Recent Posts

I’d be surprised if Beth Chatto’s gardeners use slug pellets or insecticides . Birds tend to be vocal here in the morning and out looking for worms mainly early morning and at dusk. Sound for me also includes wind through the trees and swishing through dried grasses in winter.

Tomato seed varies in price widely. F1 seed I have costs around £3.99 for 8 seeds where as open pollenated seed can be half that price for about 50 seeds.

Isolating beans to try to successfully cross them is very difficult I grew my own variety of chilli but they are easier to isolate. Their progeny also need to be isolated from other chillies as chillies are extremely promiscuous. Mine ('Shiney Hybrids' - or as @CanadianLori calls them...

I'm notoriously bad at labelling.My best effort is masking tape on the pot and a scribble with a permanent marker. That works a treat, and the solution lasts so well that when I re-use the pot I find it very instructive that something I thought was a forced Hyacinth in fact must be a Jalapeno...

And your views are completely valid. We all approach sensitive topics influenced by many factors. The media presents the most contentious possible take as standard and our individual interpretation or reaction is always filtered by our own experience and sense of fairness.

Nine thousand! Ri-ight. Well, we'll see what it does this year...

In Farmyard Nursery today

Within 60 miles of Dorset, do not net to prevent sunshine but it goes help to protect from wind drying, preventing some wilting caused by this and in other weather, creates a nicroclimate worth 2-3 degrees . Essential here for pigeon protection especially and butterflies I use scaffold debris...

Te one from Spain arrived today so I have it resting before planting, Sanremo ...

Hard wood cuttings have stored energy so they can often continue to throw out leaves before they root. I would personally remove the fruits because they are just robbing the energy and won't come to anything. In water you get those little white dots as a precursor to rooting. It's a good sign...