gerrya

Is Vermiculite dangerous

Perlite is made from a naturally occuring volcanic glass which is heated to about 800 degrees when the moisture in the rock causes it to expand rather like popcorn forming little air bubbbles.  It is completely inert but good for both aeration and holding moisture I find it to be superior to the flaked silica of vermiculite as it is much longer lasting in heavy soils

Peach tree

Try Reads Nursery for a flat, loose stone peach whcih is a heavy cropper, absolutely delicious and hardy.  It will just need a little protection for the blossom in spring to allow the fruit to set and trained as a fan against a wall this would be easy with fleece.

I'm currently eating about 4 a day from our local market and am planning to buy one myself.

http://www.readsnursery.co.uk/products/Peach-Saturne.html

Ponoma Fruits also have one called Jalousia which is reputed to be very sweet, but there's aren't ready trained so will take a liittle longer to crop.

Raised asparagus bed

Hi Ruby3,

I don't seem to have a great deal of trouble so far with weeds.  The bed is only just in it's 3rd year and is mostly new compost/manure which naturally acted as a mulch killing alot of the seeds etc of the original plot which was a lawn.  I only seem to get a bit of chickweed and the odd dandelion seedling and these are easy to pull if I get them when they're young.

My biggest concern is how deeply can I get away with burying the crowns now I've raised the sids of the bed.  Being inexperienced I didn't plant them very deep when I first put them in so could probably get away with an extra 4 inches but all at once or over a couple of years?  I've just put on about an inch of spent compst from soem potatoes grown in bags last year so I might just add a bag of manure now to feed it and then top it up again in autumn when I cut down the ferns.

Raised asparagus bed

I have a shallow raised bed of asparaus which is just 3 years old and I am about to replace the temprary wooden edging used to create it.  The new edging will allow me to increase the depth of the bed by about 3 inches giving the crowns a deep mulch of both manure and compost.  Should I mulch to this depth straight away or do it over a couple of years?  Aslo should I do it now just as it's about to starrt gowing or leave it to the end of the season?

Talkback: Collecting fallen leaves

I've often thought of collecting leaves from the road side as we get huge piles gathering from oak and beech trees but get put off by the thought of the traffic fumes affecting the resulting leaf mould.  We're only talking about a country road not a motorway so I suppose even if the leaves are polluted it's not going to be by a huge amount and if I don't use it in the veg garden it should be ok.

We had sweet peas in flower right into November (North Derbyshire)

Raised asparagus bed