Dear Johnboy
glad you have had a good day, all the best for the next 85 years!

Hilary

Hi Adethe Spade I did grow physalis about three years ago both in the cold greenhouse and outside. Both successful and yielded loads of fruit. They were easy to grow but quite big plants, so needed the space. They did mature quite late on In the season so if I recall the success was also due to the ...

Hi, Yesterday I sprayed for blight up on the lottie since there was no wind and it poured during a thunderstorm over night so not much good done there. Forced to spray as some inconsiderate person didn't lift their potatoes last year and let them overwinter so now they have blight which has spread i...

Hi Primrose, Whenever I go away in May I take my young tomato plants round to a gardening neighbour to look after along with his. With everything else I leave them close to the house on the sheltered north side, so out of direct sun and so far this has worked since I think the occasional hot day bei...

Hi JohnN, Delighted to hear you think a leaf blower anti social for a Sunday morning. Our neighbours have a tennis court and they leaf blow all year fanatically, may be shouldn't have sited it near the bottom of their garden under the trees! Personally I think blowrs should be banned and what is wro...

Hi,
Our neighbours have a walnut and judging by the number I pull up from squirrel plantings I would plant direct and remove any surplus. I did try growing years ago in pots but forgot about them after a while.

Hilary

Hi, Just be aware of those which are members of the brassica family. All my effort one year was ruined by the pigeons who decimated the mustard crop overnight, leaving me with roots to dig in. I no longer bother with green manures and spread manure, compost as appropriate and leave as a mulch for th...

Hi,
Depending on how concentrated it is as it is high in nitrogen i would mix it with some fibrous material. I always used to add what came out of the chicken house to the compost heap. It certainly acts as a good activator.

Hilary

Hi, I am having the same problem - plenty of bees on the flowers but then just not setting. I did read somewhere that birds could be a problem especially sparrows. Others on the lottie seem to be ok And friends up the road have plenty of beans. I always grow White Lady because I thought they set bes...

Hi, I agree. I quite often put them where I can plant between in the spring or where the crop goes in late, so it is usually,the courgette /squash bed. I went to a talk once and the speaker said not to get too bothered over crop rotation since it only really applied to large areas and to just use co...

Thanks MW - guess I was just going through a 'what next' moment.

I think I will be more disappointed if it doesn't rain now since the water butts are getting very low.

H,,

Hi, Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are with regard to when it does rain after all the sun. Huge cracks appearing. I have tried to water when I can but have not had the energy to carry buckets of water to the potatoes so do I risk the main crop splitting ? When is it wise to lift early. Any ...

Hi I have organised a group of keen veg growers in tHe village and through Thompson & Morgan we get 50%discount on all their seeds. It takes a bit of chasing to get the orders in but we easily manage to exceed the minimum order. Then for all the other seeds I just order as and when I feel like i...

Hi Monika, Do you know the night time temperatures? i suspect they are still the problem. Ours have dipped to well below 10 recently and we still have a cold north wind so the squashes are looking pretty sad. My peppers are green but growing very slowly and nowhere near to flowering. You could try a...

Thanks Monika. I will try to get hold of a copy of the article and reassuring to know that somehow the pollinators are out there.

Hilary