Andy🌱🍓🌶Grows

A sit-down with Keith. Q: Keith, how would you describe your role on the farm? Keith: [chews] Q: Some have called you destructive. How do you respond to that? Keith: [chews bramble] Q: There is a campaign in some quarters to reduce British livestock numbers by 50% by 2030. Have you considered the implications for goats specifically? Keith: [looks at the gate] Q: Several of your peers in the broader livestock community have argued that the methane critique misrepresents biogenic carbon cycles. Do you agree? Keith: [ate the corner of the notebook] Q: ...Right. Could you comment on the role of small-scale goat farming in maintaining British scrub-pasture mosaic ecosystems? Keith: [escaped] The interview ended at 11.42am. Keith was located at 2pm, three fields away, in the corner of a neighbour's paddock, eating a thistle. Asked again, on his return, to comment on the methane critique, Keith produced manure. This was taken as the official position. The official position has, on review, more empirical support than most of the policy documents currently in circulation.

@arealmofwonder B. But am biased!

Of these four short poetic offerings, which one do you prefer most? 🤔 A B C D

Grey Heron over the reeds! 😍 Taken last weekend at RSPB Ham Wall. 😊🐦

Gorgeous male Wheatear on a cliff edge... one of my favourite birds! 😍😊🐦

@MartinSLewis 3 years ago I (finally) got a 30 YO closed DB pension: its worth way more than I estimated. I knew it was there, but the run-off pension firm prevaricated, obstructed and stalled for nearly 5 years before paying. eventually had to send a payslip from 1988!… it should be easier.

“Thanks Martin, I found a lost pension from when I was 22, it’s now worth £45,000!” So can you do what Rose did? Martin shows you how to check… This is just a snip from the full Martin Lewis Money Show Pensions Special watch it on ITVX

A stunning Swallow on a dull day! 😍 Taken last weekend at Combwich in Somerset. 😊🐦

@arealmofwonder A

Words for The Weekend 🥳 Pick your winner ⭐️ A B C D

@irish_organic @dufitalexis1 JKW makes my life miserable. Not because it’s there - but I have to certify that it is not… (knot?)

@dufitalexis1 When I was landscaping a few years ago I had a boss that insisted on bamboo in every garden he did. I told him about a garden that planted it and it had spread and was now running amok. He only cared for getting paid. I lasted three gardens with him, had to move on.

You planted this bamboo yourself. With enthusiasm. For a screen. Within two years you regretted it — and within five you understood you could not go back. Running bamboo (Phyllostachys and related genera) is one of the most frequently self-inflicted garden disasters in Britain. The gardener plants it voluntarily, pays for it, and then pays considerably more to try to remove it. What the garden centre tells you: fast-growing, evergreen, architectural, forms a screen in two seasons. All true. What the garden centre does not tell you The rhizomes of running bamboo (Phyllostachys, Pseudosasa, Sasa, Pleioblastus) spread laterally through the soil at one to two metres per year. They do not grow downward like normal roots — they run horizontally at 15-30cm depth, in every direction, under the lawn, under the border, under the patio, under the neighbour's fence. Every rhizome node produces a new culm that emerges without warning — in the middle of the lawn, between paving stones, through a neighbour's garden. In three to five years, a bamboo planted as a three-metre screen has rhizomes occupying 50-80 square metres — the entire garden. In ten years they reach neighbouring gardens, irrigation pipes, house foundations, and drainage systems. Cutting the canes does nothing Bamboo cut to the ground regrows with more vigour than the year before. Every cut stimulates the rhizomes to produce emergency culms. Cutting weekly for an entire season does not weaken the root system — it causes it to expand faster in search of undisturbed ground. Digging it out is a serious undertaking Phyllostachys rhizomes are as hard as beech wood, interlaced in an underground network extending in every direction. Hand digging requires days of work per square metre. Mechanical excavation must reach 50-60cm depth across the entire colonised area — and every rhizome fragment left in the soil starts again. A single forgotten node restarts the problem from zero. The root barrier The only reliable way to contain running bamboo is a root barrier — a sheet of HDPE (high-density polyethylene) at least 1.5mm thick, installed at minimum 60cm depth, surrounding the entire planting area before the bamboo goes in. The barrier must be continuous with no joins or weak points. It costs more than the bamboo itself. If it was not installed at planting time — which covers the vast majority of cases — it cannot be retrofitted without excavating everything. The distinction nobody explains at the garden centre Running bamboo (Phyllostachys, Pseudosasa, Sasa): rhizomes that travel metres from the original plant. INVASIVE. Never plant without a root barrier. Clump-forming bamboo (Fargesia, Borinda): rhizomes that grow as a compact clump without running. NOT INVASIVE. Fargesia is the correct choice for a British garden screen — it forms a dense hedge, stays where it is planted, and will not colonise neighbouring gardens. Eradication protocol For running bamboo already established, the method with the highest documented success rate is: Year 1: cut all canes to ground level in June — when the plant has spent its stored energy on new growth and rhizome reserves are at their lowest. Cover the entire colonised area with thick black weed-suppressing membrane, edges weighted or buried. Leave covered for the full season. Year 2: remove covering in spring. Cut every shoot that emerges immediately. Re-cover. Repeat through the season. Years 3-4: monitor weekly. Cut every shoot within 24 hours of emergence — a bamboo shoot left for a week is already a metre tall and has re-stocked the rhizomes. Consistency is everything. Alternative: systemic herbicide (glyphosate) injected into hollow cut stems immediately after cutting in late summer. The same protocol used for Japanese knotweed — to which this problem is closely comparable in persistence and difficulty. The most architectural screen in the street is also the most expensive to remove. Consider it before planting, not after.

