I get my seeds from HSL too, and Real Seeds who only sell open pollinated ones, so you can always save your own seed from them. They also do a brilliant seed saving course which I went on about 3 years ago. When you understand how all the different plants are pollinated you can keep the varieties tr...

One of my favourite apples is Sunset, it is similar to Cox but grows much better here in the north. It doesn't seem to have any problems with scab or anything else. It crops very well and produces so many apples that you usually need to thin them to get a bit larger fruit. It also keeps well, makes ...

Sometimes when I have an old hen that has trouble getting on to the perch I make a ladder from a piece of 6 inch board with a few horizontal bits of wood nailed across it for them to grip. Just measure how long you need the board for it not to be too steep.

Blimey John, you must like your peas! I've grown Robinson, a tall heritage variety and got 9 lb shelled weight from a 12 ft row, and I've left some on to sow next year. I've done my sums and sow at about the same rate as Johnboy and am very pleased with the yield. I hadn't thought about whether it w...

I think they are promoting seeds sourced from British farms as they are more likely to do well in our climate, whereas the same variety could be sourced from plants grown in warmer countries, ie not British bred and it may not do as well in this country.

~Do you think it is more likely to be apple scab than bitterpit? Idared is particularly susceptible to apple scab. I've got the same problem with a Gala apple whereas the Saturn and Meridian next to it are fine. I'm trying to eliminate the inoculum spores by removing all the apples with scab (this y...

I don't usually buy plants, but it is useful if you've had a disaster with something not germinating or being eaten by slugs. I had some lovely healthy mixed brassicas from Marshalls a few years ago, and also the mixed cauliflowers from T&M were excellent. The caulis were green, purple, orange, ...

Hi Newbie, I just remembered we went to Tatton Park gardens and they have a lovely interesting walled kitchen garden, so that shouldn't be too far away from you.

Yes, they taste OK, but have a bit of a furry texture.

Hi Newbie, I'm afraid I don't know of a list of kitchen gardens, and usually look up gardens in the area I'm going to, but I agree that a complete list would be extremely useful. I too really enjoy this article, it does make you want to visit them all.

I grew them a couple of years ago along with the golden variety. I don't think they taste as good as Boltardy or Sanguinea, but they were OK. The golden one was very sweet and a nice contrast to the other colours in a salad. I wonder if different growing conditions affect the colour of the rings in ...

Vigo have a juice extractor with a pasteuriser on it. This is brilliant for doing your bottled fruit, fruit juices and everything. I actually used my fruit press to extract the juice and then pasteurised the juice in the bottles after adding citric acid. Ascorbic acid is vitamin C, so not as nasty a...

Wasn't the article about the big freeze and its causes in late 1700 - early 1800 interesting.

I had seen paintings of the river Thames being frozen over, but never taken much notice of when it was.

It just goes to show how easily the weather patterns we are used to can be disrupted.

The chick food has small grit in it, but you need to give them some when they go onto growers pellets. Like John says, the stuff for budgies from the pet shop would be OK while they are small, or you could crush the ordinary grit up a bit to make it a bit smaller until they can cope with bigger piec...

What a lovely little bird. I hope it finds its way back to its owner. Not very likely though. One of my cockatiels escaped a couple of years ago and totally refused to come back to his cage even though the others were calling to him and I was wandering round the neighbourhood with a dish of food eve...