Veg Plotting

I do love a foliage wreath on our front door, and as a result I've accumulated an enormous stash of decorative bits over the years saved 'just in case for later', to include: a straw ring; tons of cones; various baubles; ribbons; and other bits and bobs. They've threatened to jump out of the basket on the top shelf of my study for quite a while now, so it was high time I did something with them instead. The result now adorns our front door to welcome us home; it's all from my saved bits, plus a crochet sleeve added to the straw ring for protection and for easier decoration. I'm quite pleased with the result and NAH particularly likes the jingling of the added bells whenever we open or close the door. I even had enough left over to make a smaller wreath for indoors - this one is on the door into my craft room/study. - with another crocheted sleeve to hide the wirework circle I'd stashed away in the cupboard... ... and then there are the fused glass stars I ma...

We had a lovely welcome home from the garden in the shape of these bulbalicious hyacinths greeting us at our front door when we returned from Italy. It was a serendipitious moment as I'd originally bought them to decorate our kitchen when Helen  came to stay back in February. However, our cat Skipper was paying them far too much attention, so I moved them to the hanging basket out front. The cooler weather there meant they've only started to bloom recently, and most welcome they are too. Once flowering is over, I'm taking a top tip learnt from my time at West Green House and planting them out in the border. I have a plan to revamp the front garden after last year's box demise and these will go there alongside a couple of ferns I have languishing in pots out the back. Waste not want not as they say. These are not the only bulbs I've been chatting about recently. Over on Insta I'm celebrating the pictured  poet's daffodil  posing on my windowsill as one of m...

From my door to your home, I hope this time is as merry and bright as it can be under the current circumstances. This year's wreath is foraged greenery on a straw base with ornaments saved from previous ones. It's bearing up remarkably well after nearly 3 weeks despite no moss or oasis base to keep the foliage moist. New-to-me greenery used in this way are the Clematis 'Winter Beauty' I pulled from the pergola, plus lots of fragrant rosemary from a friend's garden. I spent a lovely morning at my neighbours recently where we all managed to create something beautiful for our front doors in aid of Dorothy House , a cause dear to her heart as they looked after her late husband so well. Enjoy the turning of the year towards the lighter days again and I'll see you in 2022!

Fun times with friends (thanks for the photo, Clare) and a festive Slovenia made for a very special time when we visited recently. As you can see Bled was both festive and green, and being a garden blogger it's natural that I should celebrate both with this post about my travels there. Let's see what I found... We loved the Christmas lights in Ljubljana, with each street having its own theme. One had musical notes to accompany the classical music being played there; another had planets, comets and galaxies which made the crowd go 'Oooh!' when they were switched on in the early evening. The pictured street was more intriguing, with it's double DNA helix, a sperm, a nucleus, and a female egg. Too bad we found out just a few hours before we were to leave that there's a guided walk around the lights , which reveals the artist Zmago Modic's intentions. I'm speculating that as a Catholic country, this represents the immaculate conception. There ...

Even on a dull, drizzly winter's day, this cactus brightens up this street scene in Bristol. It's made out of scaffolding covers and plastic tags and was constructed in November last year by artist Duncan McKellar. It replaced a large pineapple on the site. I see a theme developing here... ... see that tiny shot of pink? Want a closer look? Here you are 😘

Huge piles of wood fibre awaiting their turn to make peat-free compost - the darker the pile, the older it is Like many gardeners I try to be peat-free. It's not always successful - for instance I still have to get it right with seed composts - but on the whole my results have been OK so far. Sadly a couple of years ago I found the gardeners' usual peat-free of choice - New Horizon - had become less consistent and more twiggy in its constitution. Boo hoo. So last year I was pleased to find a new product on the market - SylvaGrow ® - which is produced locally by Melcourt Industries Ltd just outside Tetbury. Naturally I invited myself along to see for myself, where their Technical Director, Catherine Dawson kindly showed me around. Beautifully dark fibre ready for adding to the mix - and not a twig in sight It turns out this is the product many peat-free nurseries have used for years and was the source of their bewilderment when ordinary gardeners like me admitted...

