I've just PURPOSELY planted an aconite! Foxgloves, datura and laburnum are all bad too

Liz - the worst thing with kids and Hogweed is that the little darlings like to use the stems as pea shooters!

The worst accident so far in the garden with me (bearing in mind that being female I may have a bit more ground-clearance when it comes to fencing!) was when I decided to clear what had been an old apology for a rock garden and make it into a normal bed. My house is built on the site of an old barn. It was pulled down just over 100 years ago, and a pair of semi-detached cottages built (Victorian "in-filling", now one house). Being built on the old fold-yard/barn area, there isn't much in the way of top soil before all the rubbish underneath (12-18 inches). I went in with a sprung steel fork and hit a half-brick. It wasn't until the next day that the jarring in my wrist bore fruit: I had my forearm strapped for three weeks, and for the first week I could barely write. It was at the end of that time I started playing the melodeon wearing both straps to take the strain.

I've come to terms with my largely awful (sub)soil, and I just keep lobbing on pelleted poultry muck, organic compost and free horsemuck from my obliging neighbours. I'm hoping that spuds might break up some of the claggy stuff this year. Seaweed extract didn't really help.

I have got a really weird book which was written during WW2 in England and published by a small independent publisher. It's hilarious, and deals with this guy's attempts to garden when he knows absolutely diddly-squat about anything, but thinks he does. I think at one point he managed to flood the garden! "Tubers and Taradiddle - or The Gardener's Entertainment" by Donald Cowie, published 1944 by The Tantivy Press, Malvern.

By the way, there is another, published by one of the daily newspapers at the same time, called "Patsy's Progress". It deals with a young married couple and how mum teaches Patsy to cook, while dad shows her husband how to garden. It was wonderful reading for me as a child, but my mum hasn't got it any more. It was written in strip cartoon style, and the book is probably the collection of what was printed in the papers. (There's a copy in our village and I know who has it!) Anyone got a copy they want to part with?

mouldy