The latter part of August is when sweetcorn starts to come on stream. You may remember seeing a photo of these being planted on the allotment in May. We start to test to see if the cobs are ready for … Read more

For hanging in the house as decoration but also a good fly repellent!

The smell of newly cut wheat and barley in the fields in August transports me back to my late teenage years; harvest time and those long days working on the farm, carting grain and then straw from the fields; days … Read more

Under the entry for August in my book ‘Vegetable Growers Calendar’ is this rather sanctimonious and self-satisfied quotation from ‘Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie’ written by Thomas Tusser in 1583: ’Tis good to be knowne,to have all of thine … Read more

The summer pruning of the apple trees I mentioned a week or two ago is well under way and indeed the harvest of the earliest apples from the variety ‘Katy’ has already started – ripening a good 10 days before … Read more

One of the features of this summer’s growing season seems to have been the heaviest infestations of blackfly for some time. These small dark coloured aphids appear in late spring or early summer and affect a variety of crops but … Read more