Methylated spirits and ZOFF sticking plaster remover will take off the stickiest label!

I know I am coming into the discussion a bit late, but just to say, I agree with John about the cold spell in May. Quite a few of our leeks are bolting (Musselburgh), certainly more than usual and I tend to sow and plant our leeks at roughly the same times every year. So I do agree, I think the leek...

We have used the same bed for runner and climbing French beans for a few years now without problem. We dig a trench every autumn, put in lots of semi-composted garden compost, topped up with good FYM and this stays open until spring. Then we cover it up with soil again and warm it up with polythene ...

Seeds of Rijnsburger Balstora No 5 (D T Brown sell them) has been my choice for several years now because they keep well into spring when the overwintering onions (Radar is a good one, grown from sets) take over. I sow about 8 seeds into each roottrainer compartment in late January on the window sil...

I am sure the key is in keeping the seeds damp when they have germinated but before they actually show above the ground and that's when the THICK fleece is helpful because if you have watered them in well when sowing, the fleece stops the moisture from evaporating. Do give it a try next year.

The date of your query worries me, Colin. You don't mean you have just sown them recently? That may be the problem. We, admittedly much further north and living up the hillside, sow late April or early May and cover them with fleece (preferably 25gm rather than the thinner 17gm). That keeps them dam...

Hello Johnboy, yes we still have a few swallows around and on Saturday we saw lots of housemartins along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, probably on migration. Our main garden visitors at the moment are small mixed flocks of blue, great, coal and long-tailed tits with, occasionally, a willow warbler. Whe...

We certainly had the first frost this morning, the greenhouse roof, the garage roof and the car were all covered in frost but the ground must still be pretty warm because the French beans, nasturtiums and French marigold were all o.k., just the marrow leaves looked a bit "scorched". But it...

Somebody has just told me that they think they saw a flock of fieldfares this morning - we don't usually get them until mid or late October. Has anybody else seen any or might it have been a flock of chattering mistle thrushes?

When you folks buy your seeds so early in the season, or even in the old season, where and how do you keep them until sowing time? We have them in the cupboard under the stairs which is dark, cool and with fairly even temperatures, but even then I worry that they may be too cold or too warm and beco...

I plant my garlic and overwintering onions in ground which has been heavily manured for the previous crop (French beans, celeriac and Florence fennel). They seem to like that and usually give very good results. This year's crop (onion Radar and garlic Albigensian Wight and Thermidrome) were particul...

We've got the Thompson and Morgan catalogue as well and have already picked our potatoes! I like the T & M potatoes because you can order them by number of tuber rather than weight - makes it easier to plan the rows. Many years ago seed catalogues came out around Christmas (does anybody remember...

We have today harvested our last potatoes, two rows of Sarpo Mira, grown from 40 tubers, and I have never seen such an eonormous crop - and they are completely blight-free and only about three or four tubers had been attacked by slugs. They taste good, too. I don't know how they cook in water becaus...

Thank you, John and Johnboy, no doubt you are right about the tiny amounts, if any, of herbicide residue, so I'll stop worrying.

We have only just started lifting our Sarpo Mira and neither foliage nor tubers are at all affected by blight - the blight-resistance claim certainly seems to be correct. All our other varieties (Kestrel, Anya, Lady Balfour) were badly affected by blight in the foliage and some tubers as well, but I...