Veg Plotting

Over the past couple of years it's interesting to see what has chosen to appear in the gravel path in the back garden. Some are plants which have hopped over from the borders where I planted them and others have reappeared many years after I last had them here at VP Gardens . I think most of them are from my own activities rather than blow-ins or bird distribution from elsewhere. They give me a neat dilemma: do I treat them like weeds and get rid, or should I do something with them? Luckily most of the plants that have appeared so far are either low growing, or not enough to prevent our use of the path for what it was designed for. They could stay put if I so desired. The warmer weather over the past week or so has signalled it's time - at last - to clear away the over wintering stems and the rest of the debris I left in the garden to shelter overwintering insects and to feed the birds. It's also decision time on what to do with those self-sown plants. I've decided to m...

I thoroughly broke my plant buying duck at the weekend with a trip to the public plant sale at West Kington Nurseries . This usually happens in late April and early September, but this year's events meant both were combined into one sale spread over the longer Bank Holiday weekend instead. Like so many places these days there was lots of hand gel in evidence and sprays available to ensure safe wheelbarrow handling before I headed off to view the goodies on offer. Facemasks were the order of the day in the glasshouses and polytunnels, but thankfully not for coffee and cake time whilst I sorted out my plan of attack for the day. I was pretty good and stuck mainly to my list, though a rather nice Eupatorium* 'Chocolate' also leapt into my barrow, as well as a Hydrangea paniculata 'Diamant Rouge' and Actaea 'Hillside Black Beauty'.  I was pleased to find the foxglove 'Glory of Roundway' and aster 'Little Carlow' as both originate from nearby D...

Most hanging basket guidance will give you a look that is burgeoning, beautiful, and relatively high maintenance. Last year's health woes meant I was not only later with planting up my hanging basket, there was also a limited choice of what I could actually put in there. Burgeoning was out and budget was in. Then I remembered the clever use of Bidens I'd seen on holiday at Bishop's Castle a few years ago. Luckily there was still some left for sale, and the pictured basket was the result of just one plant . Not only that, it flowered right up to December. I learned later that Bidens can be grown as a perennial in the UK, though we tend to use it as an annual. Sadly my plant didn't survive past the first hard frost, though if I'd moved it from its north facing position to a warmer spot in the back garden, I may have had more success with overwintering. Another accidental shortcut was my use of Dalefoot's Wool compost. Remember last year's drought?...

This is a very fine book written by Mark, my fellow Chippenham blogging buddy . I'm proud to have a signed copy with the message "in friendship" written inside. If you like your reading thoughtful, funny, sad, memoir, raw, landscape, family, nature and a whole host of other things, then this is the book for you. This is writing which defies a single classification and stays with you for a long time afterwards. This week there are two ways in which you can enjoy Mark's book for free ... The first way Free download of Counting Steps - this week only !  ... for those of you who have a Kindle or the Kindle App and it's available for the next four days only on Amazon.  There are no catches - just a free download instead of the usual £4.49. There's even an extract to read online.  Giving away free copies might seem counter intuitive, but it's an established technique publishers use to rise up the rankings - and the impact on later sales is ev...

I think this potato bag is one of the best £1's I've spent in a very long time. It's a breathable sack which has a black lining, thus minimising the light getting through to the potatoes inside. As a result, the potatoes last at least twice as long as those kept in a sweaty, light filled plastic bag. It can hold up to 5 kilos of spuds and because NAH and I eat them only 1-2 times a week, anything which helps to keep them for longer is very handy indeed. I'll also keep on using it when I dig up this year's crop. By keeping a supply close by in the kitchen, it'll save me having to go outside and dive into the large paper sacks I use to store spuds in the garage whenever spuds take our fancy. What's your favourite bargain at the moment?

This is the first post in my new series called  Breaking the Rules , in which I'll be looking at some of the gardening advice available to see if it can be bent or even completely broken. I'm not an expert, but I know there's some advice I followed at first, then found doesn't need following slavishly. First up are spring flowering bulbs. The picture shows a packet of tulips last Saturday. You may have come across something similar recently going for a song at your local DIY store or garden centre. Did you buy them too? I hope so. According to the advice , I should have planted them last December at the latest. But there's nothing wrong with these tulips. The bulbs aren't soft and soggy or mouldy, the sprouted tips are showing a relatively healthy colour and they aren't long and straggly. Planted now, they should still do well, though they'll probably flower a couple of weeks later than if I'd planted them at the 'right' time. Why ca...

