SUNSHINE! We have some this morning - what a joy to see that it's still there! A fierce wind to go with it, mind you, but I'm still happy to have a bit of the fiery orb in the sky. I think I'll finally clear out the straw bales from #2 greenhouse this weekend as they've finally collapsed and there's...

Bump! I've been harvesting my romanesco for a 2 to 3 weeks now and thought I'd report back on this thread that I started earlier in the year. The reality is that I haven't needed to do 'cut and come again' as the heads themselves are modest and we can use an entire one in one meal as, say, a veggie ...

Thanks, Primrose. The 10 butternuts don't include the smaller second crop that I harvested before the couple of frosty nights we had. They're in the greenhouse at the moment, so I will bring them in to ripen them up. The others will go and live in the garage as its cool but frost free in there. I ma...

I used an organic spray against mealy aphids the other day, which have heavily infested my purple sprouting broccoli plants. I couldn't figure out any other way to control them as they were so numerous, but this is only chemical preventative measure that I've used on my crops since I started in the ...

My #1 greenhouse tomatoes have finally succumbed to blight, so I may well be picking the last of them over the next week. There are still some whoppers in #2 greenhouse so I may not be bereft of them for a little while. The thing I seem to have been picking most of is caterpillars. My brassicas are ...

The leaflet that came with mine said to plant it so that the base of the clove is at a depth of twice the length of the clove. I remember from years gone by, though, that they used to say about leaving the tips exposed; my RHS allotment book says to plant them just below the surface - take your pick...

Brrr! Just a little above 3C here last night, and that's in the greenhouse. No frost but the wind was fierce yesterday- if I don't take down my runner beans and their supports soon, they will come down of their own accord. I harvested my florence fennel this week, a decent crop if not as plump as I ...

Thank you so much, Sally, what an informative reply!

Your ramblings will most definitely be of use. I shall keep you posted on progress.

Excellent, thanks Geoff. The LED light market is enormous now, our house has LED lights throughout and we've also recently replaced our old fluorescent lights at work with LEDs. The ones I'm looking at are 600 x 600mm and so will give me a lit area of 1200 x 600 when put together - substantial enoug...

There's an interesting article in the new KG magazine on this and how to go grow microgreens, too. Being tighter than two coats of paint, I think I might have a go at my own version of this. A 600mm x 600mm LED panel is about £25 and I reckon I can salvage enough other bits and pieces to make a fram...

Thanks, chaps. As you say, Primrose, I'll give them a light feed just in case they have any oomph left. Stephen - no sign of blight here, even on the outdoor tomatoes. I don't have many of those, but none have succumbed this year. By contrast, when I was in Bournemouth nothing survived outside, usua...

A good save, Robo. I had leek moth some years ago when I had my allotment in Bournemouth and sadly hadn't discovered the miracle of enviromesh at that point and lost an awful lot to the pest. There's something particularly revolting about the mess that leek moth makes. My leeks here seem to be so fa...

Many of my toms are coming to the end of their natural life but a significant number are still growing strongly with plenty of lush green growth. Watering is a must anyway, with it being so dry currently, but should I give them an end-of-season feed of tomato food? These are all in unheated greenhou...

Out on Pumpkin Hill my plants finally got going in about mid-summer and have put out an amazing amount of greenery. As Kayburton mentions, I went at mine with a pair of shears at the end of August as I had plenty of fruits on the plants - about 9 pumpkins and the same number of good sized butternuts...

Summer is ending here today. The swallows and martins were swirling around overhead in great numbers (several hundred) dipping down to drink thirstily from our large wildlife pond so I expect they will be gone in the next day or so as this is what they did last year just before all disappearing off ...