The Garden Doctor is IN !

[Silver_Shiney]

That's great news, Cubie - must help keep your food bills down considerably. We've had a reasonable year with climbing French beans, but the tomatoes and cucumbers weren't up to much. There are a few onions becoming ready but the salad crops were a complete waste of time this year.

[qbman1]

Thanks. To be fair, we do put a lot of time and effort in and, if you take that into account together with the cost of seeds and stuff, the cost does mount up. It is not just about that, though, it is about a certain amount of enjoyment (most of the time !) and a good bit of exercise out in the fresh air. Beats any gym - and the produce does taste like the stuff you remember from your youth, not this plastic supermarket dross we are all served up now !

[Silver_Shiney]

Wrong choice of grape variety, I suspect, Mr Scanner. It may even be an ornamental variety. Some wine grape varieties only produce small fruit anyway so you really need to go for a desert grape suited to UK cultivation if you want fruit to eat. To get really decent grapes, you do need to give it quite a lot of attention as well, including pruning hard back in late winter then trimming the fruiting spurs in spring and summer to restrict each to a maximum of two trusses and also thinning the bunches to prevent overcrowding, which also limits the size of the fruit. Fun, ennit ?

Just tried the last remaining, pea-size grape. Very sweet and pleasant, but still mostly pip. I heard today that vines shouldn't be watered much during the summer - maybe that's where I went wrong.

[david63]

Where is he when I NEED him?

Why is it that the weed killer that I put on the path encourages the weeds to grow but that which spill [accidentally] onto the lawn kills the lawn off?????

[Silver_Shiney]

I bought a packet of lawn feed/weedkiller a few years ago - it turned the lawn into large areas of brown grass....

[The Tinker]

I bought a packet of lawn feed/weedkiller a few years ago - it turned the lawn into large areas of brown grass....

You obviously have more weeds than grass in your lawn then - simples!