I have been putting the sprinkler on the vegetable beds every three days or so because everything is so dry. We did not have a wet June (contrary to most part of the country, it seems) with 20mm on 4 June and then nothing but a few drips and drops. At this very moment the BBC and MetOffice forecast ...

Diane, I think I would sacrifice the roses for now. You say they are are going over now, so they will have time to grow new shoots before autumn and those will flower next year. If you cut the azalea, I would think it may take two or three years before it flowers again. However, I stand corrected .....

Harvested the first broad beans and first tenderstem broccoli today and, by golly, they did taste good!

Might it be time for a Mid-summer Bits and Bobs, OH?
I hope you have been away on holiday and not poorly!!

That looks great, PP, and such a wonderful continuation of your dad's work and achievements!

Those sweet peas look grand, Geoff! This year will the first year we have not grown peas or sweet peas at home because we must have at least six house sparrow nests in the garden and in the last two years the birds have completely devastated the plants. This year they are concentrating on the beetro...

Our tomatoes in the greenhouse have set beautifully. They are now forming a fifth truss - is it worth keeping those or should I take the top off and let the plants concentrate on filling the four trusses?

Thank you, Alan, and the same to you! It's certainly sunny here but with a strong and rather cool westerly breeze, not sitting-out weather all .....

I don't think we can complain around here: ok, it's rained a bit and it's not terribly warm, but there have been far worse Junes and we've certainly not had an excessive amount of rain. The beck in front of our house has been gently burbling away ...... Anyway, it's getting warmer.

Summer must be on its way: we had three painted lady butterflies in the garden today!

Hear, hear, Primrose. What about Motherwoman (from the Isle of Wight), Parsons Jack (from the Kent coast), glallotments (from Sheffield) and two people whose name I can't remember, one moved to Finland, the other one was in the south of France. At least it was good to see Catherine making a return r...

Colin, if you search for 'aminopyralid' in this forum, you will find a lot of information from years back - might be useful.

I can see your problem, Elmigo, because, presumably, if you had to get rid of old compost, where would you put it from your balcony pots? I endorse everything said above: now, without allotment, we grow lots of things in pots too and refresh the soil regularly, but eventually I throw the 'exhausted'...

We had some contaminated manure a few years ago (and, as OH says above, the subject was much discussed on this forum - see the archives?). We kept turning the affected manure over and then dug it into the soil. The only crop suffering were the potatoes but even they recovered eventually. The local f...

Not a drop here so far .......