Veg Plotting

I'm celebrating Veg Plotting 's 18th birthday by kicking through the autumn leaves in the sunshine! My blog may have come of age today but I haven't 🤭 It was pouring with rain on that day; I much prefer today's weather and I love the buttery yellow leaves in the woodland next to our house. I hope there's sunshine wherever you are today 🥰

  It's been a while* since we visited the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail and we had a marvellous afternoon there last weekend following the waymarked trail and finding out which ones** from last year's temporary exhibition are still there. The trail's website says these will be absorbed into the main trail, which brings the sculpture total up to 20. It was great to find Michelle Cain 's Animal Shelter is one of them and it's inspired me to return to one of my favourite regular blog features, Friday Bench . Previously seen on Sign of the Times , I've decided to retire that blog because I think Instagram is the appropriate platform for most of that content nowadays***. Friday Bench is the exception, so please welcome my seated discoveries to their new home 😊 * = um, decades ** = we found four out of the eight *** = which has more of a VP out and about style about it

The New Year is the traditional time to review the time just gone, and I can't think of a better way than by showing you some of my favourite photos from my Instagram account. They're a nice mix of seasonal scenes from local walks; little vignettes courtesy of VP Gardens ; plus a few from our times away in Dorset and Yorkshire. It's good to be reminded of some of the good times after what has been another trying year for us all. May 2022 be a much better one for you and yours x

Firstly, thank you for reading Veg Plotting ! It's good to know you like the blog enough to subscribe. This month the service I use for emails and RSS feeds - Feedburner - is withdrawing the email facility, so I'm in the process of finding an alternative supplier and working through the (invisible to you) technical changes I need to do to keep everything working. Rest assured that the RSS feed - used to supply blog readers such as Feedly - remains unchanged. It's highly likely that the next email you receive will look different and from an email address which may arrive in your spam folder. It will also ask you to resubscribe to the email service. I'll blog again with more information and screenshots once I've worked everything out. In the meantime, comments are open below should you have any questions. Have a great weekend and I hope there's sunshine and good gardening wherever you are in the world. 

A little while ago I told you about my latest WI project - A Day in the Life - which I started in May and included a blog post about my day under full Lockdown conditions. I had an amazing response with over 31 women taking part, that's around two thirds of our membership. I then spent most of May and some of early June collating it all into a magazine called Lockdown Life .  The picture above shows the front cover with a photo of a local community mosaic which I chose as its colours are similar in tone to everything else. It was such fun to do and I learnt a lot as it was my first attempt at such a thing; I now have a much greater appreciation of the editorial process.  The magazine's reception has been amazing and I even got to talk about it on local radio recently! It's also going into the Covid-19 archives at our local library, museum and history centre, so we've definitely made our mark on the history of these strange times. So how did I make the magazine? It was ...

Last year I took part in the first #springnaturediary , an Arts and Humanities Research Council project which is also taking contributions this year. I'm chuffed last year's diary made the final cut and can be read as part of an illustrated booklet. Now the world has changed for us all and it's useful to mark these strange times with another entry for this year's diary. Read on and you'll see everything has changed for me in another significant way. NAH had a heart attack on our wedding anniversary in early March and against the background of the looming Coronavirus pandemic - declared as such the day after on my birthday - I wanted to record a moment in our increasingly shrinking world. Thankfully NAH's home now and started on the slow road to recovery. It was obvious the hospital was beginning to make preparations for the pandemic whilst he was there. All that can't be squeezed into a 150 word entry which focuses on the vernal equinox, but there is...

I'm delighted to be the next stop on the blog tour of Tamsin Westhorpe's new book, Diary of a Modern Country Gardener . I have to declare an interest here: I know Tamsin well and I've visited the garden in question - Stockton Bury Gardens in Herefordshire - twice, but don't worry dear reader, my thoughts on Tamsin's wonderfully warm and witty diary would still be the same if I didn't know her or the garden from Adam. Designers often talk about finding the sense of place in their designs. Stockton Bury Gardens is firmly rooted in its farming landscape which has been in the stewardship of the family for 5 generations. You get a sense of both over her gardening year which starts in February. She isn't afraid of telling a warts and all story and her personality and sense of humour are woven into every page. Once you've stopped chuckling at her tales, you'll find yourself inspired to get out there and garden, even if it means getting caked in mud, ...

