Veg Plotting

It's been great to have some quality time on the patio this week culminating in yesterday's partial eclipse. With the live stream to hand, we had fun with our hastily made pinhole projector (a piece of card pierced with a paper clip), playing with the image on our hands, then NAH decided to carefully take a direct photo of the sun. 'That won't work', I said, and I was right... and wrong, with the sun behind its mackerel sky veil blazing forth as usual, but the camera lens flare revealing a perfect image of the sun bitten by the moon. * = I've had Midnight Oil's Earth and Sun and Moon on the brain all week; especially appropriate for yesterday's celestial event.

Sunshine, spring flowers and the Easter bunnies have been. It's a perfect day. A bunch of British daffodils is my weekly treat from January through to now, they are such happy flowers. This year in an unexpected turn of events NAH has made it two bunches! Have a good Easter everyone 😊

This week we said our final goodbyes to NAH's aunt, who passed away peacefully in early December at the grand age of 94. With her passing we no longer have any distance caring responsibilities, plus the elder Chapman baton has passed to NAH and and his elder brother. I'm finding it quite hard to adjust to these circumstances, as part of what's made me who I am the past 13 years or so is no longer there. In the meantime, I've spent quite a lot of time over the past few weeks thinking about the good times with my aunt-in-law, who was a lot of fun and the source of many of our good times. Part of her lasting legacy is the family's love of cats and the annual cat calendar. For many years a December delight was the Whiskas one plopping onto our doormat; she'd saved many a label from her cat's favourite tinned food to provide this regular event. Whiskas stopped doing their calendar around 10 years ago, and we took on the mantle of providing one, firstly with photo...

This photo may not look that enticing but it's deceptive as it shows the start of a marvellous adventure I've had this year. It's the footpath which runs by the side of our house and marks the beginning of nearly all the walks I take locally. When I set myself the goal of walking 1,000 miles in 2020 my heart said yes and my head said no. It's a mind boggling number and even dividing it by 366 didn't make the target seem any easier. Could I really walk 2.73 or so miles every day ? The answer to that question is no, because I didn't walk every day... but on many of them I walked far in excess of my daily walk allowance. It took my head nearly three months to acknowledge that it might, just might be possible. Then in March NAH had his heart attack and Lockdown happened and amongst all the angst and sleepless nights walking kept me going. The simple act of putting one foot in front of the other helped calm my whirling mind. I deliberately parked my car in Bristol fa...

This recipe has come quite a long way since I first made it in August when my brother-in-law and wife came to stay. It's derived from a Delia recipe  which involves courgettes and I've adapted it to make it more heart friendly. It was well received and I've continued to make it to hoover up our plentiful courgette crop, until last month when I only had a small one left. However, I also had a teeny tiny winter squash which combined with the courgette was a complete revelation. The squash added lots of flavour and I resolved to continue with today's recipe to use up all the smaller ones from this year's crop. This week's variation was by accident when I sliced some of the squash so thinly, they were more like crisps when they came out of the oven. This got a huge thumbs up from NAH and the request for more like this in future. This has become a weekend favourite of ours for supper, served with a jacket potato, a large salad and a tasty dressing. Those wishing to k...

I'm back from a few days in Dorset where we combined some clearance of NAH's aunt's house with using it as a Covid-safe holiday cottage for some much needed rest and relaxation. We both agreed it worked better than expected and plan to return again in a few weeks. It was a bittersweet time, especially on our final day when I set off to walk around the Holes Bay part of Poole Harbour and realised I was reprising the walk my aunt-in-law and I had undertaken over 30 years ago to Upton House , when she was around the same age as I am now. It made for a thoughtful and mindful walk. I love the relationship between sky, plants and water Poole Harbour provides - summed up in this postcard - and how easy it is to leave the centre of Old Poole behind in this particular walk, which started from the back door. It's a special place.

We reached a recovery milestone on Saturday with NAH venturing out to do the weekly shop for the first time since March. What we hadn't bargained for was my enthusiasm for using every scrap of a piece of paper and NAH being unused to what should be on there. As a result he shopped using last week's list found on the other side as I hadn't crossed it out like he usually does. It meant I had a surfeit of leeks and pondering them a couple of days ago, I came up with a simple, healthy stir-fry for tea, substituting the leeks for my usual choice of onions. The mange tout (snow peas) I planted out at the end of April are in full flow, so I used them instead of frozen peas, and the fresh red chilli came courtesy of my neighbour who presented me with a bag of them from her regular veg box order. NAH declared the result a success and I've decided the subtle flavour from the leeks makes for a more delicious stir-fry in future. The recipe follows... Ingredients   Oil spray for fry...

A little while ago I wrote about garden visits which suit both NAH and me. Little did I know within a few days of that post I'd find a whole holiday. Don't get me wrong, all our holidays are enjoyable, but Switzerland was exceptional. NAH could happily play on the mountain railways and cable cars all day, whilst I could take in everything nature wanted to show me. One day on a train journey up the mountain back to Wengen I caught NAH watching me with a smile on his face. 'What's up?', I asked him. 'I'm watching you taking it all in', he said. Little did he know that not only was I drinking in the gorgeous mountain views, I also had a running commentary playing in my head along the lines of: "That view is fabulous; that's a wild flower I have in my garden... there's another, it's clover; and that's a Campanula ; and there's a scabious like the one I have in my pots; here's a smaller version of the ox-eye daisy in my...

