I`ve done everything in the book to grow good raspberries in our allotment. I grow them successfully at home and the chap in the next door allotment does well but mine at the plot are rubbish. However, under the apple tree about 30 yards away I have the most prolific mass of raspberry canes. They mu...

Oh!
Thanks OH, I`ll get a tarpaulin or something and do that. I`ll put laggy bands round my trouser legs first though - I wouldn`t like them to disappear by magic there!

Hi Johnboy, (raises a weak smile)
I`ve quite gone off carrots! Nasty orangey things!

Hello Johnboy - that anti whitefly tunnel sounds useful! Can ordinary gardeners obtain them or only professionals?

Help! I opened up my compost bin which should have been all lovely and ready to use and it has an ants` nest in it. The ants are all running around inside and there are loads of white eggs.
Is there anything I can do? I don`t want to waste the compost. It looks lovely stuff.

I went to a local plant sale and bought what I thought was a nice pot of flat leaved parsley. When I got home my OH looked puzzled and said - They`re celery seedlings you ninny -. Oh - well, the leaves certainly taste of celery but what if they`re celeriac? I`ve potted them on and they look good - b...

Hi Hilary,
I used Nemaslug on my potatoes last year.
Big success! No slug damage at all.
Then they all went down with blight.

Some years ago I was a Special Needs teacher in a secondary school and refused to cross a UNISON picket line. Then a particularly vulnerable kid turned up and had to go home again. I took her home and stayed for a coffee with her and her mum. The flippin` Headteacher insisted on paying me for the da...

Thanks for that JB. Especially about my home made compost!

What about my home made compost? I`ve been sieving and using this for potting on.
Is this as good as the `multi-purpose` stuff you get?

This wasn`t my question but it`s made me feel a lot better too.
I always thought it was just my ineptness that caused my lack of success with caulis.
Now I know that other factors can be part of the problem - - as well as my ineptness!

Thank you - I`ve used 10cm pots - I`ll probably wait until they go up into the next size pot then.
The brassicas will go straight from the 10cm pots into their final beds so I`ll wait until then and make sure the bed is well nourished.
Ta very much

I`ve just potted on my tomatoes, Marmande, into their first little pots. They`ve just got their true leaves. Do I feed them at this point or do I wait until they grow up a bit? Come to think of it - what about other seedlings? I shall be potting my little cauli seedlings and cabbage seedlings soon -...

Thank you Steve,
What I find especially useful in your page is seeing what things like seedlings etc SHOULD look like. So I can think - "Oh, that`s what my tomatoes look like, they must be all right then."

Aw Gerry!
I was just about to post that bit of news.
In mine it was a picture where somebody was blowing dust off an old book,
"Irish Dancing 2 - Use of the Arms."

Love to watch it though. There was a display in the market place here on St P`s day. Wonderful!