Today is National Poetry Day and this year's theme is 'Truth'. I've chosen Rudyard Kipling's poem at the end of the Elephant's Child because its guidance helped me through most of my career. When I worked in IT I'd often write What, Where, When, How, Why and Who at the top of my notebook when I went off to meetings, especially at the start of a project. I was even given a nickname -  Mrs Why  - by my colleagues! Before then I must have had them in my subconscious as a scientist, and I've since realised these simple words are at the heart of my blogging too. Now they're worth bearing in mind when reading and watching anything on the internet 😉 I took the photo at the top of this post earlier in the year; staring out of our bedroom window to the birch tree at the bottom of our garden is where you'll often find me pondering... or day dreaming. There's a display of poetry in Chippenham's shop windows today. I'll take a stro...

I giggled when I looked at this photo when I got home as the autofocus on my camera chose the Stipa over the distant Rhinoceros . Perhaps my camera has got too used to plants being the usual focus of my attention? I also giggled at the time because a rhino and Stipa are an unusual garden combination. However, in this instance perhaps it's not so unusual as I was invited to a bloggers gathering to celebrate the gardens at Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens . Ever since I've known Harriet was weaving her potted plant magic at the Park, it's been on my list to visit. Animals and plants, who can resist? Now she and Head Gardener Tim Miles have written their own celebration of the gardens and were keen to share their enthusiasm with us. We weren't disappointed on the day and their book is a delight which forms a lovely souvenir. It's also a sneaky way of inviting us back as there are choice shots of the Park through the seasons. Here are just a few of ...

I'm back from a fabulous week spent in Denver at this year's Garden Bloggers Fling . The gardens - as usual - were amazing, but many of us found other stars of the show in the shape of the ever present mountain views and huge skies over the plains we passed through. It's a deceptive landscape because the flatter looking land hides the fact we were at an altitude of over 5,000 feet. Now I'm back I can understand the benefits of living that high: my regular Zumba class yesterday felt much easier and I could work harder without getting puffed! This is a view from one of the private gardens we visited in the Boulder area and illustrates perfectly the importance of using the borrowed view in garden design. The owners of this property and many more we saw ensured they made the best of their natural resources, both in terms of scenery and local geology. You can see the clouds building up over the mountains which brought rumbles of thunder in the afternoon and just...

There's hardly a day that goes by when I marvel at the strangeness of blogging and social media. It's attracted a lot of attention recently for its downsides, but today I'd like to celebrate its positive side. When I tentatively set foot online with my blog in 2007, I never thought it would give me all kinds of opportunities; best of all are all the new friends I've made here in the UK and all over the world, all connected by a love of nature and gardening. One of the earliest of these was Lucy, who has a wonderfully different way of looking at the world and generously shares it via her blogs and photos . I had the good fortune to visit her and her family a couple of times when they lived in Weymouth, but now they are much further away in Halifax. Those of you who read or create Tree Following posts may not know that it was Lucy who created this meme, which has helped many of us slow down and view one object over time and in finer detail; something she does ...

On Wednesday I took part in a project commissioned by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. They invited anyone and everyone to write a quick 150 word nature diary to mark this year's spring equinox. Regular readers know I love this kind of project, reminiscent of the fun we had with #MyGardenRightNow a couple of years ago. You can read my [lightly edited] entry below. 80+ submissions and photos from around the country are available here . It's a wonderful celebration of this year's arrival of spring. How's spring (or autumn) looking in your neighbourhood? Today's dawn was special as the first chiffchaff of spring announced its arrival. It's a fitting way to celebrate the vernal equinox. Nature's changing so fast now. The apple boughs have just burst into leaf and my herb bed tells me there'll be mint for our potatoes this Sunday. My small urban garden is full of microclimates; demonstrated admirably today by my potted St George...

Write away is an occasional series on my writing experiences and what I've learned along the way. It's inspired from joining a WI writing group last year, who've gently taken me to all kinds of places and forms of writing I never thought I'd go. In this post, I'm going to tell you a little more about the practical side to my recent Postcard from Fishguard , where I joined a workshop aimed at gaining an income from travel writing... My previous experience of writing workshops isn't good; for me they usually result in writers' block, so I approached a whole weekend immersed in the world of writing with some trepidation. I needn't have worried - and once again I did have a (temporary) block - sympathetic and knowledgeable tutors, a great location (and weather!) with the company of 50 or so like minded people made the whole weekend an enjoyable one. Our tutor Simon Whaley created a relaxed vibe for his class of just two ladies. He has a ...

