Am I too late to start some tomato seeds? I know lots of the nutters start them on 2nd of January or something like that   . I usually start mine beginning of March. For obvious building/ moving reasons I’ve not. But I really really want 1 tomato plant. 
I had some shop brought ones last week. OMG! They were tasteless, watery, expensive horrible things. 

Advice please. If you have recommendations for a variety that is good at playing catch up. Even better. 

My first thought was rosella. Because she produces well , and tastes lovely.

I have quite a lot of Echinops that are growing really well.  The last few weeks I've noticed lots of seedlings coming up around them.  Does anyone know if they self seed?

I spend a lot of time working on our garden growing vegetables, fruit and flowers.

I hope I can learn new advice etc from everyone.

How much lyme do I add to very acidic soil?

I sowed lovage & lemon balm in cells next to each other. Only one came up. But came up in both cells. Never grown either before so no idea which one grew. Repotted today. Are they big enough for an ID?

   

Definitely didn’t plant this.
Also got another popping up in another spot nearby.
About three and a half foot tall. Large heads of of creamy white florets. Not much in way of leaves yet.
Slightly fragrant.

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Bob made some bird boxes last week when we got rained off from building one day last week.

   

We put them up yesterday morning

         

No one has moved in yet! 

We’ll probably make some more out of cladding off cuts .

Two lupins in the border next to each other, one is thriving the other yellowing and small.  They're nothing special, I can't remember what colour but probably bog standard mauve/ blue. What can I do to strengthen the poorly one. Soil is alkaline and reasonably free draining although it is soggy with all the 4ain.

Every year we buy compost and have the same discussions about what rubbish it is. Or we make our own (or try too!). 
I can see the benefits of home composting and returning that to the soil but why do we sow seeds in "compost" when we also direct sow into the ground? Why don't we scrape up some garden soil and sown our seeds into that? 
I'm starting to think that commercial "compost" should be renamed "con-post". Can anyone convince me otherwise?

Share your delight at picking the first fruit or veg or flower or nose of 2023 

Is it earlier or later than in 2022 https://gardenandgossip.org/showthread.php?tid=1468

 or
2021? https://gardenandgossip.org/showthread.php?tid=1047