try not ...

Many thanks Felix! Any ideas where it might have come from? I have never seen it before (in any garden of mine), and it's not generally around here - how do the seeds spread?

Anyone know what this plant is? It has popped up all over the garden this year, never seen it before and would really like to know what it is!



The foliage has a strange smell, quite acrid, that I can't identify.

Any ideas?

Grass Sods - that's the right name for them in more ways than one!!!

Oh wow Richard, thanks! I try to pull something out every time I go up to the garden, if only the seeds we sow were as good at growing as weeds! I cannot believe how quickly the ground gets covered in weed seedlings. How anyone with an allotment copes I do not know, unless they have a bed under the ...

Hi Richard No wonder the weeds have gone mad, with all this rain! Small annual weeds can be pulled out and left on the soil to wither where the weeds are in with plants, either by hand weeding (I use a small garden knife turn over the soil, but a hand fork is fine) or by hoeing beds or between rows....

Thanks Richard! I started banging on about the Jet Stream long before it started to be mentioned in forecasts and in the papers, and got a reputation for being a bit of a weather guru by simply watching a Jet Stream predictor! We have a micro climate down here, and someone who lives up the hill by y...

Who do you use Richard? Is it a paid service or a free one - I could do with a heads up on squalls to give me time to get down from the garden to the house!

I have picked one strawberry - the rest are all still decidedly green.

I think it's worth the effort for me - the garden is very exposed anything that makes getting little seeds into the ground in the right place is a good thing. We have a few (only a few hopefully) wet days ahead, I will bring my veg seed tin down from the garden and make some strips so that I am read...

You can buy some seeds that have been coated - usually the tiny fiddly ones that need thinning - carrot are a prime example because it's thinning them that can attract carrot root fly.

The pelleted seeds are about the size of a mustard seed, so easy to handle. But you do get far less for your money.

I will do some carrot at some point, but have just bought some pelleted seed, so they will go in the plastic crate earmarked for them. Carrot and lettuce cause me the most problem with overcrowding. I might try it for some herbs too, onto circles for putting into pots. I think it will be good for an...