Veg Plotting

I have a new alter ego in the shape of Stick Me . She was created for British Heart Foundation 's Strong Woman Challenge in April to bring in a bit of fun and help document progress. Seeing my first alter ego was VP , I wonder if any future ones will also have to rhyme? 😉 My drawing skills aren't that great, especially when it comes to people so it was fun to acknowledge that and still have something useful for my intended purpose. The drawing above is Stick Me 's latest incarnation for my review of progress for October's Strong Woman challenge compared to April's achievements. As you can see, I'm very happy! I wasn't in a happy place at the start of April due to the effects of Long Covid plus shoulder problems due to hypermobility; the Challenge showed the start of a return to health again and October's challenge shows real progress. Over £300,000 was raised from October's Challenge and I'm happy to continue with the monthly donation I've b...

I spent an amazing couple of days at RHS Chelsea helping Naomi with the planting tasks for her Flood Resilient garden . This is what I learned along the way... Have hi viz, will travel! Luckily I didn't need to borrow NAH's heavy duty railworking hi viz jacket and trousers (on standby in case it really poured with rain), nor did I need a hard hat as I was working after the main construction phase. I had to take an online site safety course and test before being allowed on site It's good to travel comfortably and wait until the last moment to don your heavy steel capped boots. Even better when you find a bench at Chelsea Barracks to do so whilst admiring their fab Chihuly glass installation at their Spring Festival Have a spare pair of steel capped boots available when the rubber tread on your day one boots drops off on the way home. Luckily I was by the Barracks when this happened and could swiftly change into my trainers. Even luckier is my shoe size is almost the same as ...

It's citizen science week here at VP Gardens as I've signed up to take part in The Big Plastic Count which starts today. The aim of the count is to gather data from as many households as possible on how much and the kinds of plastic we throw away as part of our everyday lives. Around 150,000 households are said to be taking part, including myself and at least one of my friends. Once the results are in, the organisations involved will have a better picture of the scale of the problem we face here in the UK. They also will have better facts to take to government (both local and national) and the organisations who create or use the plastic - such as food companies - to lobby for alternative packaging solutions. Like with any project of this kind I'm sure the results will lead to further questions and the potential need to drill down further in the data. Whilst there are 19 categories of plastic in the survey, many of them are quite broad and only give an idea of numbers not ...

One of my personal Lockdown challenges last month was to create a banner for International Women's Day (today) to illustrate a WI campaign which has meaning. Naturally, the most garden related one was the one I picked, especially as the 2009 campaign SOS for Honeybees originates from a Wiltshire WI. I've only recently come across the term craftivism , a gentler, more mindful way of making a point about an issue or to raise awareness of it. I'm particularly struck by the work of Sarah Corbett and her Craftivist Collective  and it was a couple of her talks plus the recent BBC4 documentary on the subject which inspired my own banner making. I was keen to show something more practical which anyone could go away and do, hence the central message about growing pollen-rich flowers in the garden. But which flowers are pollen-rich? This is a subject I plan to return to from time to time this year here on the blog as I look into the subject more. I made a good start last week for Mu...

With our third Lockdown in full swing it's easy to start thinking about the places we can't go and slip into the slough of despond. Once again, I've found walking and the #walk1000miles challenge offers me a way out of this sad state of affairs. We're currently confined much closer to home and my neighbourhood's muddy pathways* have turned my thoughts towards alternatives to get some rest from them. As a result I've revived one of my walking projects, namely to walk on every street in Chippenham aka 'street bashing'**. It's turned what could be seen as boring urban walks into regular treasure troves. It's surprising what discoveries can be made just by being forced to look more closely at the everyday familiar***. Streets with nature names like Primrose Way and Willowbank have proved an avenue of pleasure and it's been fun to try and match the real thing to the names on my travels. This week, I'm walking in an area of town where the stree...

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...

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 ...

Today is the last day of National Gardening Week and this year's theme of edible growing. To celebrate, I've posted daily photos on Twitter, plus some on Instagram and it's great to use this post to look over the week and see the visual diary of what's happening in my garden right now. What you won't find is the confession I've waited a while to tell you: I gave up my allotment last year. I cried when I made the decision, but my renewed enthusiasm for gardening this year shows it's the right one. You'll see from the photo at the top of this post that I brought my lovely Woodblocx raised bed back home. It soon became clear that I didn't have the right space for it here, but there is a very happy spot available for it in the community garden at Midsomer Norton station, which is where NAH has his steam engine. I look forward to going there later this year to see how it's settling into its new home. So now I have an exciting new...

We're almost at peak snowdrop here at VP Gardens and I'm pleased to see the ones I've guerrilla gardened on the side bank are beginning to bulk up nicely. I plan to help the smaller clumps in the above photo and beyond by burying their seed heads into the leaf litter in a week or two's time. I love how the ones at the top of the side garden have begun to throw themselves over the boundary and join their cousins on the bank below. There's no helping hand needed from me here, but maybe I will. Meanwhile in the back garden, the planned combinations are beginning to take shape. I gave the cyclamen a helping hand a couple of seasons ago and they're beginning to take off in their allotted space beneath the winter honeysuckle. It's made me appreciate how much hard work goes into the enormous spreads of cyclamen I've seen underneath the trees at Hodsock Priory , and more recently at Wakehurst . This year I have another snowdrop dream... in t...

