What a great late summer it is turning out to be! The last few days we have still had lots of painted ladies, also peacock, small tortoiseshell, comma, red admiral, small copper, speckled wood and, alas, small white butterflies, all feeding on red valerian, hemp agrimony and the last remnants of bud...

Thank you for that link, Alan. I still have occasional problems, but it seems to depend on the potato variety! This year we grew 6 different varieties and grew them in identical conditions. If I remember rightly, only the two earlies affected me but not the later ones which I am using now. I am now ...

These giant vegetables are not my scene either, but, as far as I know, there is a cash prize attached to the heaviest onion, so maybe the other 'heaviest' also get cash prizes? Also, once you let your prize veggies flower, you can of course sell the seeds to those who might want to beat you in the f...

I have just read that article, Stephen, and does sound rather alarming. The problem is that, however much an individual can try to avoid using plastic, it appears from everywhere in different forms and seems quite unavoidable. I do pride myself on being kind to our soil, treating and nourishing it l...

Do you not plant the garlic straight away, Shallot Man? Mine usually arrive at the end of September and I get into the soil straight away. Mersley Wight have been amazing this year, so I will grow them again now. We had our Village Show on Saturday. There were lots of entries overall, but the vegeta...

Our kohlrabi and all the brassicas really suffered from the 'cabbage white' onslaught, so next year I will try to cover them with netting, perhaps buying a sort of mini tunnel, but I am still working on a solution. In spite of the caterpillars, kohlrabi Olivia was particularly good and productive th...

Like Chantal, we don't seem to have had nearly as many slugs in the garden as in previous years. Numbers of our large garden snails have also declined. We do have hedgehogs around and frogs, of course, but I don't think they are very interested in the snails or the large slugs. Is it the change in t...

Lots of beech mast about, too. The ground under the trees is covered with them - hopefully, the chaffinches and later the bramblings will discover this bonanza.

I have had a rogue seed in the past - could that be it, Peter?

Primrose, the mildew spores will be around everywhere in any case and if they wish to strike and the conditions are right for them, they will. I shouldn't think that you putting the mildewed leaves into the compost will make any difference. I certainly have been doing so all my gardening years.

Our late brassicas are turning into this year's failures: the leaves are like lace from the ravages of caterpillars. It was lovely to see all the butterflies this summer but now we have the results of the 'cabbage white' invasion. I tried to pick them off but the majority obviously got away and ate ...

Hello, Chantal, great to see you back!

I thought the winning joke was a bit sick, but I probably don't have the right sense of humour ......

I grew Rijnsburger for many years, Elmigo, because they were very good keepers. As far as I know they are still available now.

Avoid mustard if you want to follow it with brassicas, avoid field beans, lupins and winter tares if you want to follow it with legumes. Phacelia and grazing rye seem to be the best 'neutral' ones and I also find that strimming down the grazing rye makes it grow again very quickly - you therefore ge...