Allotments 4 All

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A chef used these on the Great British Menu and they looked really interesting - apparently also called Chinese Artichoke.

Anyone tried growing them?

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Morning all,
I have a Kaffir Lime in the house, which is small enough to inspect and clean to remove the little blighters but noticed a build up of them on my Apricot in the greenhouse does anybody have a good method to remove them... do they have an in the soil stage in their lifecycle?
I will but pruning off some new growth this week, but as the fruit is swelling I don't want to "poison" them, currently I rub the scales off and wash the stems with a weak detergent solution. 

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Advice please!  The quarter of our veg patch where I will be sowing direct all our beans needs rotovating very soon. It currently has a forest of rocket, coriander and oak-leaf lettuce, which we are eating happily. 
We have a light clay soil, which is perhaps a bit on the poor side at the moment. We're going to be adding commercial bought manure before rotating.  I'm wondering whether we would be best strimming our salad to shred it, and rotating it all in, as a sort of green manure in a couple of weeks?  Or whether the salad  growth is taking too much out of the soil now, and we'd be best pulling it up?
Thanks for any helpful comments.

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This is definitely growing from seed, but what is it?
Leaves are about 3 cms long at this stage. the stems are slightly hairy and have a pink tinge.