Mabon

Over here in Wales house prices seem to be gradually deflating. I do a once every 4 months search of property in Wales. A lot of prices are going back to what they were in 2007. Everything else being relatively equal, of course. (And only anecdotal)

Here in north-west London house prices seem to be rising by the day again. Particularly the 4-5 bed edwardian style suburban houses - Close to decent schooling and transport links. I noticed recently that four flats on the road next to ours all sold (separate locales) all sold within 10 days of going on the market. Smells like bubble territory again to me - Is there any end to this (in London)? Probably not. Meanwhile in parts of Wales, Scotland and England you can get decent 3 bed houses for 40 grand or less...And decent 2 bedders for 25 and under...Ho and Hum ratingTextUndefined

Lol. Well my Dad has planted all his winter roots now.Including Leeks etc. I still have some beans going strong. Even though the vines have withered and given up the ghost. Will get these in this week. And be thankful for my bean abundance. I have some American Cress and other leafs that keeps growing back in my big earthenware pot. It seems to like its position under the bay tree. And the pot keeps it warm. This weekend I'll do a bit o digging. And see what I can get planted. I'll have a rummage in my seed library aka plastic bag in shed. Could of swapped you beans for raspberries Riggerz

My beans finally came thru in early August. And have been going strong or is that string? Since. If I wasn't so grateful for the free food I'd have to say I'm all beaned out...Pah Beans Again! In fact I force them on everyone now - "Here have some beans and have some more beans". There's no room left in the freezer for all the beans... I shall plant some over-winter roots too this year.

Just goes to show if you let your garden do the work the abundance is excellent. Case in point I'm deluged with strawberries in the bottom-left corner. A year or so ago there were maybe 10 plants. Now they've taken over, probably 50 plants. Am able to have fresh bowl everyday...and to think they laughed at my plan to corner the world strawberry market!! Got some beans now too - took ages to pop. But now am shooting up them canes quickstyle. Also the big 'orga' pot that was full of salad bits - american cress etc has seeded part of my 'bed'. And I now have lots of fresh salad growing there which is great. Small-time stuff but always a lovely bonus. Also the ladybirds ate all the aphids that were sapping the life out of my beetroot 'tree' (I let it grow wild and now it's a 5 footer). Some potatoes doing their own thing too. Possibly get 30 pound of spuds for zero effort. Very little effort applied to the rest of it for quite considerable reward. Good Luck.

Good Luck Butty. And sorry to hear of your woes. I hear Ibiza is lovely this time of year and pretty much any time of year. If you want something cheaper and a tad warmer goto 'the warm coast' of Murcia, Spain. Unknown to tourists, warm all year round. My news: Hmm not a lot. Still pishing it down most days. Finally some beans have started to grow - 3 strands in the middle set (the other 2 are no show). Strawberries growing again - I do nothing to them they just sort themselves out. My courgettes in a bucket refuse to grow. I'm gonna have to rake over and deweed my bed again as nothing planted so far. This weekend though is mow, how, plant n sow. Good Luck all.

Well the constant rain is delaying my planting out of various seeds. Also it's still quite cold of a night. Frosts sometimes. Perplexing. However I'll have to plant something soon else it'll be november when I'm trying to crop. Last year's strawberries are still mostly in place. I'm wondering whether they'll bear fruit? Have cleared, raked, de-weeded and prepped my bed though. Will put some root crops in by next weekedn at the latest.

I for one - and probably a lot of other folk here - would definitely like to see your take on the housing market.

Do they want an 'affordable house' or not? If so then they either: A) go where the affordable houses are B ) work hard and smart and suss out how to earn more money. You pay a higher price for a house in the area you feel a connection to C) or carry on earning lower money and renting in the area you feel a connection with Ultimately your personal choice. So every cheap house in the UK is 'rundown' and 'in a crime infested area'? This is simply not true. Only expensive houses are in areas that are not 'crime infested'? As a buyer you have to do your due diligence yes. However just because a house is cheap doesn't mean it's in a shitheap. With bubble blowout power a lot of houses are reverting to their former prices and below. And not just because they're in rundown areas either. This to me always looks like an opportunity for a lot of people. The sooner housing costs come down in price the better it will be for the UK. Housing costs being the biggest outlay for the vast majority of people. However sometimes you've got to do the more 'practical' thing. Move somewhere cheaper. Or put up with how things are where you are. What happens if you want an expensive house in a crime-infested area? (Move to Peckham? New Cross? Thamesmead? Hackney? Walthamstow? (all in London))... And there are some nice houses and parts of those areas too. Good on him and good luck. That sort of 'self-actualisation' is a valuable skill in itself. Clearly he has chosen point B ).

Or gets waaay more entrepreneurial. Helps to redevelop rundown, and on their arse areas. And chooses to live in places in the UK where houses are really cheap (25, 20, 15k and below)... There are thousands of very cheap (and getting cheaper) houses etc in the UK. They just happen to be in places where jobs, development and entrepreneurs are in short supply. And socialism strangles everything. There are approximately 800, 000 empty properties in the UK. Most are habitable with a bit of refurbing. Not all of them are in Burnley neither...

