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ok revert to plan A with the tune whistling. can you explain the monsanto connection pls? Certainly. At the moment, if my chum decides that he needs to replant but "proper" FI seed is either unavailable or has become very expensive, he can toddle off to the local feed merchant, buy a bag ...

fabulous here in Greece. sorry to gloat. it's the only thing we've got going for us really. Jon, could you rig up some plastic covering just to keep the rain off and to warm up the soil? surely things will start improving soon. That would mean buying it! The long range forecast that the farmers fol...

I've owned what local breeders call Marans (cuckoo & copper-black) but which have been selected for laying and low food consumption. From that point of view they're pretty good: 280-300 eggs per year of around 55g, a bit darker than RIR eggs, but about as far removed from the heavy, traditional ...

You know, DBE, I live a scant 15 miles from the town of Marans and you'd expect to be able to find a good dual-purpose strain here if anywhere (certainly the town's website waxes lyrical about the bird), but I never have. Egg layers, yes, though never of the same quality as in the UK. Bit ironic, re...

pretty dire here too, bucketing down as I type! we have had some good hot days, but not for at least a week! the only up side, is I wont have to go and water everything for a while! True - we shouldn't have any water problems this year. Even the most dogmatic local maize barons haven't dusted off t...

sleepyowl wrote:I'm trying blue potatoes & butternut squashes this year

I didn't do well with the blue spuds I tried, but butternut is a delight. We've still got one left from last season, saved for a special occasion (this coming Sunday, for instance).

I use copper sulphate mixed with slacked lime (aka Bordeaux mixture) for all my blight requirements. I've always understood this to be relatively environmentally benign - copper is an important trace element for animals and plants and is really dangerous only to fungi and algae. In France at least, ...

Certainly fruit seems to be doing fairly well, but I reckon we're at least three weeks, maybe a month, behind on where we would normally expect to be. This time last year we were eating our early cherries (I wish I knew what variety it is - it is the earliest cherry of any around here) but they're n...

Don't know what it's like your end, but this is the coldest, wettest, May I have seen in 10 years here. I can get nothing done - I've got loads of stuff ready to go into the ground but we're getting night time temperatures of 7°C and the rain just doesn't stop. If I were to walk on the veg garden it...

I never went very far, just up the garden where I do battle with the coolest May I can remember here and try and grow stuff that I like.

You know there has never been a study that proves saturated fat causes heart disease. I'd heard this too, no actual proven causal link, though I understand that the link between elevated LDL cholesterol and heart disease is strong and I believe that there is some fairly suggestive evidence that pal...

Some new tomato varieties (but I do that every year) and.... sweet potato! They were flogging them ready potted up in the garden centre yesterday. The label made great claims for their productivity in "all regions of France," so I bought one.

Personally I'm fond of snakes and very happy to have them in the garden, but I have to move snakes fairly often because the guests in the gites sometime freak out when they come across them. If they don't move out of the way quickly it is because they are shedding skin or feel cornered. Sometimes th...

Thanks - wind we have plenty of, so I'll look into this a bit further.

Slightly different direction, but has anyone any thoughts on solar power lighting for green house / poly tunnels? I'm just wondering if a couple of hours extra lighting might be helpful in early season to encourage plants to get away.