With the heatwave experienced in southern England lately, BER has been difficult to avoid. So applying a potful of water daily may be sound enough for most of the season, and in most years is fine. But while we're continuing to experience excessive heat, slosh on more water, and do so frequently — c...

If it has a discernible hollow core to it, with seeds, then I would class that as a marrow, in my view. Many modern varieties of courgette set fruits without the need for pollination. This results in seedless fruits, uniformly solid throughout. Call me old fashioned, but I also think of a marrow as ...

I'm not sure about the advice to stop picking rhubarb after late spring. Me, I stop when the first of the main fruit crop ripens. What does ,"Ripen" mean with rhubarb ? When I referred to the main fruit crop ripening, I meant all the other fruits in the fruit patch: strawberries, raspberr...

I'm not sure about the advice to stop picking rhubarb after late spring. Me, I stop when the first of the main fruit crop ripens. After then, rhubarb is not very nice anyway — too tart. I'm not convinced picking later will weaken the plant. I had a spot of rhubarb for me tea last night. Still very n...

Research, as opposed to unwelcome received wisdom from interfering busy-body fellow allotment holders, demonstrates that bending the tops over, especially if done prematurely, actually damages the tops of the bulbs. When damaged, they do not store well. When an onion is mature, the top will flop ove...

Further thoughts...

To support your netting, and prevent it touching the leaves as much as possible, you need nothing more than canes pushed into the ground at intervals with a plant pot inverted over the top of each.

Yes.

To advise you about what you are not doing, perhaps we need to know what you have been doing hitherto. It's important that they are kept constantly moist. Using the right compost, of the correct pH, is important. The pH of compost, though, can change over time. If you are in a hard water area and yo...

You might do well to sow your seeds the old fashioned way, in a short row in a seedbed outdoors. When the plants are large enough, dig them up and transplant them to their final places. They will wilt for a few days, but will grow away strongly in time. Caulis and Brussels sprouts — any of the Brass...

For female flowers to form first is unusual. The usual course of events is for male flowers to appear first, with the female flowers forming later as temperatures increase and stabilise. I would leave the female flowers on. They'll drop off naturally if they are not pollinated, alternatively they ma...

I've never netted Brassicas. Me, I find it to be a lot of expense and faff. Sometimes they can end up lacy, which is ugly, but with hearting cabbages the middle's nearly always intact, and winter greens grow out of any damage when autumn comes along and caterpillars die out. I've seen netted Brassic...

There are(were?) photograph storing wesites that provide some basic editing functions, including bulk resizing of a batch of photos as you upload them. From memory you'd then get your picture into kg by copying a bit of code, generated on request by the photo website, and pasting it into the text/e...

Sown in spring, pak choi will bolt in response to lengthening days. Sowings made after mid-summer day do not bolt. I find late summer sowings do best, in late August / September. You need to give it lots of water for a quality crop.

Glyphosate comes up trumps every time as a weed killer that kills everything. I hold the view that it has been around for some time and if any ill-effects as a result of its use were to show themselves, we would be aware of them by now. It is important, though, that it's given the opportunity to sti...