Gardeners World 'Best Buy' misses the mark.

Gardeners World recently reviewed the JCB ACR 310 lawnmower. Well not everyone agrees with the experts and when it comes to Turf grass mowing we are a picky bunch. For anyone over 6 foot tall, the handles of many mowers cause problems, forcing the gardener to stoop as they walk up and down the garden.

The Flymo Mow n Vac is great for taller gardeners and is very easy to use. As simple as vacum cleaning in fact. If you have a very large garden then this will not be the tool for you, but for small lawns this is a lovely piece of kit.

Locked out of the Allotment

Our allotment is behind great big gates and we were only given one key. Nic has it on her fob and she was away last night, so despite having trowel in hand I couldn't get in to weed the sweetcorn.

A corny idea

We were talking about growing wheat to make our own loaf, so I took the idea and thought about growing some ancient grain varieties such as emmer, spelt or einkorn.

However, the local garden centre doesn't sell wheat to grow. Infact, here in suburbia I am at a loss where to go.

Does anyone know where i can get a small handful of spelt to plant? It will probably have to be next year now, but it would be great to get hold of some ancient wheat.

Strawberry Crop

Fantastic strawberrys from the rescued plants we found on the allotment. It seems that the transplantation has done them the world of good.

Very sweet large fruits all over the place. One of the neighbours suggests they are a variety called "Elsanta"

Holidays

How will the allotment cope when we are away on holiday. It was bad enough leaving it for the weekend to visit mum in Devon.

The ground is definitely fertile. Weeds are shooting up and testing our organic credentials as we look at the unwanted growth and mutter darkly about weedkiller being a great idea.

But this allotment is about good food, so pesticides and the like are forever banished. I will use the ground but I will not abuse it.