Thanks PP! I've made the decision to move the entire soft fruit bed from where it is on Lottie 2. I was down tonight picking & watering & took time to really look at the current situation. Both the raspberries & the blackberries have migrated under the membrane I put down for the strawbe...

I went down tonight to water & checked, but they had no schedules out but from memory I don't think there is any mention of whether sets or sown. Mine are sets which you guessed correctly John. It's only the local lottie show but the other allotments around us are invited to exhibit as well, so ...

Agree with Pa! I mulch mine each winter with some well rotted manure which they do seem to like. Saying that though I lost my 'Big Bute' mature blackberry suddenly this year. It was 3 years old, broke into bud in Spring but then just stopped & died. I don't want to say it but it didn't look a na...

I have taken a few yellow tomatoes I grew from the free seeds from the KG mag. They taste nice & bigger than expected, but the skin is quite thick, my black ones are maturing so not long & they are very tasty. Lost all my red ones to blight, except the wee cherry ones growing merrily on the ...

Ditto - give them a water, you'll note when you pull them there is one deep root but lots of fine hair roots. Don't let the plant waste energy putting that deep root down to the water instead of bulking up. I take mine quite small, smaller than tennis ball to roast in foil with balsamic & herbs,...

Hi Pa! Mine look like that. I thought they had to have the brown papery skin. I'm going to have to find my order form to see the variety as the label faded completely, but expect that's in the compost. Mine are dumpier than yours with fatter hips. I'll have to pick up a show schedule for weight &...

Thank you John! I've not seen anyone use rings to sit them on at the show, so that is a great tip! I'm turning them each evening so fingers crossed. I should have paid attention when harvesting, but was too busy sorting those that were trying to flower from the others, and none of these were really ...

Hi All! How long does it take for onions to make their lower layers into papery skin? I had to peel down quite a bit (3 layers), to remove blemishes on my onions which I'd now like to put in the lottie show mid August. I wasn't going to enter any, but found I had enough that were near identical size...

Slug Pellets are the only thing I use that are not considered organic. I know there are plenty of things out there that are organic that I could try & have tried, but they are more expensive & the blue pellets cheap & available nearly everywhere & this year I have used copious amount...

A balmy 31.5 degrees today at lottie - NOT! (Not as per weather report)! Another double watering as it just evaporated on the first round - my fault as had things to do this morning & didn't go down until after lunch, would have waited to water later but it was completely dry when I got there &a...

Hit 33 degrees at lottie today - too hot! I found myself getting slower & slower & making journeys back & forth as I forgot to take things with me to the bed I was working on. And had to avoid bending over as made me feel weird. I wet my hat, (& a lot of me) twice & it dried out ...

Hi Richard

I think it only works when you place metal over the top of your fire and put the soil on that. Soil BBQ really!

Westi

Thank you Robo,

That will make it easier to do more at a time & I have the equipment to do that. Would be a shame to just leave it.

Westi

Hi Dan Numbers! It is too late for them to be split or saved I think. One plant has just 2 fronds, skinny, pale & short, nothing on some of the others, some had fronds but the stems were withered & just dropped at a touch. I'll make a new bed - learnt a lot from this one over the years, so s...

I have two pallet compost bins, one being filled & the other resting / finished. Both have been encroached by naughty weeds as they are in a corner of the plot, the front compost by the neighbours overgrown weeds that seeded & the back one by the stuff in the hedge row. My question is how ca...