A couple of folks who I previously worked with. And who had previously derided Gold (despite being relatively 'sophisticated' investors)...bought at around 1800 (equiv sterling sum) (sept 2011) an ounce and are now tamping! They said that I'd said to buy some Gold. My reply was 'yes I said to buy it years ago when it was 600 quid an ounce not over 1000!.' (Some People Tsk Tsk)

Apparently this'll only affect 'England'. So I'll move back to Wales then...And buy a mountain XX

True Story.

Nice. You definitely should shop that slogan around a few agencies

Terraced houses in Middlesborough (decent enough street) 2 bedders for 12k now (Zoopla) We'll start seeing 2 bedder terraced in some of the less fortunate places for under 10k by the autumn. Property as ever is local, regional, national

It's Powdery Mildew caused by a) me not watering the courgettes regularly and the warm, dry period I cut most of the leaves/ stems off today and watered it. Leaving only the younger shoots and flowers entact. Will have to make an effort to water regularly. I tend to just leave them all to it. I figure they are plants and so should suck up a bit of rain when it does so... Good one about the Leeks. See if I can get some leeks to bed in now. The manure round yer is the stuff my missus spouts sometimes... Ta and good luck.

Och! I'm not sure my late start beans are gonna make it. I mean sure they are shooting up the pole, however the days and nights ar egetting colder. Remembering last year, they gace beans til mid to late October. By early November the plant was into rot mode due to cold. My peas are in a sunnier spot. However they seem reluctant to grow. I gave them some support in the form of tie-arounds to stop them flopping, last weekend. Had the massive marrow like courgette off my courgette plant. Et a third raw which was mighty refreshing. Quickfroze a third. Cooked the other third as part of a slow cooker meal. Gorgeous. Trying to encourage the plant to grow me a few more. The leaves have a grey-powdered sheen to them. I'll have to look up potential infections. It is still flowering though. Very pretty bright yellow flowers which you eat if you want. Battered tempura style is always Jamie Oliver's recommendation. Now what the hell can I plant overwinter. Oh yes forgot to say I bought a cheap and cheerful propogator for 2.29 in Wilkinson's. Bargain. I'll have a crack at growing those goji berries properly this time. I promise I'll get the grow crystals and stuff and not just stick them in a pot (slacko). Meanwhile the strawberries continue to dominate the sunny dogleg in thebottom lefthand corner. Good Luck

Same variety of strawberries Riggerz. They've sent runners out everywhere and have decided to produce more fruit. Lucky me got to scoff a load today. Well tasty. This weekend I'll be doing a bit of tidying, etc. I'm also going to eat some courgettes this weekend too. Which reminds me, I must get Andi Clevely's book out and see what I can plant overwinter. And also suss what herbs I can plant now (I bought a load on eBay a few months ago). Really tempted to plant a couple of pear seeds too.

My courgettes are coming. Three big uns so far. The big bucket they are in has the potential to produce up to twenty courgettes from two plants. Beans finally sorted themself out and have suddenly sprouted from nowhere. One minute not there, the next shazaam. Peas are growing pods. First time I've grown them. Bit tricky, bit fiddly too. For a climbing plant they don't seem to fussed about climbing at all. Beetroot going steady in the middle of the patch. Transplanted my bag grown strawberries into the bottom left hand corner, so I now have an L-shaoed dogleg of strawberry plants all cwtched by the wall and shed. Planting some more herbs next weekend. And will see what crops are suggested I can grow overwinter. Good Luck

Also bought a load more seeds over the last two weeks. Am using some of the co's in the Andi Cleverly 'Allotment Planner + Cookbook'. I'm prepping for when I get a bigger piece of land and finally get to plant my fruit trees and have my garden how I want it. Oh BTW why are fresh apricots so expensive as compared to tinned apricots which are much cheaper? Anybody know why? I mean production costs are the same?

Update: Me and my GF's niece (7) dug up 30 pounds of white, purple and twisty type potatoes on the weekend. I'd forgotten about the twisty type spuds. Which we then took to her Grandma's. Verdict is good, spuds are very tasty, totally organic. Grandma has apparently made me a five pound bag of Rostis in return (my evil plan worked). I also pulled about ten pound of carrots (been left in for two seasons)which were a bit woody and have mostly gone in the composter. The point was to let them flower. However chitty chatting with my backdoor neighbours turns out they have a pony. So gave them a load of woody carrots for their pony. Am planting a few more herbs over the next few weeks. To colonise the 'waste' ground in the bottom right corner. Lemonbalm - the best thing for nosleepability. Some new strawberries have come through, another five pound or so. Nice surprise. Courgettes are growing quickly. So much so, that I might try a cheeky late planting in buckets and see whether I can get them to mature by late October? Is it wrong that I am excited about my huge pot of peppers? Looking forward to grilling and skinning them in maybe six weeks time? Good Luck all.

