Phoebe Cornish

Rick Stein's crab and sweetcorn soup, featured in his cookbook Food Stories, is presented as a simplified version of a Chinese restaurant classic. The recipe uses chicken stock, fresh sweetcorn, crab meat, ginger, spring onions, soy sauce, rice wine or sherry, cornflour and egg white, and takes about 30 minutes to prepare and cook.

Cardboard sheet mulching is highlighted as an effective, chemical-free way to suppress garden weeds by smothering growth and enriching soil. Gardening expert Elizabeth Florio recommends using plain, uncoated cardboard overlapped and covered with mulch, with added compost for planting on top. Forum users report strong results using this method under hedges and in borders, noting minimal regrowth. The guidance emphasizes ease of use, sustainability and suitability for no-dig gardening approaches.

Tomato plants showing yellowing leaves, stunted growth and blotchy fruit may be suffering from magnesium deficiency, a condition that disrupts chlorophyll production and limits photosynthesis. Gardening experts note that Epsom salt, or magnesium sulphate, can help correct the deficiency when confirmed through soil testing or clear visual signs such as yellowing between leaf veins. A tablespoon dissolved in a gallon of water can be applied monthly to the soil or as a foliar spray, though overuse may hinder growth. High potassium fertilisers can interfere with magnesium uptake, so maintaining balance is essential, and treatment should be discontinued if no improvement appears.

Four natural weed‑killing methods were tested to assess their effectiveness on patios and driveways. Rock salt combined with boiling water killed weeds within hours and prevented regrowth for two weeks, while white vinegar with a small amount of dish soap caused visible wilting within hours and made removal easier by the next day. Lemon juice showed no success, likely due to rainfall washing it away. Boiling water alone wilted weeds immediately but failed to kill mature roots within 24 hours, proving more effective only on newly emerged weeds.