I don't know If I've already mentioned this before, If I have sorry for the repeat.

A tip I learnt this year and which seems to work. If you get mildew on your toms, cucumbers or in fact any veg. spray them with a a mixture of milk (any) and water. I use a third milk the rest water. It seems to be controlling the mildew and I also sprayed the others plants that hadn't got it and they seem to be staying clear. I don't like spraying veg with chemicals so any natural remedy I'm fully in favour of. This also seems to works on other plants that I've tried.

Help! To all you expert gardeners out there. I have tomato plant (down to 1 as flipping slus ate the other plus a chilli plant and a courgette !(in 1 night too!!) Well this poor lonesome tomato is that it is lovely and bushy with loads of flowers but not a single tomato!!A ny ideas why and how do i get tomatos on the plants????? Many thanks for any help.

You have a few alternatives.


Give it a gentle shake so that it can pollinate itself. There's possible not enough insects around if it's been wet or windy.
Give the flowers a gentle mist (very gentle) with water.

Make sure you don't let the plant get dry and once the first tiny tomatoes appears feed it once a week. If it is very bushy I'd take out one or two or the leaves so that the air and light can get into the plant.



Find yourself some frogs or hedgehogs to eat the slugs.

Thanks Tiki will do. As for hedgehogs I dreamt about them last night ! Spooky or telapathic???Lol

Tiki has already given good advice and I would def feed them. Also keep an eye out for blight, it is a bugger

Thanks Veggie will do, when it stops raining hard enough to let me venture outside! Still garden getting plenty of water. I might just add I have got a sucessful hanging basket of Strawbs this year!Yummy.and no slugs!!!

I was wondering about a hanging basket of strawberries for next year Fleur. How many plants did you put into the basket. Did you start it from scratch this year. I know nothing about growing strawberries at all.

Oh an expert gardener asking ME for advice! Er well I cheated and bought the basket ready done for 6.50 from B&Q! Had quite a lot of fruit from it. worth doing I think. It does look nice too especially when there are fruit and flowers on the plants.

Next year you'll be able to do your own.

Any one know about strawberries. Will the plant have fruit the next year or do you have to use the runners from the original?

Plant should have fruit next year; they are a bit like weeds, they spread! My dad used to have a huge strawberry patch which was orginally only a few plants!

I tried tomatoes in hanging baskets last year but it didn't work very well as they didn't hang, just grew upwards!! They were meant to be ones for hanging basket too? Anyone had any joy from toms in a hanging basket?

I currently have a big pan of green tom chutney bubbling away - that blight is not getting all my toms!!

Wet and windy here too, so no gardening; I have been a good student and revising all morning (apart for doing chutney) so I thought I would have a break and a browse on here

What sort did you grow veggie. I've grown a number of different sorts but the only ones I've had a problem with were Alicante. I'm getting blossom end rot on some of those.

All your ideas are really great, perhaps you could send them to my local authority who has made recycling so complicated you need a degree to understand it and even then you would be struggling. Complete uproar in the local papers. Its so complicated they keep spending our money to instruct us what to do. Help.

Went blackberry picking today. First batch is cooling, 2nd batch in breadmaker as we speak.

Whilst picking, we came across what we think are elderberries.........anyone tried any recipes using them? Any tips? If so we'll be back tomorrow as there were LOADS there!

I know you can make elderberry wine but don't know how so not much help there

Have just found this though which might help

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