I'd like to turn the whole garden into an allotment. The missis is well set against it. I'm always saying to her that having a fertile garden that is producing grub is an asset - both now for the food - and if she wants to sell the place. I reckon the next thing estate agents start saying in their blurbs will be that as well as being close to xx public transport, the garden is very fertile and is regularly used to produce bumper crops of fruit and veg. That will become more and more important. My latest batch of peppers are growing up a storm. And a major pea harvest seems imminent. Can't seem to get the wolfberry (Goji) seeds to sprout though. Maybe because I completed disregarded what I considered to be the unnecessarily fiddly instructions and just stuck em in a pot in the sun... Good luck with your allotment BTW.

I can recommend Andi Cleveley's 'Allotment Seasonal Planner and Cookbook' (Collins) (He also has a standard allotment grow your own type book as well). This gives you a step by step, month by month, plan, plant, grow, crop etc guide and is (IMO) very good. Will save you all manner of headaches. A friend of mine took over an allotment in north-east outer London. Spent months digging over the cooch grass, nettles etc. In the end she asked a farmer to hire their goat for a week. The beast made short work of all the errant vegatation and chomped it all down to a finely cropped level. Leaving a ready supply of fertiliser behind. I had the idea (and wrote all the sales letters, website etc promo) for a 'Hire a Goat' service for people with overgrown gardens, land etc. Still think it would work nicely. No labour involved, just set the goats on their tethers and they eat everything you hate. Good Luck.

Excellent. In a space say five foot by two, I've probably got up to 65 pounds of carrots. Most of which are edible. They were pretty easy to grow. Just make sure you don't plant them when the carrot grub bugs are around. Which I think is mid-spring (check). I must endeavour to use netting and the like. If I was absolutely dependent on the amount of ffod being produced, I'd be a lot more ruthless. Next year my strawberry yield will at least be double, just from the amount of plants replicating. Non Alpine-Strawbs really are incredible plants and will colonise an area of ground really quickly. 2012 will see me growing a lot more fruit. I just have to reorganise some of the space in the garden. I've some patches of 'waste' ground that I want to make more productive. This relies on me having enough composted matter from my composters and also making the soil the right PH. Blueberries, raspberries and maybe cherries will be my front runners. See my beets completely refused to grow last year. And now one has popped up. My Dad told me this was because I was growing the wrong combination's together. As in Beets don't like growing with carrots. This is where the expereince comes in, because there are loads of these combinations and getting them right means great yields. I've been lucky with the amount of Ladybirds I have in the garden this year. Most bugs get ate. Good Luck.

Well whoever's out there, a progress report of sorts. I left the carrots in their bed from 2010, just covered with a bit of extra earth in the winter. The grew 7 feet tall and flowered. I've pulled a few. You can still eat them. The top third tends to be a bit woody. However the remianing two thirds are still pretty sweet. And as most are a couple of foot long, no matter. I've planted a load of peppers in the very big earthenware pot, they will be ready by sept. Also courgettes. A few trial pots to begin with. I've potatoes everywhere. Chits discarded on 'waste' ground have rooted and I am awash with spuds. I estimate 50 pounds plus which I will donate to my neighbours - maybe they'll make me some potato bhajees? This in a small garden and only one sixth given over to growing true food per se. Strawberries were lovely. Got about five pounds of strawbs from some forty individual plants. Some varmints got a few of them. They sure were juicy. Survived well enough over winter as most are near a heat-retaining wall. Runners everywhere. So much so that the strawberry plants have defeated the weeds in the bottom lefthand corner. Making my own tea regularly from my mint, lavender etc bushes. In fact I haven't bought any mint tea bags since end of 2010, as my mint plants are growing very nicely, even though they are pot-contained. Cutting back the rosemary allowed it to thrive. And I've been using a lot more in my cooking. In the other end of my growing bed I have a couple of renagade beetroots (planted 2010) and some peas growing. First time I've bothered with peas, but they seem quite happy, after I kept the pigeons from destroying them, by putting some slatboards over the bed. I might shoot the wood pigeons and eat them, as they are tasty and they wreck just about everything. Beans don't seem to want to come out this year - maybe the soil's a bit too acid there this year?? Or maybe it's that psycho blackbird that keeps headbutting the soil to pieces? I also have loads of new seeds, including some great herbs to plant. I'm keeping most for next year. However Lemonbalm can be planted from Sept onwards and I've got the ideal spot in mind. Lemonbalm tea (a few sprigs boiled then steeped) is great for bringing sleep quickly. If I were to use say one third of this 30 foot by 15 garden, I reckon I could produce maybe 45 percent of all our veg and 20 percent of all our fruit intake for say May til October. Pretty useful that's for sure. Takes no time at all either. What I'd really love is a few cherry, almond and olive trees. Good Luck.