@DrHelenFry NOT Oppenheimer… watch Shadowmakers ( Fatman & Littleboy) instead.

Name one World War Two film every cinema enthusiast should see:

@MartinSLewis Male 50:50, but I would go further. If a ne-er-do-well sibling has been sponging from parents for decades, this should be offset against split

Today’s Poll: If a couple had two adult children - one financially very successful and one struggling - should their Will leave their estate 50-50, or divide it more based on need? Which comes CLOSEST to your view in this hypothetical?

All the gear but no idea.

@spitfire_bill I’m real! ( I think…)🤔 🤖

Sudden influx of bots liking and following my profile …

The govt's Student Loan Plan 2 repayment freeze in April 2027 must be reversed. It isn't moral. I'm concerned that my debate with Kemi Badenoch this morning distracts from the most immediate problem. In April 2027 Rachel Reeves will freeze the Plan 2 student loan threshold until 2030 which by then will increase graduate repayments by £300/yr more. This is effectively a unilateral negative breach of the student loan contract. Students were told the threshold would rise with average earnings. No commercial lender would be allowed to do this. The govt shouldn't do it either. Changing the terms of future students loans is a political decision - people may not like it but it is transparent. Negatively changing the terms of contracts already signed, and long in place, is a breach of natural justice.

For anyone who needs cheering up... here's Britain's smallest bird having a bath today in a woodland puddle. 😁😍🐦❤️

@silverpebble Gosh, you’re ahead of us in N Yorks! They say Spring advances north at walking speed…. Can you give her a little nudge please??!

Two small very good things I found today: 🌿the very first spring blossom of 2026 (cherry plum-Prunus cerasifera) 🪻the very first violet I’ve seen…

@TinyWriterLaura Our head office is by the BBC, so there’s a few. John Simpson saved me from being hit by a taxi. Last year I cleared a path for Valerie Singleton through our group so she & friend could exit a bar. Was so star- Struck I couldn’t speak

someone on bsky asked for low-impact celebrity encounters & now i’m reliving the moment in my 1st year of uni when, still drunk from the night before, i stumbled into a metal fence only to lock eyes with the queen on the other side & my instinct was to say ‘oh my God, hello!’

@irish_organic I’ve surveyed worse!

Lick of paint and a tap of a hammer; be grand!

@irish_organic 🤣

@Andyhurmgrurn I have 2 of them sitting in the shed. If I could just find another 998 of them!

Going to give this another go...

@spitfire_bill Dusty-Tortie has voted with her paws - has disappeared into garden : appalled that we had something called ‘Visitors’ this morning! ( how dare we…)

A helpful kitty today