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Our apples are looking good too, better than last year. We use our plums mainly for jamming, but the strawberries are more than making up for the plums so we won't go without, though damson jam is my absolute favourite and we usually manage a decent scavenge of blackberries for blackberry jam. I'm k...

I have no idea who Boris is but he sounds intriguing!

Thanks - must remember the Woollies thing, they do have some brilliant offers. I must confess we studiously ignored our strawberry plants apart from some weeding and we have the most fantastic crop this year, so bumper we can hardly keep up with the picking. I wholeheartedly recommend the ignoring r...

Something strange seems to be happening with plums this year. Our previously decently cropping plum tree hasn't done a thing this year and so far no damsons. I've heard the same from other people round here. Does anyone know of a general problem with plums this year?

I use Gardenate for monthly reminders of which veg to plant, but they don't seem to do one for fruit. As I'm a newbie with fruit gardening, so far just managing the trees and bushes we've inherited with the garden (apples, strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, damsons, plums, medlar) I'm looking...

Interesting comments about freezing, I hadn't thought to do that with home grown herbs though have done it with bought fresh herbs. I've just hung up more dill, rosemary and parsley to dry which I'm intending to put in glass jars for long term storage. No shortage of herbs, though the parsley went f...

I nipped out into the garden for something or other, and as you do came back in with a couple of sprigs of herbs (dill, love the stuff!). I was wondering how to dry them, not really sure what to do. Left them on the side while I went to take some stuff down from drying in the utility room, and had a...

In what way not a success tiggy? I only ask as I do all our muslins (we use them instead of tissues), washing up cloths, tea towels, napkins, STs (when I'm not pg!), bathroom towels etc at 60 degrees with bio liquid and they're always fine. wondering now if they're actually really horrible in some w...

That's looking fantastic. How do you win the battle against weeds? I did some extreme weeding earlier as our veg patch grows epic weeds in 5 minutes flat. It's a full time job keeping on top of it, and I have several other full time jobs already!

Our quality control is about 3 foot high, six years old and has just finished Year 1 at school!

I tip my hoover contents on the compost, have done for years with no apparent harm. I agree it's a shame for it all to go to waste.

Hope it works! I was about to go and plant some letukes in the polytunnel, but all that bl**dy watering!

(I do approx. 5 loads of laundry per month.) I do about 3 a day!!! I tried 30 degrees but found clothes just weren't getting clean so I've reluctantly gone back to 40 - once at 40 has to be better than twice at 30. I've also gone back to ordinary washing liquids as I found Ecover, home-made goo and...

I was very excited about this too when I first heard about it, but we don't qualify either, being so fabulously wealthy'n'all. On a related subject, does anyone know about the money that nice Mr Brown puts in an envelope for us when the baby's born? DD missed out on that by just a couple of months (...

What a horrendous experience. It explains a lot - I don't think I could put someone I loved through all that again, no matter how much they were prepared to risk it. I wouldn't have made such a bl**dy stupid remark if I'd had any idea what you went through. You're lucky to be alive by the sound of i...