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 😊

The weather's turned colder this week and most of the autumn leaves are down, ready to add their mulch to the garden over the winter months. I took a few snaps recently to show you as my final celebration of this season's gifts. This post serves as a final record of the Berberis thunbergii 'Gold Ring' at the bottom of the garden. It comes into its own at this time of the year with the most incredible fireglow to warm this gardener's heart. However, who in their right mind adds a thorny shrub to one of their main garden beds? Well, I added three of them and it's high time I corrected that mistake. I'll ponder a replacement shrub over the winter; something with similar fireworks is my intention. Ideas anyone? Elsewhere the wispy silver birches I can see from my bedroom window are being their usual seasonal barometer. I spend more time than I should simply watching them and I love seeing how they change with each season and the sky behind them. ...

Brent geese take flight at sunset at Keyhaven nature reserve, Hampshire, late November 2017. "Do something today your future self will thank you for" ~ Unknown. This is a great quote for New Year's Day and the ultimate resolution! Looking at the last few Muse Days I've posted, it's obvious I'm ripe for trying out new things, just like I was when I started this blog. I've signed up to try walking netball and Rock Choir already, and I'm looking forward to the Try Something New event at the Neeld Hall soon. I wonder if this is the year I finally pluck up my courage and go to the Chippenham Ukuleles sessions ('scuse pun). Garden and travelwise, I'm looking forward to a trip to Ashwood Nurseries in February and the Garden Bloggers Fling in Texas in May. It'll be interesting to see gardens from a totally different climate to mine, as well as experiencing what Texas has to offer, Austin in particular. I'm going to try growin...

The Town Bridge's design echoes the 22 arches of the bridge it replaced... but is it art? The past few months I've been wandering all over Chippenham looking for its public art. According to Wikipedia there are just 7 pieces for me to photograph. I currently have 49 items on my spreadsheet and the war memorial on Wikipedia 's list is excluded from the scope of my survey. It's a heartening quest as I thought there'd be just 15-20 items for me to discover, though as the sole Chippenham volunteer on Creative Wiltshire 's project, progress is slower than I'd like. I'm also questioning exactly what counts as art; it's quite broad in the project's scope, so I've included transient items such as festivals, art exhibitions, graffiti and yarnbombing. The ownership section is proving quite tricky. Who exactly owns a piece created via a community project? In some instances the Town Council maintains these pieces on the community's beha...

I came across this quote recently when I was noodling around for yesterday's Muse Day , and decided that as it's Veg Plotting 's 10th birthday, it's more appropriate for this post. It's a great reminder of what I've tried to do since that fateful day 10 years ago when I resigned from my job. It was Scary. Unknown. Dark. ~ ~ ~ Explore. Dream. Discover. That's a much better attitude to have. I'm amused the esteemed writer Mark Twain started one of his sentences with 'So'. Beware the wrath of certain people who comment on garden blogs, who'll say that's sloppy writing. I'll also add a frowned upon emoji for good measure because I'm in that kind of mood ;) Colleen wrote a great piece earlier this week about gratitude . I love her posts; they're wonderfully observant, lyrical and comforting. She wrote about her gratitude journal, something I kept for a while many moons ago, which thanks to her I've opened again. Toda...

Some days are destined to be extra special and the last day of September was one of them. Not only did I get to swan around a secret garden in the heart of London, I - along with twenty or so other garden bloggers - had the good fortune to meet Monty Don and preview his latest book,  Down to Earth . What a perfect setting the Ham Yard Hotel turned out to be... ...nestled close to Piccadilly Circus and whisked up to the fourth floor, there's a different world waiting to be explored. It's a beautiful, productive roof garden complete with a bug hotel, bee hives and a green roof on the shed. It was a great space to explore with my blogging buddies and unlike my poor tomatoes, the hotel's were still going strong with not a hint of blight. I also envied the huge aubergines and curly chillies in the display. There was plentiful space for entertaining, though we were too busy chatting and enjoying the warm afternoon in the garden to move onto the inviting sofas. The...

I'm still getting to grips with dahlias as a cut flower and it's important I do as they're the one flower still pumping out masses of blooms this late in the season. I've found picking time is crucial to success - too early and the flowers don't open; too late and they simply fall apart. They're not the longest lasting bloom either, but they form an important connection with mum as dad used to help organise the annual dahlia show where he worked. Reaction has proved key to success for my Flowers for Mum project this year. As well as the dahlias, bright blooms get a thumbs up, as does anything with a scent or strokeable leaves. Sadly mum's special Portmeirion vase has gone AWOL for the time being; she loves pointing out the bee and butterfly in the design, so I hope it returns to her room soon. My kitchen windowsill is now a colourful laboratory where I test which flowers last well in the vase. Whilst I have plenty of cut flower books to guide me, it...