It's time for leafing through gardening catalogues, dreaming of how the garden or plot will look this year, and then placing orders for lots of seeds, bulbs and plants. So I'm pleased to announce Sarah Raven is offering Veg Plotting readers a 10% discount off the spanking new catalogue from now until the end of January :) Go to the website , place your order and then add the magic VP10JAN code to the Apply Coupon area shown on your Shopping Basket's page. You'll find this below your selection of goodies, to the left of the Proceed to Checkout button. NB This offer is only available for online orders. VPGGB = VP's Guide to Gardening Bargains :) Update 18th Jan - it seems code isn't working. I've reported it and will let you know when it's fixed. Update - it's fixed - in less than 15 mins :)

Here's a delicious offer to brighten up a wet Bank Holiday Tuesday! I've teamed up with Sarah Raven's Kitchen and Garden website to offer you a 10% discount on your online purchases. Simply visit the website (linked to above), load up your shopping basket and make sure you enter SARAHVP in the Offer Codes box on your Shopping Basket page BEFORE you hit the Proceed to Checkout button. Note: Offer applies to online purchases only made from now until 17th June 2012 inclusive. Previous purchases aren't eligible and the discount can't be used in conjunction with other offers. There's more - I'll be back on Friday with an extra little special something for the 52 Week Salad Challenge , so in the meantime enjoy your shopping :) BTW this isn't an affiliate offer, so you can go ahead safe in the knowledge I'm not making a bean from your purchases. VPGGB = VP's Guide to Gardening Bargains Update: This offer is now closed.

January's a great time to dust off the seed tin and see what I already have before hitting the slew of catalogues which have flopped through the letterbox recently. As a result I've found I have more seed than I know what to do with. Last year's Nasturtium seed giveaway went down very well, so I thought I'd do the same with this year's spares. I've weeded out all the packets which have gone out of date, so you'll get something which stands a good chance of working well for you this year. Here's what's available - any numbers in brackets mean I have more than one packet to spare: Flowers Aquilegia x hybrida 'Crown of Jewels' Mixed Aquilegia 'McKana Giants' Mixed Bronze Fennel Calendula 'Neon' Helianthus maximiliani (NB perennial sunflower) Hollyhock 'Halo' Mixed Morning Glory 'Star of Yelta' Phacelia 'Tropical Surf' Sunflower Sweet Rocket ( 3 2 1) Vegetables Artichoke 'Violet de Provence'...

November and early December have continued in their unseasonably warm spell of strangeness, so there's still the remains of summer blooms amongst the usual death and decay. Last week our first proper frost finally took away last month's Fine Fuchsias , but I couldn't resist showing off September's Echinops flower heads again. The morning sunlight was highlighting them so beautifully a couple of days ago. The ever reliable Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve' still has the odd flower head* to show for its troubles and the perennial Nemesia 'Vanilla Lady' I bought at Malvern is taking advantage of the extra warmth by my patio doors. The big surprise is the giant potted summer pelargonium in my north facing front garden. It's still flowering away when its companion New Guinea Impatiens have turned to mush. The garden feels very in-betweenish because many of the reliable winter flowers are still in bud. The Lonicera x purpusii 'Winter Beauty ' is bei...

Our local supermarket was selling off tins of chestnut puree very cheaply recently, so it can introduce slightly smaller ones of the same brand at the previous price. Naturally I was very happy to score quite a few of the larger cans for my store cupboard :) Last week, I decided to make chestnut and mushroom soup for lunch and devised this very quick and simple recipe. Ingredients 1x 435g can unsweetened chestnut puree 250g well flavoured mushrooms e.g. chestnut (!) 1 tbsp oil (I used olive oil for its fruity flavour) 1 litre vegetable stock (or 1 stock cube made up to this amount) Salt and black pepper to taste Method Empty the tin of chestnut puree into a large pan, swilling it out with stock to ensure all the puree is obtained Add the remaining stock to the pan Bring the liquid slowly to the boil, stirring well at the beginning to ensure the puree is dispersed into the stock Meanwhile thinly slice the mushrooms Add the oil to a frying pan and add the mushroom...

In a change from my usual Sunday review slot, I thought it was time for something different and to have a competition instead. I've found just the thing with PochCloche, who are offering you the chance to win one of five AcryliCloche ® Low Barn Garden Cloches in their ‘Cloche and Grow’ Competition. Everyone who enters the competition will receive a 10% Discount Code to spend on AcryliCloche ® Garden Cloches on the PoshCloche website, so we're all winners in one way or another :) For your chance to win one of these fantastic garden cloches Enter Here . The AcryliCloche ® is made in the UK from rigid plastic which is resistant to UV and frost damage and comes with a 5-year guarantee. It doesn’t require any assembly so you can begin to use it as soon as it arrives. The Low Barn Garden Cloche can be used for: Growing your own fruit and vegetables Protection from frost, wind and rain Protection against pest damage Warming up the soil before sowing or planting Extending...

A trip into town last week revealed a surprising slew of gardening bargains to be found at my local branch of Poundland *, where I picked up this packet of 8 seed potatoes for, erm... a pound. A couple of years ago Threadspider and I selected a potato variety each in fond memory of the ones grown by our dads and the pictured Pentland Javelin is now a firm favourite with us both owing to its great taste and good yields. As it's a first early, it usually doesn't have problems with blight either. Other varieties available are Charlotte, Maris Peer and Rocket: all are good sized and appear to be good quality. There were large packets of reasonably sized onion and shallot sets too, though these were of variable quality. Look out for signs of softness or mould and avoid. In my case Red Baron was the best bet in my shop, the rest were to be avoided**. Elsewhere small summer fruiting raspberry, blackcurrant and redcurrant bushes were on display. I couldn't see if they w...

