Thank you John - will do!

Thank you FelixL - the tops have nearly all gone so I`ll get digging this weekend.

AH - yes, I was `in charge` of spuds this year.
Is `IC` a generation jargon thing?

I`ve got a problem with my potatoes - well, not a problem really, there are so many of them. This is the first year I was IC spuds and I planted what I thought was the right amount. They`ve cropped enormously and we`re not getting through them very fast at all. I planted Charlotte, Nicola, Pentland ...

I agree! I found that it isn`t just pecking that does the damage but the incessant scratching and scraping. Hens create a wonderful weedfree fine tilth whether you want it or not. Ours are kept firmly in their own free ranging area.

I`ve had a look and the blackleg thing doesn`t seem right. The plant top is just collapsed but there`s no sogginess. If anything it looks dried up. The root looks sort of shredded. Can`t find anything in my book of words but I`ve got another nine rows of spuds around the dead one and I`m getting ver...

I was just about to post a panicky query about this myself!
Just one potato plant in the middle of a row has totally collapsed and the stem just underground looked sort of manky.
I`ll look up `blackleg` thanks.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear.......

Thanks JB, I`ll have a go at that today!

I`ve just cleared an area under a 20ft laurel tree in my garden, planning to use it for some kind of food crop. The soil is wonderful, dark and friable, but I can`t get a spade very deep because of roots, I suspect ivy from next door and, of course, the laurel itself. Is there anything that would li...

A few years ago an old guy near us was sick of having his shed raided so he hid inside it at night and when the lowlives came back he blasted his shotgun off at the door. Didn`t hurt anybody but he received a custodial sentence for firearm offences to great indignation in the `letters` pages of the ...

When I was little I remember my dad sharpening the carving knife on the doorstep. Ee, haven`t thought about that for many a year.

I spotted a rat on our back garden on Wednesday, eating the seed that had fallen from the bird feeders. Then it scurried under the shed. I phoned the council and they sent a person round the very next morning. I was worried that he`d say that I had to get rid of my chickens but he was satisfied with...

As usual we had enough runner beans to feed the street again this year so I`ve been handing them out round the street by the bag full. I worried that my neighbour was getting fed up with them when she called over the hedge, "About the runner beans - - " When I went round to see what she me...

Thanks for the advice folks.
Very useful!

We pored over all the catalogues and plumped for an eglu because it seemed just right for our little back garden. Ours - with two little hens - are coming in a fortnight. They will be free in the garden for a couple of hours a day when we`re at home and the dog`s firmly shut in the house! I`ve alway...

I have a thriving bed of Savoy cabbages and the two at one end of the bed have gone all funny - not thriving and looking sort of faded. I pulled one up and showed the fount of wisdom at our allotments and he said it looked like club root if there was no grub in the lumpy root. No grub or hollow bits...