Veg Plotting

What an amazing response to #mygardenrightnow over the weekend! We nearly doubled the participants from March, and more than doubled the number of entries across social media. Twitter and Instagram in particular exploded into life and as a result it's taken me a while to catch up with you all. Roses are most definitely the bloom of the moment with geraniums and lavender running a close second. It's harder to pinpoint a produce favourite, lettuce or beans possibly. We also had some early harvest action - strawberries plus various salad leaves and herbs. A mainly sunny weekend saw you out enjoying your gardens in many ways, with washing lines being a new notable feature alongside various garden toys. It's great to see real gardens being used by all family members and for all kinds of purposes. Sadly there was no anticipated barbecue activity, but a rather nice bonfire finished off Sunday's efforts. Here in the UK we awoke to horrific news yesterday morning, which...

Ahhhhhh, that's better! I love walking through dewy grass in bare feet, not that there's much in the way of grass on my back lawn this weekend. My wild and woolly lawn has morphed into meadow of sorts this month, which even NAH admits looks attractive*. It's also proved a great source for my Flowers for mum project so far, yielding self-sown perennial cornflowers, lamb's ears, and lemon balm in addition to the blooms you can see. These originated from elsewhere in the garden, the ox-eye daisies must have blown in from the A350 nearby. * = he got very stroppy about the weeds aka self-sown foxgloves in the lawn one year, so he's come along a bit since then. Skimble's demanding to say hello to you too. He does enjoy the patio when it warms up. If the embedded video doesn't work try this link instead. The Nectaroscordum are a revelation. I planted the bulbs around 2 years ago, but it's only this year they've bloomed properly. The bee...

Back by popular demand, the second #mygardenrightnow weekend is upon us! This time we're doing it as a Chelsea Fringe event because it's a cool project, worthy of inclusion in their wonderful activities. It's so cool we've even made The Guardian ! The principle is the same as before. All you need to do is take a photo of yourself in your garden sometime this weekend, then blog about it or post on your favourite social media (choose from Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram) on Saturday or Sunday and let me know when you've posted your effort. Last time we had plenty of mud, puddles, leeks and crocuses. Who knows what we'll see this time? I hope there'll be lots of evidence of you enjoying your garden as this project is all about celebrating real gardens as used and loved by real gardeners. I'll post my effort tomorrow, along with a Mr Linky to add your blog posts. I'll also patrol the #mygardenrightnow hashtag on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram...

Victoria cruziana water lily settling into the warmth of the glasshouse at Bristol Botanic Garden.  A couple of weeks ago I went to the launch of the Bristol based slice of this year's Chelsea Fringe . It was great to visit the  University of Bristol Botanic Garden  again, as well as hearing about the plans for the festival. Chelsea Fringe is now in its fifth year and Bristol has been involved from the start. It's great to see the Botanic Garden is joining in whole heartedly this year - you may remember Andy and the team joined in with my Shows of Hands online event 2 years ago. Their events include the launch of 2016's Floating Ballast Seed Garden in Castle Park this Saturday, plus a wall plaque workshop and oil tasting events on 28th May at the garden. There's also a photography exhibition by Howard Sooley in the garden's cafe throughout the festival. My favourite event from the launch was the giant watering can which now graces the check-in area ...

Discussing Shows of Hands with Naomi Slade at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in April. At the same time Lynn Keddie took a similar shot, which illustrated perfectly why she's the professional photographer and I'm not. The photo is uncropped to maximise the errors on view. Many thanks to everyone who took part in my Shows of Hands project for this year's Chelsea Fringe. Your response has been amazing with 41 contributions from 33 people and organisations via blogs, email, Facebook and Twitter. When Shows of Hands was announced I promised you a final collage, or something. As your response was so big and because I've used plenty of collages throughout the project, I've decided the finale should be or something. I hope you enjoy the following selection of images. Shows of Hands for Chelsea Fringe 2014 (Click on the link if the embedded version doesn't work - this will open in a new window. There's 39 slides for you to click through at you...

Veronica 's photo for Shows of Hands chimes with the  hot topic of discussion this week. She says: My hand is pointing to very heavily nibbled courgette plant. Bloody slugs. It's possibly the worst picture I've ever taken but it's the spirit of the event that counts! Aren't slugs and snails a real pain this year? I'm on my second sowing of courgettes and squashes as mine got nibbled to death when I put them outside to harden off. The jury's out on whether my wasabi up at the plot will ever recover. I'm also keeping a close eye on my dahlias which are just beginning to push their noses out of the soil - they're usually the slug dinner of choice if I'm not careful. As "Mad-Eye" Moody would say, "Constant vigilance!" is required. Thanks Veronica for capturing the mood of the moment with your photo. There's still a couple of days left for anyone else wanting to contribute to Shows of Hands . There's been ...