A philosophy for life and a poem to mark the New Year. You can read the full poem here (note especially the last line). The scene is part of Jephson Gardens in Leamington Spa, taken on NAH's 65th birthday last September. May 2019 be filled with dreams and wonders for you and yours 😊

NAH's Great Uncle - remembered especially today, one century on. Verchain is a tiny cemetery of just 110 men - Harry Taylor is at rest at E2 He was one of 15 men from the regiment killed whilst road clearing during the Battle of Valenciennes , one of the last fought in WW1 In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. Lt. Col John Alexander McRae (1872-1918) WWI Centenary Commemoration at Fleetwood, October 2018

Confession time: I've yet to visit Hauser and Wirth despite living quite close to Somerset. Until that day, I have the next best thing: the garden's story as written by my friend Victoria and photographed in glorious detail by Hugo Rittson Thomas in their latest book, The Secret Gardeners . Here, we're very much in the world of the arts and the celebrity, a place quite removed from mine. They're notable and successful people with money no object kind of gardens... but what links these gardeners with me is we still have a shared love of gardening. We love our gardens, and we have a desire to make these spaces our own and the best they could possibly be. Stressful lives and the ways a garden or the act of gardening can heal are also explored. Again, this is something that resonates strongly. So, which of the 25 gardens featured have stayed with me? Anything to do with the Branson family is a good bet as NAH broke Richard Branson's father's school swimmin...

Before: evidence of my shameful treatment of Aloe vera   I knew something was wrong when I found the pictured basket of Aloe vera on my kitchen chair recently, instead of the windowsill where it usually resides... "... What's that doing on my seat?", I asked NAH. "It's getting in the way, and I'm fed up. What is it anyway?" "It's Aloe vera . I keep it there in case we have a burn to treat." "And how many times have you used it?" "Er, none," was my shamefaced reply, "that's why it's got rather out of hand." Aloe vera is a tough succulent suitable for growing indoors in the UK. That pictured little lot goes back well over nine years, as I was given an offshoot to pot up by my GNO friend H well before I left my last permanent job. The only care I've taken since then was to pot up the pictured three pots of them grown from the original offshoot, and to trim the dead ends and leaves fr...

A tiny part of the job - 1 day's worth of leaves at the end of our side garden and part of the public land With autumn comes new seasonal tasks, especially the collection and disposal of leaves. This usually causes a moderately tense time here at VP Gardens as NAH likes things to be neat and tidy with not a fallen leaf in sight. I prefer the leaves to gather over time, so the task is completed in one go. It doesn't help that our neighbour puts us to shame most weekends by blowing the fallen leaves at the front of our properties onto the public land next door. I used to have a blower-come-collector-come-shredder for gathering the leaves up ready to make leaf mould, but I found it far too heavy to use. Since those days I've adopted a Compost Direct approach to autumn leaves, where I sweep them up into useful piles and then apply them directly to borders. It's easier, yet still hard work, best left for a cooler day when I need a good work out to keep warm. M...

There are 5 plants in my hanging basket by our front door  I'm pleased with the performance of the Petunia 'Night Sky' plants I've trialled this year. It was my pick of the bunch when I visited Thompson & Morgan in 2015 , and that early promise hasn't disappointed up close and personal back at home. Plants were quick to bloom and they've come back from some gross neglect on my part as I left them to flounder in 9cm pots for far too long. I finally got round to planting up my hanging basket in mid July, cutting back my stringy, yellowing plants to the first leaf (some of which were extremely scrappy) and as you can see, they've revived spectacularly. Some experts I've spoken to have questioned stability as the flowers are so variable. Graham Rice has tackled this with aplomb in his article linked to above. Apparently temperature is a factor which determines the form the flowers take, and if you look carefully in the above picture I have evi...

Helmsley Walled Garden - a wonderful place we visited whilst on holiday earlier this year Weekend Wandering : a new strand where I'll bring you some of my best articles away from the blog, or we'll stay here and look at a special place to go for a stroll. The restored glasshouses at Helmsley Walled Garden deserve a story of their own. If you'd prefer to stay on Veg Plotting , here are a few more pictures to show  Helmsley Walled Garden  has more than just glasshouses. Nestled below Helmsley Castle, it's a garden with a strong story, great beauty and atmosphere. NAH didn't mind me wandering off to take oodles of photos. "I'll just sit here" he said, "Take your time, it's peaceful". Can you spot him in the collage? We visited in June and there was plenty of promise of more to come

NAH adding the final touches ready for the big day Saturday was a big day for NAH as it was the official launch of his beloved steam engine, Sentinel 7109 . You may remember I featured her back in March , when she steamed for the first time. Since then, she's had a smart new coat of paint, had the all-important numbers and letters added, plus her nameplate fixed to the side. Official launches require a guest of honour, and NAH was delighted Paul Atterbury from Antiques Roadshow agreed to perform the ceremony. Paul has written several books on railways, so he was the ideal choice for the occasion, especially as NAH has one of his books (and got him to sign it!) As you can see, no expense was spared for the naming part of the proceedings. After a short speech and a quick flick of the pillowcase/peg combo, Joyce's name was revealed and Paul encouraged us to ReJoyce - trust NAH to coin the pun ;) Then as befits her location, Joyce was doused in the finest...