Yes, it is the same Joseph paxton. I looked him up on Google and the Wikipedia site gives details of his birthplace, so now, OH, WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!!

mike

I also have had remarkably poor germination of green manures sown in September. this year it has been winter tares, which have now germinated in isolated bits and pieces. Last year the clover i sowed late didn't appear at all, but the seeds overwintered and came up in the spring. It seems to me that...

It looks like the Garden of Eden,Dahlis. No wonder you get snakes! Do you think the amount of vegetation around is actually creating its own warmth, something like a storage-heater? This might keep the worst effects of frost off the toms. All the same, on our Bedford allotment we sometimes get late ...

Iain, have you tried the Organic Catalogue? It's published by Chase Organics together with GardenOrganic [formerly HDRA]. www.OrganicCatalogue.com, or you can email them at enquiries@chaseorganics.co.uk to ask for a catalogue. I have found ordering online to be quite easy with the catalogue infront ...

Thank you Colin, Chantal and Chez, for your encouraging remarks. Yes, elephant garlic is of the leek family and so I'm sure you are right, Chantal. I wish I'd taken the right sort of notes last year. Having never eaten it before this year, Sue and I found it to be wonderfully flavoured and really to...

I've got a related question for you all. In October, a few days on either side of the 20th, I sowed various varieties of garlic from bulbs which had matured this year, a row of Thermidrome, one of Early Wight, Albigensian, Solent, Elephant Garlic and also, last of all, a nameless Chinese variety giv...

I put in my Aquadulce about 2 weeks earlier than you, Compo, and the first ones are just appearing above the soil. Is this rather slow germination? I ask because we've had a comparatively warm spell [although it was quite cold earlier this month] and I expected to see the first shoots earlier. Now, ...

June, I think you fellow allotmenteer may be confusing two different things. I do remember reading that leaf-mould is slightly acidic - please correct me someone?? - and so an excess of it may necessitate liming the soil when it comes round to growing brassicas. But that's not the same as being pois...

Hi Zena, Sorry to be boring, but I'm just posting a simple reply to your question. I use Chase Organics ‘The Organic Gardening Catalogue’ www.organicCatalogue.com However, I'm sure that there are other organic seed providers, if that's what you are after, and I think I'll delve into all the provider...

I forgot to sow leeks. We don't eat them, as my wife is allergic to all allium bar garlic, but a friend gave me a packet of seeds and the crop did quite wel last year. I hope they'll still be usable in 2007. Interesting website, spudrax. I may join it, but I've made myself a list of things to do whi...

Johnboy has just indicated an error in my last posting. I should have said Wireworm, not eelworm, which JB points out to be a nematode and therefore a creature which doesn't have a breeding cycle like the click beetle [wireworm]. Thanks JB.
mike

Yes, folks, I too have tried to keep records. I've listed when I sowed what, when they first appeared, how successful the germination, when I managed to first get a harvest and how extensive. One page per veg [usually not enough space].But when things get really hectic, i.e. during term-time, it's a...

Speaking purely from ignorance, Monika, and possibly ill-remembered bits of reading, I'm inclined to ask you where you sow the winter tares and what you follow them with. The general recommendation is to sow a winter green manure of one family after the summer crop of the same family. E.g. if you've...

Hi Primrose. I think the yellowing leaves may be due to magnesium deficiency. That, at any rate, is what is usually associated with yellowing leaves. The right sort of feed, such as SM3 seaweed feed, may put it right.

good luck

mike

I'd certainly endorse Broad Beans. Early spuds are certainly possible, although I mustn't forget that in Manchester things may come a little later than in Bedford. [Not much though; when i started I was told that I should follow schedules for the north rather than the south, as we get eastern exposu...