As well as tomatoes, I grow a couple of cucumber plants in my 6x6 greenhouse. This summer has been very hot, and the greenhouse has inevitably got very hot too, even with the door and window open. The cucumbers have tended to wilt when it has been very hot, even though they have been kept well water...

Thanks for all your comments. Some interesting ideas there on varieties I haven't tried. I suspect, though, that's it's possibly the case that none of the heavyweight tomatoes have the intense flavour of some of the cherry type. What you grow the plants in is also a factor. And I'm sure I read that ...

Just to join in, very late in the day...As I've said before, we are restricted here to growing either in raised beds filled with bought compost, or in pots. This year I've grown a main crop carrot called Manchester. I've had to water the bed regularly through this dry summer, but the carrots have be...

Tht is an interesting article, Arnie - thanks for that.
Ken

I think there's probably a debate every year about best-flavoured tomatoes - and still I continue to look for a good flavoured large, slicing tomato. Possibly in vain. This year I've grown Burpee Delicious and Rose de Berne. Burpee is a very good looking, large tomato (I believe it holds the world r...

I'm growing two plants of Joe's Long Cayenne chillies in pots. They're outside but have some protection as they are in a cold frame with the top panels removed. The plants essentially are doing very well, but a number of the chillies have black marks or streaks running down them. Could this be a maj...

Thanks, MW. I've been waiting to see if anyone else was joining in, but I guess you've said it all! You're right: it does occur most years (every year, even). It just appears to be particularly bad this year. The mildew has caused a lull in courgette production, but I'm hopeful we'll get some more.

I have two courgette plants growing in large pots which have become badly affected by mildew. I've cut most of the worst affected leaves off as the youngest leaves at the growing point were showing no visible symptoms. Was this a good thing to do? At one point the embryonic fruit were failing to dev...

I have a James Grieve double cordon apple which I've just summer-pruned. I was aware that two or three full-sized apples had either fallen to the ground or been knocked by bird or animal, and then been consumed. Today I tested them by gently lifting the fruit and all of them came off very easily. Th...

I read this week of a guy home from New York, visiting his elderly parents over here. His mum was complaining that someone from British Gas had arrived and installed a new smart meter, 'because it's more efficient'. But it requires an iphone, ipad or similar to operated, none of which the elderly co...

Can't comment on the runner beans as we prefer French, and we're getting a great crop. But the advice on tomatoes is correct - a good tap on the canes or stems should get the pollen moving, and a light misting with water can also help. I usually do mine in the morning but I don't know that the time ...

Very definitely a cherry version, I'm afraid, JB. This strain came from The Real Seed Company, and they say in their catalogue that they suspect it is not the original Gardeners Delight, but it is sweeter. Funnily enough, I'm not trying to plug Simpson's particularly, but in the past I've always bou...

Hi JB - always good to see your contributions on the Forum! Simpsons Seeds are at www.simpsonsseeds.co.uk. They started off as The Tomato Club as a way of getting round EU regulations, but that doesn't seem to be a problem now. So they were very much a tomato specialist with a very long list, but th...

I got this technique from Simpson's Tomato Book (recommended), which in turn says that Gardening Which got a panel of 190 readers in 1995 to try out similar methods. They found that leaving on one side shoot increased the number of trusses by about 60%, while 2 sideshoots more than doubled the numbe...

A pest I hadn't come across before - I spotted a couple of shiny, green, stripey beetles on our lavender yesterday, sort of dome-shaped like a small ladybird. I checked them out on the internet, and they were rosemary beetles, which apparently feed on the shoots and flowers of rosemary, lavender, sa...