Many thanks for your replies, but coming back to the escarole/frisee/chicoree, how hardy are they? I once tried to grow radicchio on our allotment (exposed, windy, overall not very sunny area) and they didn't come to anything. We can't grow sweetcorn or butternut squash, for instance, so would the a...

We mustn't forget that nettles are also the food plants of the caterpillars of three of our best loved butterflies, small tortoiseshell, red admiral and peacock, so if you have a patch in a nice sunny spot, leave a few nettles standing for the caterpillars!

When I walked through our village today, carrying a bundle of long sunflower, Jerusalem artichoke and lovage stalks to be put through the shredder at home, I suddenly realised I might have to apply for a permit or permit exemption to move this 'waste'!

I have found that celeriac is exceedingly, not just VERY, greedy and needs a lot of feeding. Also, as Mike Vogel says above, always take the bottom leaves off as soon as they show any sign of yellowing or flagging so that, finally, you end up with just a tuft of central leaves at the top. This year'...

Never heard of escarole, so I looked it up on Google and it sounds interesting. Where did you get the seeds, Vivienz?

That IS late in the year, Parsons Jack. They are most likely birds which have bred much further north, probably even in Scandinavia, and are on their way south to overwinter. about a week ago, there were one or two swallows at Leighton Moss RSPB Reserve in North Lancashire, similar thing.

We got rid of our TV about 20 years ago because we very rarely watched it and we don't miss it. The few times I do see it now, when baby sitting for grandchildren, I am amazed how anybody could want to pay for it! Even the gardening programmes which we did used to watch many years ago, never go into...

Chantal, when did the KG forum go live? I've bought the KG magazine for several years now and also joined the forum quite a long time ago. Then I had problems accessing the site (it kept telling me I wasn't allowed on - thought I had done something terribly wrong!) but then I joined again and all ha...

If you did apply a radical weedkiller, Magic Beans, I don't think it would know where and when to stop killing roots and would kill your vegetables as well!!! When we took over our current allotment more than 20 years ago, it was full of nettles (and bits of farm equipment, dead chickens, broken gla...

Small children or teenagers, I don't mind them being happy and noisy, it's the moaners and whingers who get me. If they have a complaint, I'd rather they shout it out than moan and whinge, at least that's what I used to tell my children and grandchildren.

The trailer load of manure is exactly what I got for my birthday about 15 years ago, Primrose. The following day we carted it all in the wheelbarrow to our vegetable patch at the back of the house. Later that day, I myself was carted (not in the wheelbarrow!) to hospital with breathlessness and ches...

How about this one? Gardener's Prayer by Karel Capek O Lord, grant that in some way it may rain every day, Say from about midnight until three o'clock in the morning, But, You see, it must be gentle and warm so that it can soak in; Grant that at the same time it would not rain on campion, alyssum, h...

First the good news: nettles only grow in good soil, so if you have a lot, you obviously have rich, friable soil! Now how to get rid of them: you CAN dig them out this time of the year. Just do it very carefully and, every time you come to a "nest" of roots, ease them out of the soil so th...

Little things please little minds, you see! Actually, I usually only have the computer on for a short time every day and then mostly during the Archers on the radio. My husband can't stand listening to them, I have been a fan for more than a half century, so I listen to them whilst being hold up in ...

Keep the lid on, Stu, the worms like it dark and damp but not sodden.