Hi Claire. Yes, I've just spent the weekend getting my garlic in and at the end of the month it will be the broad beans. Not much of my outdoor winter lettuce sowings have appeared, but the ones I sowed in compost at home have come up. It's perhaps not too late for these, especially if you can put t...

If you've got good seed, Monika, and get mild weather, I think now will not be too late. We are a little at the mercy of the weather, though, at this time of year, but it does no harm to try. They'll take a bit of time to germinate, of course, but we've got particularly mild weather at present, so i...

I'd follow Pater's advice, amo. In fact, the instructions from the Garlic Farm say "plant each clove, root end downwards, in a small hole with 1" of loose soil to cover." Very shallow! They tell you to follow the same directions with elephant garlic, but spacing 12" apart. So the...

Well, Bigpepperplant, as I recall, the book I have on Organic Gardening [Joy Larkcom's] actually recommends tomatoes after early spuds. I don't do this simply because that plot is earmarked for garlic and I don't have the time that time of year to cut down the toms, prepare the soil AND plant the ga...

Hi there, fellow-bedfordian. No, not John Bunyan, but Queens Park Lower School. I live just off Shakespeare Road. 20 years ago I shared an allotment up at Brickhill, but didn't have the time to deal with it, especially as it was more suitable for making pots with than growing things in. There's been...

No, I'm 10 minutes walk away. Some of the others do though.

mike

Primrose, when did you sow [or plant out your kohl rabi? I tend to do this in mid-spring, but the results have been poor after my first year [I renewed my seed afer 2 years]. I expect them to mature in summer and I then sow another lot, but these didn't come up at all. The developing balls of my fir...

Hi all. For the first time this summer I visited my allotment after 3 days of absence and there were no tomatoes ready to pick. All good things ... Like most of you, I enjoy Gardeners Delight and so do our friends. This year they seem to have been much softer than I seem to remember from before, or ...

Yes, my Iberian Wight was hung in our spare bedroom and we felt we just had to takeit out of there before our visitor came. I don't know whether this would have been the case if it had been one of the earlier varieties; I'll try hanging them there next year to see if I get the same effect. But the E...

I have to admit it, Chantal, but I'm a bit like that. Not to the extent of buying anything unnecessarily, but my poor long-suffering Sue has to stand on a chair and shout MIKE at me if she wants me to take any notice of her. Being a little hard of hearing [not enough for an excuse!], if I'm in the o...

Dahlis thought this might be interesting, so here goes. http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k77/mikevogel_2006/Allotment2S.jpg Here you see what happens when a scavenger gets hold of odds and ends. The stuff on the right is a mishmash of old duckboards, corrugated metal [should I have said corroded?] ...

Chic-peas, humous and falafel occur to me - various delicacies in ready-to-mix packets. Turkish style coffee too.

Enjoy yourselves.

mike

What a wonderful variety, Dahlis. You do seem to have 2 climates for the price of one. All I get in terms of spontaneous growth of veg is tomatoes in compost used as mulch - and that doesn't get time to produce any fruit to mention. You make me look forward even more to retirement - I might even hav...

Yes, Johnboy, like OH I remember these extraordinary tables of weights and measures printed on the back of exercise books which you could buy at stationers - not, oddly enough, on those provided by schools. How they roll off the tongue, noggins bushels and pecks, rods, poles and perches [aren't thos...

Frantony, I've really got nothing to add to all these excellent comments except to add my good wishes. I hope you feel encouraged to know that we are all rooting for you.

All good wishes

mike