Congratulations, Geoff! A wonderful milestone to have. Shame that you can't see him in person yet, but the time will come and by then he might appreciate YOU more than he would now. Having nine grandchildren, I realise that the first born will always be a sort of favourite, although I wouldn't tell ...

We planted Jerusalem artichokes on the allotment next to the large wooden compost bin because the baler twine slung around the corner posts acted as their support. Every autumn, I dug up all the tubers, kept the best to eat, threw away the tiny ones and re-planted some of the middle sized ones, year...

I have recently been using a potting compost called 'Grow+ Seaweed 60' and so far it has turned out very well, certainly compared with more recent peat-free or peat-reduced composts some of which contained lots of hard bits. I no longer have the bag so don't know its exact composition but the word '...

You know the 'mudketeers' from the KG magazine? Well, this morning my OH and I were just that because we levered a huge 30-year old water lily root system out of our pond because it had simply grown too large. Mud, glorious mud everywhere! But the enormous thing is now resting on the pond edge so th...

That sounds great, retropants. If you could cover the whole area with black plastic or similar, the worms might do their job even more efficiently, especially when the sun shines and and cover warms up.

At least the cat could escape up a tree with the fox unable to follow!

Interesting to hear that most Ukrainians don't speak Ukrainian but Russian, Stravaig. I started learning Russian at school when I was 8 years old and I still love it. Ukrainian appears very similar to me, I can certainly get the gist of it, written down. Spoken Ukrainian would presumably be very dif...

Stravaig, a simple remedy: learn Ukrainian (or take a dictionary)!

Shallot Man, surely your wife can go with you into the supermarket? You are her carer and you are in the same family. Good luck and I hope it all goes well for you!

That sounds tasty, Alan. will definitely try it.

Cheeky ........

Unless every leaf is affected (which is most unlikely), I don't think the tree will be harmed. Keep an eye on it next spring and make sure it gets enough water in its first years.

Interesting graph, Geoff. Just out of interest: how much rain exactly did you have this October? We had 157mm which is not at all out of the ordinary, in fact, probably below the average. Your bar seems to be nearer 200mm. Interestingly, we also had some lower night temperatures in September than in...

Agree with Peter. The nettles will die off eventually when mown several times. But in the meantime, I would try to pull them out now. After all, the ground will be soft and you can probably extract them quite easily before they spread by their underground roots.

Colin, I have tried to use just cardboard but find it so fiddly to weigh it down so that it does not blow away. Our black plastic (which we use to cover the manure-covered beds) are old silage sheets, hence already second hand and they last for years, so I don't feel too guilty about it.