Robin, every time I hear about your nutty neighbour, I am reminded of the awful neighbours I put up with some years ago. They called the council several times about ridiculous things, as well as the police and the fire brigade once. They also poisoned all the plants near our adjoining fence, including a lovely wattle only a couple of years old. So anything you say about this woman, I for one believe you. I've been there!

Actually it's funny the subject of a no-dig garden came up now - I was reading the thread and thinking about what I use newspapers for. Just before I read the last few posts I was thinking I would post about the no-dig garden I'm about to make for my beans, . This is the recipe I'm going to use Step-by-Step No Dig

Trouble is, I hardly ever buy papers, so I've had to beg, borrow or steal from friends to get some. As well as making the no-dig garden, you can make a very effective mulch on existing gardens by putting down several layers of newspaper around the plants, straight over the top of the weeds you want to kill, watering the layers well, then covering with a good thickness of something like sugar cane mulch. The weeds are starved of light and they die. A few stragglers might get through if you have accidentally left gaps, but there is very little weeding to be done from then on, and you save on water because the plants are kept moist much longer after watering. Snails don't like the sugar cane mulch either, so it puts them off as well. I've been working my way round the garden, and my goal is for all my garden beds to end up like this.

Yes, I like newspapers - in their right place!