Pests, Diseases and Cures

I'm sure someone more knowledgable will have a better answer, fc, but my understanding is that hollyhock rust is a common problem. In your shoes, I would bin them and enjoy your seeds.

Thanks pete! I've got a load of others ripening in my home made ripener - Help! Off-plant ripening - and they will probably end up in a tomato sauce to freeze and use for curry or pasta etc, so it can join them

I was a teenager once

Oh well that's something to look forward to lol

Pear rust. Remove leaves and burn / throw away, not compost.

I still have a further nasty crispy affliction I've never had my marrows have never had before to check out ....

I agree, feed problem. Epsom Salts will fix a Magnesium deficiency. Bit late in the season for Magnesium deficiency though ... have they just started cropping perhaps? Cold nights?

A second marrow plant now has a rotting mainstem oozing gloop:

oh i wish people would stop giving me really good ideas

Lost one of my Asphopeline seedlings now - slugs round here must have flippers and a snorkel I reckon!

Ah well, that was good while it lasted. Lesson learnt for next year too. The more leaves I snipped off with the scissors, the worse and worse it got, and every single stem was also covered in the mildew, so they are now all gone. On the bright side, its letting a lot more light into the...

You've also got a leaf miner. Burn the leaves

I do exactly that too, although I specifically use "horticulural soap" which I understand is less harmful to [some] plants. Can't remember the chemistry, but I think it has to do with Phosphates or something like that [present in regular washing up liquid, absent from "horticultural soap"] ...

Greedy gits!! This year certainly has been a bumper year for pests!!

c'mon rich, what happened???

I've done ok squashing them and their eggs plus pulling leaves off that have larvae and stepping on them. I'm a bug serial killer!!!

Does sound a little odd! Maybe the change from wet to hot has made them a bit dopey?

We have 3 pear trees planted 2010 as 3 yr old trees. This year all three have black spots and lesions concentrated along the central rib of the leaves. Virtually all the leaves are affected. The black areas start out moist and then tend to dry out and the leaf cracks. The worst affected tree...

No Stephen, red spider mite are completely different and ants bite, particularly the red ones.