Thanks for all that. It seems the Bard nearly had it right - 2B but not 2B.

How do you label things? I use plastic labels and permanent markers but they aren't reliably permanent. For example I have three rows of sprouts, two doing well one not so good but I can't read the names written last summer. My wife says it is because I clean the labels by soaking them in 50% bleach...

I have a stock of 5' pieces of treated slate battening that I knock in in pairs 1' apart every 5'along the rows. I cadge old binder twine off a local farmer and put horizontal strings along the rows at about 1', 2', 3' and 4' high down one side. Then I push birch pea sticks into the row and put stri...

Second eary Charlotte are an unbelievable flavour if you like waxy salad potatoes. Also roast and chip really well and even keep despite being second earlies, used our last just before Christmas. I grow Rocket for the speed (sorry about that) as first earlies. They do have the new potato taste but o...

The only reply I can think of to Richard's post is a request. Can I please have some seeds of your alchemy plant so I can change all my base trace elements into gold? I'm sure they would make a fine underplanting for my five pound note tree and I would be able to get rich quick.

How can compost increase trace elements? If they aren’t in your soil, they cannot get into your plants so they aren’t in your compost! Some plants may move and concentrate them. Deep rooted Comfrey added to the compost or used as a mulch may make them available from the sub-soil. But the chances are...

It is the season of tolerance and goodwill so I shouldn't resort to uncharateristic profanities but the reason Carole didn't realise fertiliser kills microbes and worms is because it is b******s!

Once again the debate between Realistic Organic and Legal Organic. I believe the Legal Organic movement is doing a serious disservice to the health of the nation. We need a classification based on real safety rather than unproved theory. The objective should be food that is free of residues from pes...

Has anybody tried using a fish tank light, or even a complete fish tank, for a propagator?

How do you get the earliest tomatoes? I’m always disappointed with how slowly my first tomatoes ripen, it would be great to have some with the early summer weather in June. Unfortunately I don’t record first tomato in my diary so I can’t quote dates. I have a heated propagator, a small heated greenh...

Towards the end of the life of the old forum I asked a question about cloche hoops - it may have gone unnoticed or perhaps nobody knew an answer. I have some old galvanised cloche hoops that are not tubular but rather a sort of m section with wire clips that hold the polythene in the top of the m - ...

But if we all revolt and only use General Chatter doesn't it become the old format?