Deep in the heart of the Royal Hospital Chelsea lies a very special garden. It's relatively small compared to the manicured lawns, borders and vast greenhouses used by the Chelsea Pensioners, but it's just as precious to the ex-services personnel who tend it. This was my second visit to the garden, which has been relocated since I was there a few years ago. Back then it was in a deeply shaded spot and quite gloomy, but now... ... it's in a totally different place, full of light and promise. Around 20% of service veterans develop a mental-health problem, often many years after rejoining civilian life. Gardening Leave was formed to provide a much needed lifeline and a way to help them work through their problems via horticultural therapy. It is a place of healing. The design brief for this kind of garden is totally different to what you or I would choose for ourselves. It's based on need rather than aesthetics, though I still find it beautiful in its own ri...

Today's Shows of Hands is courtesy of Andy Winfield who kindly emailed me this picture from the University of Bristol Botanic Garden . He says: "The plant is Osteospermum jucundum in our South African display and the hands belong to various staff and volunteers. I wanted the hands to form a circle around the flowers but with the age of some of the volunteers it would have meant them moving into positions they hadn't taken up for some years (their words not mine)." I did ponder adding this photo to Monday's Puzzle Corner Special , but I loved the smiley face on one of the hands and I felt this might get lost in a smaller photo. Thanks for a great shot Andy! I also owe Andy an apology. In my previous post  about visiting the garden, I promoted him to the position of Head Gardener. His actual job title in my view is equally grand: Botanical Horticulturalist. Oops - he was subjected to a great deal of teasing as a result of my error, sorry! Andy says he...

Today's Shows of Hands is particularly special because it was sent to me by Olivia Chapple from Horatio's Garden . She explains in her email: "I have attached a picture of our hand oak motif carved into a bench by Titus – Horatio's brother. The symbol represents the bringing together of nature and kindness which is the ethos of Horatio’s Garden." Regular readers will have spotted that I managed to include Cleve West - the garden's designer - in last week's special from Chelsea Flower Show . For those of you who are reading about Horatio's Garden for the first time, I'm delighted to link to their introductory video again: Horatio's Garden from Horatio's Garden on Vimeo . If the embedded video doesn't work, try this link instead. If you're around Salisbury at the end of next month, you might like to attend their summer drinks party on Friday 27th June in the evening, or their 2nd Food and Plants Fair on Sunday 29t...

Thanks to everyone who's contributed to Shows of Hands so far - plenty's been happening via blogs, Twitter and email :) Naturally quite a few of the pictures submitted involve plants, so I've put some of them into a fun picture ID Puzzle Corner special. There's just 5 plants and flowers for you to name. For pictures 1 to 4, I'd like the latin name please and there's a bonus point for each of the cultivar* names for pictures 2-4. Picture 5 is a pesky usurper weed amongst the lavender, so there's a point for its common name and a bonus 2 points for the latin. That makes a maximum 10 points available and I'll put up a link to the answers at the end of the week. * = I've checked the RHS Plant Finder and it looks like they are all cultivars (propagated by cuttings rather than seed) as this part of their names is in quotes and isn't italicised ( this article nicely summarises the nomenclature and cultivation differences). My thanks to @A...

It's great to have the opportunity to connect together both Chelseas:   Flower Show and Fringe via my Shows of Hands project. These photos are designed to give you a slightly different flavour of this year's flower show. The main picture shows the meticulous plant preparation that goes on before it's even selected to adorn an exhibitor's stand in the Great Pavilion. From top right to bottom left we also have: Part of the quirky bench which greets visitors when they enter the show ground One of the judges refuses to show me how the assessment of the show gardens is progressing Paul Debois shifts his photography kit in preparation for another shot in the Great Pavilion A more unusual view of a Chelsea Pensioner Beatrix Potter makes friends with Peter Rabbit Part of Burgon and Ball's trade stand Cleve West takes yet another phone call I was especially pleased to see Paul because his work inspired Shows of Hands and I'd wanted to connect up wit...

Last Friday saw the official launch of this year's Chelsea Fringe and as you can see I took the opportunity to link it with my Shows of Hands project. Guess which photo is Tim Richardson, the Fringe's founder and Director? Hmmm... let's see... ... correct - he's in the middle photo on the bottom row. The other photos are: Rosetta Sarah Elkin, the creator of Tiny Taxonomy , a fabulous installation in Belgrave Square, which was chosen the as the event to launch this year's Fringe. More on this project below. Vanessa Berridge points out a cheeky ant addition to one of Tiny Taxonomy 's plants Anni Gatti shows me the installation map, because they'd run out before I could nab one Marty Wingate's frou-frou peony peeping out from her goody bag Matthew Wilson who's heavily involved with the Fringe via The Greening of St Pancras International Station and yesterday's recording of Gardeners' Question Time .  After a brief introduct...