Last year I joined a creative writing group. Unlike my friends, writing fiction at first was way outside my comfort zone. Listening to the birdsong from my bed one morning, led to this piece of longform nature writing instead. It seems fitting to offer it to you in celebration of this year's Big Garden Birdwatch  which takes place this weekend. The links below will take you to the RSPB's information and birdsong audio file of each bird mentioned, so you can listen along as well as read. One day - possibly in January and definitely by February - there's a sense that spring is beginning to win its fight with winter. At last there's a hint of warmth behind the sunshine and the air seems washed clean, leaving a sky of benign blue. The clincher for me is the first song of the year from the great tit . You may know it; the loud call which sounds like a squeaky gate or a wonky wheelbarrow. It sounds clear and true in the trees at the side of our garden, and someti...

My article in ⁦ @weekendmagazine ⁩ on terrariums. Thank you ⁦ @jarandfern ⁩ and the wonderful ⁦ @VegPlotting ⁩ for a fun afternoon hunting out house plants! pic.twitter.com/xrkwP5D9kv — Constance CraigSmith (@Concraigsmith) January 5, 2019 Lovely mention of Veg Plotting in this weekend's Mail. We had a great time investigating how to make a terrarium with Jar and Fern late last year. Naturally, a terrarium is now on my project list for 2019. I need to investigate suitable sized plants first...

I had a great day at Malvern Autumn Show last weekend. Head on over to my dedicated Malvern blog for more...

Yesterday's gardening section in The Telegraph was HUGE! I had a little slot in there thanks to my friend Naomi . Sadly the weather forecast is against most of the tasks mentioned, though today's weather looks generally OK for a spot of raised bed making or plot mulching*, and there's plenty of opportunity for sowing seeds indoors**. It was so relaxing (and less painful currently) to do this over the phone rather than bashing it out on the computer. Thanks to Naomi who did the latter as well as our call. There are lots more hints and tips here  -  not just from me - with some that are doable whatever the weather. Note that the full online version is only available to subscribers. As NAH says, now I've got to get on with it myself. What are your garden projects this weekend? * = unless you have a broken wrist ** = which I will be doing... gingerly!

I'm easing back slowly* into bloggage again. There's been lots of reading over the past couple of months, and my sole foray into garden-related-ish activities was to make some fun, delicious cocktails and mocktails for WI last week. These went down well, and I thought you'd like to see the recipe leaflet I put together, especially as many of you'll have family gatherings and get togethers planned over Easter. I couldn't resist tweaking slightly Marc Diacono's gin recipe using Seville oranges to make 'marmalade gin' from his late January newsletter . Mine is a cheeky nod to the 'Jam and Jerusalem' WI stereotype, which is so far from the reality in ours. Flavoured gins whether distilled or infused are super trendy and I've found the latter are easy to make**. After a month of infusing, marmalade gin makes a fine Tom Collins . You don't need to wait until next January to make a start on your own as the usual oranges available can b...

Sometimes fate conspires to take us in an unexpected direction, just like it has with my quest for fitness this year. In the last five minutes of a 5 week trial of walking netball, my feet got carried away in chasing after a ball. I eventually crashed into a cupboard then onto the concrete floor. Ouch. I've got off relatively lightly. My pride at playing a better and swifter game suddenly came crashing down, which is a good lesson to learn. The more obvious results are a goth-like face without the need for make-up, minor concussion, bruised knees and a fractured wrist. 10 days later, yesterday at last brought good news... the bone has stayed in place without pinning, so I can look forward to 5 more weeks in a plaster cast. No driving in that time and no return to netball for around 3 months. As is my usual wont, I'm concentrating on what I can do rather than what I can't. However, I'm also having to face up to reality. What I need to do in the garden is out of th...

I was really happy when Barbara gave me an unusual looking Pilea peperomiodes aka Chinese Money Plant last summer. Little did I know then just how cool and trendy they are, being at the forefront of the houseplant revival. They even have a dedicated Pilea Lovers page on Instagram with over 21,000 Followers - it's not often you'll find me amongst the hipsters! I nearly wrote an article on my new treasure back then, but Jane beat me to it with a far more comprehensive guide than I could have managed with loads of links to further information. Jack's written a great blog post on how to divide them too. When I noticed my plant wasn't looking quite as happy as it should as you can see above photo, I knew just the right people to consult on Twitter, along with Andrew who's acquired quite a houseplant collection recently. From their replies it's clear I am a perfect example of how not to look after a Pilea as follows: Place it on your sunniest wind...