It's not often the worlds of two of my passions, freshwater biology and gardening coincide, but they did last week when Threadspider and I took one of our regular trips to our local garden centre. Here we are at the Garden Bygones section where all kinds of items are for sale. This is the place where I bought my vintage potato fork a few years back and I'm always tempted to buy some of the old apple boxes. The strange looking contraption you can see in the photo is a salmon fish trap used on the River Severn during the 1950s. I was rather surprised to find a couple of metal ones on display as I've only seen ones woven from willow before. You can see the more traditional structure and an explanation of the fishing here . I felt rather sad to see them as it probably means someone has stopped fishing the Severn in the traditional way: it's a technique that's dying out as and when the fishermen retire. However, looking on the bright side using them for a different pur...

There's been some concern in the media over the past couple of days about the risks of contracting Legionnaire's disease from growing media (aka compost) bought from garden centres. This isn't new (I saw it first reported in 2008) or proven, but it's re-emerged recently owing to a report published last week in Eurosurveillance . It summarises three cases reported in Scotland in 2008/9 where inhaling the Legionella bacterium via water droplets from wet compost is thought to have been the cause. Three cases in a couple of years suggests the risk for any of us catching the disease from our compost is extremely low. The most common way people catch it is via the air conditioning or water system in a major building such as an office or hospital. Note it's not contagious as it's transmitted via the inhalation of contaminated water droplets. However, if anyone's still concerned, you might like to have a look here on the NHS website. What concerns me more is t...

Rach reminded me yesterday it's a couple of years since I posted about how difficult it is to get clear information about recycling plastic . In that time it has got a little better as companies have started to label their packaging more clearly with recycling details. Or have they? Rach's excellent post showed one labelling scheme in operation, but this morning I noticed another one as used by the supermarket chain, Morrison's. Which packet do you think can be recycled? The one on the right perhaps? Wrong. Despite the green tick and the smiley face the small print actually says: Not recyclable everywhere yet. To find out about recycling in your area visit www.recyclenow.com . As you may have guessed, I'm a little annoyed. I wonder how many people just go on the visual cues and happily recycle that bag with a warm eco-friendly glow as they do so? What are the consequences of that action? We seem to be experiencing a plethora of different labelling schemes for recy...

The adorable Tilly - an 11-week old labradoodle - has entered our next door neighbours' lives recently, so they've had to have a rethink of the contents of their garden as many of the plants are toxic to dogs . I offered to take all the branches of one inch thickness or less and I also collected those they'd pruned from where my Fuchsia was overhanging their drive: it's been full of wasps lately and proving to be a hazard to any passengers getting out of their car. I set to this morning with my shredder and now have three enormous bags of chippings to mulch some of my paths up at the allotment. And because I've saved my neighbours from a trip to the tip, I've been invited round for Sunday lunch, plus more fun and games with Tilly. Result!

I'd been mulling over how it was a shame not to make better use of the lemons from my elderflower cordial last week. I considered the possibility of making some lemon marmalade , but NAH wasn't keen on the idea as he's more of a jam man. Then the heatwave struck and my thoughts turned to ice cream. A lightbulb went on in my head - how about making lemon sorbet? I consulted my trusty Good Housekeeping Cookery Book . Result - not only was there an easy peasy recipe, it needed the same number of lemons as I'd used for my second batch of cordial. The outcome is absolutely delicious and as I've reused one of the main ingredients, I've essentially made a luxury item for just a few pence per portion. I'll give you the original recipe and then show you how I adapted it for using my leftovers. Ingredients 225g (8oz) sugar Grated rind and juice of 4 lemons 2 egg whites 600 ml (1 pint) water Method Dissolve the sugar in the water over a low heat, then bri...

Monica from Garden Faerie's Musings asked me last week if I lifted my Dahlias for the winter, so I thought I'd show you today what I've been up to over the weekend. The usual garden advice for the UK is to lift them, trim off the top foliage and any rotting tubers, and store them in sand or peat (or an alternative, more eco-friendly compost) in a frost-free garage or shed for the winter. Being a gardener of the lazier sort and fortunate enough to live in the south west of England (I reckon it's about zone 8, for those of you reading this over the pond), I've decided to leave my Dahlias in the ground to overwinter, just like I've done for the past few years. They're in the terraced part of the garden, so this is a warmer, more sheltered spot for them anyway. In order to ensure their survival until the spring, I give them a thick snuggly duvet like the one shown in the picture. I've cut off the blackened foliage and stems from last week and then covered ...