It's less than a month to Christmas, so what better time is there for me to have a fantastic book to give away, plus details of a bargain book discount available elsewhere? First up is a copy of The Well-Connected Gardener by Sue Minter. This is the biography of Alicia Amsherst, who is credited with founding garden history via her book A History of Gardening in England published in 1895. She may have been brought up in a very privileged family (hence her being well-connected), but she was a very well educated, talented woman whose recognition in the gardening world seems to have been largely forgotten until now. I'll be reviewing this book shortly. If you like what you see, then all you need to do is leave a comment on here between now and December 13th and the first name out the hat wins the prize. This'll give me time to catch the last parcel post, so you should receive it before Christmas. Sorry, this is available to UK readers only. However all USA and UK readers ca...

... Red Why? Because... I love their colour I love the contrast with the silvery leaves I need to replace some rather fetching red I've had in a couple of my summer pots They made the pink and the white ones on offer look wishy washy (and they were rather leggy too whereas these are sturdy and healthy) I couldn't resist a whole tray of 18 for a mere tenner (one of my usual autumn bargains from Frank's Plants which means I can indulge myself) Need I say more? ;) What's your colour this year?

If you want to know more about how recycling works here in the UK, or are simply needing guidance on where to start, then you need look no further than this recently updated guide published by Black Dog Publishing. It goes through each category of waste we generate, explains how the recycling process works for them and gives you practical tips on how you can reduce or reuse this kind of waste yourselves. It also gives an insight of where we in the UK stand re our success (and failure) in dealing with our waste problem. There's also plenty of case studies of projects from all over the world where waste is being tackled in innovative ways. There's also some striking pictures: who would have thought that an empty plastic bottle could be turned into a sign for the top of a taxi for instance? There's also a great directory at the back of the book which gives details not only of where you can get lots more information about recycling, but also those companies who are using w...

A lot of my strawberries up at the plot are either nearing the end of their useful working lives or are so interplanted with weeds at the moment, I need to thoroughly makeover their homes. This has also given me an opportunity to review the varieties I'm growing and change things around a little. I'm really pleased with the Mae and Christine varieties I'm growing: they're both early varieties (cropping late May, or even earlier if I ever got around to protecting them with a cloche or some fleece), crop prolifically and taste wonderful. They're also generous with their runners, so I'll be making sure they're potted up this year ready to make a new bed for them. That's strawberry bargain #1: lots of plants for free. The parent plants of each variety are still very vigorous, so I'm confident I'll have lots of healthy progeny ready for next year's crop. Both were freebies given away with a couple of garden magazines a few years ago, so that...

Hippeastrums (aka Amaryllis ) tend to be associated with Christmas in this country: various potted possibilities are usually on sale around November time, which means they'll be in bloom at the end of December and continue to brighten the January gloom. They're the ideal gift for a garden or plant lover starved of gardening activities or flowers around that time. Mine came into bloom yesterday. Regular readers know I'm pretty poor at planting my bulbs out at the given time and it looks like I might have gone down that road in a spectacular way. However, my giant Hippeastrum 'Vera' bulb wasn't purchased in November: Threadspider and I bought ours in the January sales from our local garden centre - reduced to £1.49 from £6.99 - a bargain. They were also giving out free eco-friendly shopping bags to garden club members that month, so it was only natural to use mine to bring all my other purchases home. Having emptied the bag of everything but my very large new b...

Just a quick reminder for those of you interested in joining us at Malvern Spring Show that we have a fantastic half-price ticket deal available for Friday or Saturday 7th and 8th May. In order to qualify you need to write a blog post about Malvern by 31st March . Full details of the offer, some inspiration for you if you need it and what you need to do are here on our rather lovely dedicated Malvernmeet blog. I've also been contacted by the site editor of the London-based money-saving website, VoucherCodes.co.uk about a free ticket deal for Grand Designs Live at the Excel centre in London for 4-7th May. Unfortunately this means you'll miss both James' and Three Men Went to Mow 's appearances there at the weekend, but there should be plenty more to see. I found the series of talks pretty good at the NEC's equivalent last October. The site has a specially created voucher code which allows you to receive free weekday tickets for the 2010 show. These usually...

Being desperate to find any gardening related activity last week, I resorted to trawling around the garden departments of the local DIY stores one afternoon to see what's new. It's mostly the usual suspects: summer bulbs, plus a few dormant herbaceous perennial roots. However, this year looks set to be big on Dahlias as I found lots more choice than usual with not a D . 'Bishop of Llandaff' in sight. I've stocked up on more D . 'Arabian Night' as this did so well in my garden last year as well as looking marvellously sultry. I added a contrasting D . 'Duet' to my shopping basket: a cranberry and white striped combination, plus pure white D . 'Sneezy' again for contrast, but mainly because the name made me laugh. All these were on offer at around the £2.49 mark for 2 good sized tubers, or three packs for a fiver. Good value, especially when catalogue prices are around £5.95 for three tubers + postage. However, the best bargain of the day w...