Funny, you should raise this subject this week: I usually go to the gym on Tuesday morning, followed by a 30-minute swim, but with yesterday's weather forecast being so good, I skipped the indoor exercise and worked on the allotment all day instead! Got the first two lots of potatoes planted, prepar...

First willow warbler of the year sang here today - spring must be here! It was grand working outside today, too, the first decent day for quite some time.

We haven't planted any of our potatoes yet, but hope to start with Kestrel and Ulster Sceptre this coming week (when there is at least a hope of some decent weather!). As we often get late frosts up to 10 June, it's not worth risking earlier planting, they always catch up. We already have some earli...

Having just read all your comments about the Gardener's World programme "not in this world" and all the cheating that's been going on behind the scenes for nature programmes, can you understand why we don't have a TV? It seems to me that most TV programmes are sham in some way and not the ...

It saddens me that so many people seem to have a grouse about so many things! I am sure many of the annoyances mentioned have happened to me, but so what? I am healthy, have a good roof over my head, enough to eat, a loving family, the sun is shining (occasionally, anyway), so why should other peopl...

I do that with peas, they don't seem to be so attractive to mice once they have sprouted.

Ducks, well, mallards anyway, are omniverous - tadpoles, newts, plants, anything will do. We get mallards every spring on our local nature reserve pond when it's full of tadpoles. Sometimes they also nest but the eggs are usually taken by crows (we think) and probably foxes, so we have never had duc...

Why does one have to have a raised bed in order to practise "raised bed culture", that is, not walking on the bed. Is that just a stupid question? I could imagine that one could divide the allotment into raise bed size squares and then pile on the muck etc and treat it like a raised bed bu...

I wouldn't want to be without my thick black household gloves with woolly gloves inside. I always carry about four pairs of woolly gloves in my gardening coat so that I can change into clean and dry ones when they become damp and horrid and smelly during a gardening session. For sowing, I use thin d...

How strange! Did they wheel it along the road or take in a vehicle, do you think?
One of our neighbours who keeps his bin near the roadside regularly finds dog poo bags in his bin! A dogwalker obviously wants to get rid the bag and just chucks it into somebody's bin.
There's nowt as queer as folk!

I know we are much further north than you, but our main crop doesn't go in until well into May and is always fine. We can get frost until about 10 June, so it's not worth risking an earlier planting.

"Our" first swallow was seen in the village on 4 April which is the second earliest date I have recorded over the last 20 years, but I wonder what the poor thing found to eat in the last few days of snow, sleet and wind! I am now listening out for the willow warbler which should be here an...

Weather - nothing else really.

Woke up to thick slushy snow this morning in the Yorkshire Dales, not pleasant. Although it thawed during the day, I think tonight there''ll be a keen frost again. Oh, the trials and tribulations with a greenhouse full of plants!

My tender plants progress from house to slightly heated greenhouse to outside under cloche to outside without cloche (with double fleece covering on cold nights) to outside with fleece covering when necessary. It's a real kerfuffle but otherwise they would presumably succumb or at least suffer in so...