Is any one else having to dodge clouds of aphids? I've never seen this before, they're everywhere! When I went cycling at the weekend they were getting in my eyes, mouth, nose and ears!

Can anyone tell me what this is, please? It's either a cutting or seed I shoved in the pot last year. it looks familiar but I can't put a name to it.

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You may have noticed a theme to my seed sowing recently - or maybe not!

Most of you know what CACA is - Cut And Come Again - mostly used for greens like lettuce and salad leaves. Pick some leaves and leave the plant to grow on. 
PAPA is similar but its Pick And Pick Again. (I've just made this up, unlike CACA which has been around for yonks). 
PAPA crops include peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, courgettes, squash etc . Also perennials like rhubarb, asparagus, fruit bushes and strawberries. 
PAPA crops are less hassle, in my mind, than the roots like carrots & turnips and the heading greens like cabbage & cauli. 

So, I'm concentrating my seed sowing efforts on PAPA crops - which, by coincidence are also the veg I enjoy eating the most.  OK, I accept that, if they all grow I will look like a cucumber by the end of the season but I'm willing to risk that!

PAPA crops are also the ones that I enjoy picking the most - wandering around with my little basket, picking a bit of this and a bit of that and returning to the house to work them into the day's menu. Its a bit like foraging without leaving the garden. 

Waddya think?

Hello All,

I hope you are all well and enjoying the slightly warmer weather?

It's been a while since I last posted, in the main due to ill health, apart from heart problems, I have also been dealing with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and rheumatoid arthritis in my hands. Not wanting to tempt fate but I am starting to get things under control and begin gardening again, all though at a slower pace. Under strict instructions from she who must get obeyed, I have cut back on the plots and just have two now as my visits are limited to once a week.

I have taken the decision to limit my growing ambitions this year and focus on getting things tidy again as I want to enjoy gardening again. I have never had so many weeds!

   
   

At least I can plod on slowly for the time being.

Nice to be back

Pulling some rhubarb today from an old, and trusty plant made me realise how much I take it for granted. Every year it produces but I never give it any food or even water. How ungrateful is that? 
Its not just the rhubarb but all the fruit trees and bushes, the flowers and shrubs too. I rob them of something that has taken them months, maybe years, of energy to produce - and in one quick snip or snatch, its gone, without so much as a "by your leave".  
I feel guilty and need to apologise for my rudeness. 
In future, I intend to thank the plant (aloud) and give it a gift in appreciation for what they have given to me. It may be some water, or mulch or compost around the roots. Perhaps some chicken manure pellets from a tub that I will carry around in my bucket.  Or some TLC, weeding around its roots or pruning  away some dead growth to give it more air and room to breathe. Its the little things that show you care and make a plant feel wanted.

Just watched this.     
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKFCbaxZ...QJAYcqIYzv

Very interesting, informative and quite worrying?

Anyone got any of these? Or even heard of them?

I believe this first one is well known .
The self-sufficient gardener by John Seymour 
This edition published 1978 by book club association 

Herbs and fragrant garden by Margaret Brownlow 
This revised (3rd) edition 1978

How to grow vegetables and fruit by the organic method 
By the staff of organic gardening and farming magazine 
Tenth edition November 1974 printed In American

A new I-Spy Challenge! 
What plant in your garden/plot is in flower in May. Starts tomorrow with the Letter A.

Its struck me today how many things/events celebrate the month of May.  Are there any other months that give their name so generously?