The gloves NAH used to build the raised bed . The effects are L to R, top to bottom:  Original photo, Warhol, HDR, Green tint, B&W, Posterize, Boost, Cross process and Sepia Welcome to Shows of Hands - my Chelsea Fringe project for 2014! As you can see I've been having a bit of a play around in Pic Monkey for my first contribution. You're welcome to join in between now and 8th June 2014. The idea behind this year's project is to highlight the tool most precious to a gardener: their hands. How do I take part? It's simple. All you need to do is take a photo of hand(s) in a gardening context and then share it via your blog or other social media (such as Twitter or Facebook), then make sure I know you've done so. I've set up Mr Linky below for your blog contributions. The Chelsea Fringe photo on the right sidebar links to this post, so you can easily find it again when you're ready to add your contribution. If you share your photo on Twitter, ...

The craft of skep making - as demonstrated at the Edible Garden Show on Saturday After the success of The Bloggers Cut  for last year's Chelsea Fringe , I've just registered my exciting new project for 2014. 43 gardeners' hands as seen at Lacock Roll up, roll up for...  Shows of Hands ! This is another simple idea which I hope you'll like. It was sparked by Paul Debois' award winning  43 gardeners' hands I saw at Lacock Abbey in 2010. Paul's given his blessing to his work forming the inspiration for my event. This year I'm asking you to submit a picture of hand(s) in a garden, or in the act of gardening or some sort of garden-related activity. This could be a close-up like the above picture, or of someone working in a garden - especially if their hands are mucky! Or perhaps you'd like to take a group shot of your community gardening project with everyone waving their hands in the air. The hand(s) can be human, or not - it's e...

A HUGE thank you to everyone who took part in the Bloggers' Cut for this year's Chelsea Fringe. 22 of you showed us various home gardens, allotments, a holiday cottage, lots of garden discoveries plus a whole host of other goodies involving gardens and cake. From the various activities I've seen, we've had around 150 active participants*, plus many hundreds of individuals who've simply read what we've been up to. Therefore this virtual Fringe event is a massive success, thanks to you :) The Bloggers' Cut featured visits to three other Chelsea Fringe events: Naomi's Cake Sunday and Sarah Salway's virtual garden tour - both of which inspired this offering; plus a visit to London's Open Squares event where Colleen had the massive responsibility of judging the Victoria sponge competition. As well as the Fringe events featured, your activities included get togethers with friends, family or fellow allotmenteers (which I'd hoped for), garde...

A very warm welcome to VP Gardens to all garden bloggers & Chelsea Fringe goers. Hello and welcome to The Bloggers' Cut for the Chelsea Fringe 2013 ! The cake is ready, the coffee brewed and thank goodness the weather's brightened up for you to join me in my garden today :) When I set up The Bloggers' Cut , I wanted my contribution to reflect a previous post or two from Veg Plotting . Rhubarb and ginger jam is one of my top posts of all time, so it's fitting I've baked a scrummy  Rhubarb and Ginger Crumble Cake for today. I'm pleased this is a blogged recipe I found via Not Just Greenfingers - keeps it in the family so to speak. Fresh out of the oven... I discussed the recipe with NAH and agreed we wanted more ginger than is given, so I've used some chopped fresh ginger to replace the powdered used for the sponge layer. I've also added some to the crumble mix to keep that gingery 'bite' throughout. I also needed to add a litt...

What goes with gardens and gardening? Why, cake of course! On the way to Chelsea Flower Show, I was pondering the Chelsea Fringe * and how we garden bloggers could participate. Most of us live a fair way from the events, but why should that stop us from joining the fun? I then thought about Naomi's Cake Sunday event on June 2nd and voila ! The idea of us supporting a real event in a virtual way was born. I bumped into Tim Richardson (Fringe organiser) at Chelsea and quickly got his go-ahead. We now have our very own entry on the official Fringe website :) So what are we going to do? Pretty much whatever takes your fancy, as long as it involves a garden (or allotment) and cake on June 2nd . You could have some cake in your garden (with or without friends and family); visit a garden for your cake fix (such as any open for the NGS on the 2nd, or even attend Naomi's event in Finsbury Park - it would be great to have the real and virtual Fringe events coincidi...