As a follow on to the organic gardening, could you let us know how you use natural control of pest and disease of your garden plants 
 French marigold to control whitefly in the greenhouse
Feed the birds all year round and while they are waiting their turn at the feeder they clear insects from your flowers (it is advisable to clean below the feeders regularly as uneaten seed can encourage vermin)
If you have clubroot in your garden it is still possible to grow brassica, use cover, cloch etc. to warm up the soil and get the plants in early so that the roots establish before the fungus starts moving about June (though this date could be getting earlier now)

Today I have cut down quite a bit of hawthorn and now wondering what I should do with it, should I cut it down a bit more and put it into a recycling bin, doing that it will take about 6 weeks to get rid of it as it is only collected every 2 weeks, should I  put it through a shredder and compost it or use as mulch or should I burn it and use the ash in the garden

Not been ‘online gardening’ much since the Spring so had to wrack my brain to remember the forum name. Anyway, here at last. In case you’re wondering who I was at the other place, I could be a bit of a Diva, but promise to be on my best behaviour now my name has been shortened.  Hope everyone is well and thriving, and look forward to catching up on the gossip

Just wondering how many folks on this forum are totaly organic,  my self I do use chemical feeds basicly because I have them, though nowadays I grow my veg. organically the flower beds a mix of both and my flower baskets are generally grown using chemical feeding, what do you use and why?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-le...e-55315242

Does anyone make their own mulled wine? 
I’ve got lots of wine in at the moment so was going to make my own. Lots of recipes on the interweb that look good. 
A tried and tested one would be marvellous.

Please could you lovely peeps recommend a decent digging fork, mine has just given up the ghost and my Father Christmas is being all humbuggy and says I have to get it myself.

Thank you as always

I love this book by Michael Pollan. Its small, funny and easy to read and makes a lot of sense.
The Food Rules are summarised with 7 simple words:-

Eat Food
Not too much
Mostly Plants.

Sounds simple but when he says "Eat Food" he means food "real food" not highly processed concoctions created by scientists 
Rule 2 stands out to me "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise as food". Imagine she's standing beside you in the supermarket and she picks up a plastic tube of some sort of snack. Would she know what it was? If not, don't buy it!

To save you buying the book, the Rules are summarised at http://regionone.thediocese.net/Customer...drules.pdf 

Tell me which ones you can relate to. I'm going to try a bit harder to follow these from now on.

I have lots of Cauli seeds - never deliberately bought any but they seem to keep appearing as freebies. Don't know why I keep them as I've rarely grown one worth eating. 
Anyway, I was looking at sowing dates and cropping time, some take a lot longer than others. 
I discarded all those that are sown one year to overwinter and crop the following year.  For example, Maystar is sown April - May and harvested Mid-May the following year.  That's just too long for something that will be a failure. 
Then I was tempted by Candid Charm "Very fast to mature" "Harvest 75 days after planting". That sounds speedy!! It omits to tell you how long it will take your little seedling to grow to 6" before you plant them out. 
The ones that have survived the cull are Mayflower (earliest summer cauli); White Step (neat compact), Clapton and Igloo (perfect for mini-vegetables).

My question is - can you recommend a quick maturing cauli that you've had success with, please. I trust you, I don't trust the adverts.

A question for successful bulb fennel growers

I have tried on a couple of occaisions to grow bulb fennel with any real success, mine tend to never reach the bulb stage..

I dont eat a great amount but like it in sea food salads.

Any experts amongst us who can impart their wisdom?.