Gee, wish I had THAT problem! Here, it sets seed heads that replant the following year. I have it sprouting like grass between concrete blocks, and tiny cracks in all areas of my back yard. Dill is a sun lover, but doesn't do well with too much water. Because it has actually 'naturalized' here, I don't expect it will ever dissappear, unless I pull up every single plant before it sets seeds. I grow mammouth dill and thats pretty much what I have everywhere out back now. I used to start seeds in small pots and transplant it, but it never seemed to do as well as the stuff that just sprouts from the previous years crop. Al my outside dill is about an inch or two in height right now, and just looks like shrt blades of grass, all growing in a clump. I will pull up a few 'weak' ones later once they start to show some height. How tall do yours get before they die? I'm in Z6 and here, today its over 80 degrees, while last Sunday it was 35 degrees. Dill doesn't seem to mind it once mother nature tells it to sprout. That usually happens about the beginning to middle of April around here. Find an cleared, weed free area, sprinkle a bunch of seeds now, and cover it with a half inch of soft soil. Water it and soon you will have a dill flavored 'lawn'. Water only lightly for the first 3-4 weeks, unless it rains. Then wait at least 5 days before you water again.

Flora, is the weather the same all across UK ?. Yes, seysonn - the climate is pretty much the same all across the UK with far less variation than in the US. Remember, many of the States are larger than our entire country. Essentially the majority of the country can be treated as one zone. In fact we don't even use a zone concept here since everywhere is roughly the same. It is quite possible UK posters have no idea what the zone box is for and wouldn't know their zone anyway. I had to look mine up but although it says 8/9 that really only fits for the minimum temperatures and gives no comparison with a US 8/9. There is nowhere here where it is reliably hot enough to grow large healthy outdoor basil plants without some sort of protection. Outdoor plants are usually runty and often ill looking. Some years it will do OK but it is a gamble. This year we have had (and when I say we I mean the entire country), the coldest least sunny spring and early summer for 50 years. We also have pretty much universally reasonably good soils so nutrient problems are not a common issue, especially for Mediterranean herbs like basil. Although, the OP's zone is not at the head of the post he/she said they bought the plants at Homebase, which is a UK store, and fed them with Baby BIo, a UK product, so I then checked their location and it said UK. Also I can usually tell by the language whether a poster is US or UK based, although sometimes the Canadians confuse me a little ;-) Bottom line is - basil, like tomatoes, is not suited to outdoor culture in the UK. It can be done but it is a project and is often a failure. Plus the OP did not separate the multiple plants. No amount of tinkering with feeding will overcome this. They need to be separated and protected. This is my basil - indoors in a container.

Hi, I quote your original post: "We took the energy and time to level the ceiling, put up new drywall etc... We then sealed it with an oil based sealer/primer. Waited a few days, then proceeded to paint on a laytex ceiling paint. " You directly state you used an oil based sealer primer. Show us a picture of the labels on the cans. There must be some product incompatibility going on. Rough texture shouldn't appear out of nowhere. When there's a problem I always suspect that the first coats were not allowed to dry fully, esp. if the primer was oil. If it is uncured it will cause mischief with the finish coat, esp. flat latex. Putting more coats on top to affect a remedy actually makes it worse. I'd let it dry a good long time and see what happens. Another thought: you absolutely never put oil primer over new plaster- the caustic components turn the oil in the paint to soap and it peels right off. If the drywall job involved a large quantity of setting-type joint compound, the house is unheated, and the work was finished immediately before painting, then that's a possibility; the moisture still inside the not-fully-cured Durabond is reacting with the oil primer. Casey

Everybody talks about too much N. Let's discuss too much N. In the gardens, I toss organics, and feed weekly with my own mix (mostly urea) at a rate of 0.25 pounds of N per week per thousand square feet. It's a grand total of well over 2 pounds N per month, or far beyond the recommendation. The pots...succulents, perennials, and bulbs are treated rather gently and with organic feeding. Annuals I feed the absolute heck out of. Miracle-Gro plus organics every two weeks. Plus some other stuff I throw in, like some extra urea. And kelp. The result of "too much" N is a lot of blooms--just on gigantic plants (photo below of a strictly average year, August 10th). The difference here is that I've had the soil tested, balanced the garden soil to a decent pH of 6.3 (with a proper calcium-magnesium-potassium ratio, or, don't use a home test which tells you exactly nothing about the right balance), set the phosphorus levels high and balanced other resources high to compensate for phosphorus antagonism, etc. It's not everybody's cup of tea, and some plants absolutely do object to too much N. But...most don't. And in the past, petunias, lantanas, have all been amongst those in my garden that haven't. Actually, ask me about the three foot tall lantana with the tap root I couldn't get out for two years. Gorgeous. Sturdy. Never repeated.