Over the last few years I've noticed a lot of people talking about aluminium from above and how it damages the soil. Ground (powdered) eggshell (calcium) NEUTRALISES aluminium. I use this a lot because it's free and my tomatoes all have powdered eggshell sprinkled in the planting hole when I plant them out. They have become triffids and I'm struggling to keep them under control. They are growing outside, not under cover. When I run out of powdered eggshell, I try to remember to mix some bonemeal into the soil and this has given me a good crop of potatoes, peas, lettuce and carrots. However, I have also had some terrible failures, mainly due to the strange weather - too wet, too hot, too wet again and I lost all but one of my dragon egg cucumbers and a whole bed of shallots because of this. Then there's an issue with some compost I had to buy in because I ran out of home made, and whilst I don't buy the cheapest, I have struggled with one in particular which was really good at retaining mosture - so good that my turnips rotted before they matured. 🙄 I won't be buying that again. @Karen Seale have you tried pre-soaking your seeds with a 3% peroxide/water mix? I have done this with my carrot seeds this year, and despite them being last years seeds, they all germinated. My concern going forward is the apparent lack of pollinators. I'm not seeing many bees....

I have two lots of peas growing. The first ones were grown from peas that I had to grow pea shoots but I grew too many so put them out in the garden to see what would happen. They have plenty of pods on them, so just waiting for the peas to fill out. The second ones were grown from actual seeds, but sown later and they are just coming into flower. I think I put them all in a bit late, but so far it appears to have worked for me. So sorry that yours haven't done very well. It's so frustrating when things don't work out.

For anyone that's interested, Professor Ian Plimer wrote 3 books about this nonsense, for different age groups, and I bought the little green book for ankle biters which I gave to my grandson when he was 8. It is excellent and very logically explains the importance of CO2 as the gas of life, which he totally understood. The other two are the little green book for teens and the little green book for twenties and wrinklies. I haven't read the other two and I am sure they are just as good, but I absolutely would recommend the one for children.

And this is how much it's costing us in the UK: https://subsidyclock.co.uk/

It's supposed to be nice from sunday onwards Mark.

I've had to put some fine netting over my bee house - caught a couple of magpies today trying to pull the tubes out. They'd already managed to peck out the front of a couple of tubes and whilst I don't want the magpies to go hungry, I also don't want them eating my baby bees!