A while ago I wrote about how I'd found that Wiltshire was the only entire county in the country without any means to recycle Tetra Pak cartons . In shock at this finding, I wrote to both Tetra Pak and Wiltshire County Council at the time asking why this was the case. Today I'm pleased to report that the 10 Household Recycling Centres in the county are now taking these cartons . Just in time too - I was just about to post this little lot off to Tetra Pak. From now on I'll just need to put them in the specific bin for the purpose at the recycling centre when I take my other stuff up there :) I hope my letters helped to make this difference. Next stop - getting them included in the house to house recycling collections like some of the more enlightened local authorities do.

The return of the winter chills sent me indoors again. I'm desperate to continue with pruning everything back in the garden. However, I can't stand wearing gloves - I like to be able to feel what I'm doing. So, a quick Google yesterday afternoon came up with the pattern for these Cheats' fingerless gloves + some left over wool from at least 20 years ago = problem solved in a couple of hours! Update: the link no longer works so here's my version of the knitting pattern: You need some spare wool + 1 pair size 4mm knitting needles and a tape measure Firstly measure around the widest part of your hand. This will tell you how wide your knitting needs to be 1. Cast on enough stitches for the size of glove needed (if you don't know what this is, knit a tension square , so you can work out how many stitches you work per inch). Make sure you cast on an even number of stitches 2. Knit 2, purl 2 rib until your work measures 1.5 inches in length 3. Knit 1 row 4. Purl 1 row...

This week's good weather stirred me into taking February's stash out of my storage tin and pondering what to sow first. I decided on a quick small row of carrots ( Early Nantes 2) to go in a sheltered spot on the patio. The icy blast that greeted me when I went outside yesterday, galvanised me into making the pictured bottle cloche. I made a couple of wire pegs from a mangled coat hanger I found in the airing cupboard to pin the cloche in place. Coming soon: Home-made guttering for peas!

Now I've got my plot plan together and the weather's got better, I've been getting to grips with the vast pile of muck hidden under this black tarpaulin. 12 beds need to have a thick layer added ready for spring digging - 3 down, 9 to go! I get my muck from 'Mr Manure', named as such by NAH, after the farmer presented me with his home made business card (simply saying 'Manure' + telephone number + suspicious brown smudge) the first time he delivered a trailer load to my plot. The weather's set fair for the next few days, so guess what I'll be doing!

I shredded loads of prunings yesterday afternoon, plus most of next door's Christmas tree. The trunk made some nice logs for a wildlife wood pile . I'm always taking in the neighbours' woody material to make mulch . NAH thinks I'm mad, but with lots of paths to maintain between my allotment beds, I know it makes sense. This little lot only covered 1.5 paths, so there's still some way to go yet!

Problem #1 - The allotment's a windy site, so the tarpaulin covering my muck heap keeps on blowing away Problem #2 - I've run out of bricks to weigh the tarpaulin down Solution - reuse loads of my plastic bottles filled three quarters full of water as brick substitutes Problem solved :)

For the past few years, NAH and I have made a new family tradition - the big New Year Clearout. This involves tidying up, putting away and getting rid of anything that's surplus to requirements. As a result the first charity bag through the door in the New Year gets filled to the brim with clothes, books and anything else useful they might like to have. We've had a couple of variations on the theme this year. Firstly NAH would like to use part of the garage as a workshop, so he's sold some of its contents through the intranet at work to clear some space. Secondly, we've fitted in a trip to IKEA to fetch home Billy (see picture - aren't IKEA's product names amusing!) to store my vast booklog - now over 50 volumes. A miracle happened during our visit - everything we needed was in stock and I didn't get into a bad mood. I just find the whole IKEA experience very annoying and so we keep our visits to a bare minimum. We've still to complete our endeavours, b...

My posting yesterday covered plastics recyclable at Wiltshire's main household recycling centres. This posting concerns the perennial problem about what to do with all those pesky plastic bags. Unfortunately I don't live in Tisbury, where they're going plastic bag free from tomorrow (hurray for Tisbury!), the first place in Wiltshire to do so. However, I do spend lots of my time in shops saying 'no thanks, I've bought my own bags' - supermarkets and most shops handle this remark very well, but my local garden centre thinks I'm mad. In spite of all this, I still accumulate lots of plastic film (plastic type 4, or LDPE) - from cat food wrappings, vegetable bags, subscription magazine wrappers etc etc. I asked Sainsburys earlier in the year just what could be put in their plastic bag recycling boxes. Luckily, all of the above can be put in there, so I now do so after removing any labels or sticky ties first. I suggest you do too if your local supermarket has ...