[Gordon Steadman]

Strange thing that! Ronnie has green fingers - pro gardener and all that - but we have given up on the asparagus. Our patch looked pretty much like yours. The soil on our plot is very thin and the entire area is basically chalk so maybe that is a factor.

Talking of chalk, one of the world's biggest lime producers is from round here. There was a vast sea here in the distant past and the deposits go down kilometers. We did a tour of the caves recently which have been dug out over the years. Thirty six kilometers of tunnels! The ceilings seem to go up for ever. Fascinating process once the chalk is heated up.

With so many old stone buildings here, lime (chaux) is the right thing to use for building not cement.