Veg Plotting

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

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!

Poppies have been a major force in my life over the past 18 months because I've been part of a project to create a giant poppy cascade to go on display in Chippenham. It all started in late February last year when ladies from all four Chippenham WIs got together to discuss the idea and decided to go ahead in readiness for last year's VE75 commemoration. Then lockdown happened and created havoc with life and our plans. However, undaunted we ploughed on individually and then finally last month we managed to get together in small teams to assemble our creation. All was revealed in Emery Gate Shopping Centre ready for this year's Remembrance with much pride and relief. I hastily crocheted the above poppy as I realised all of mine were on the display. That simple poppy brought back all the events of nearly two years and I got quite emotional. I'm surprised at how one simple poppy has released a whole host of feelings I didn't know I'd supressed for well over a year. ...

 

We've spent the past few weeks taking advantage of the current small gathering allowance to catch up at last with friends and family after many months; well over a year in some cases. It means I've been out and about instead of writing bloggage, but I'm happy to say I've still managed to fit in a few garden visits along the way. The highlight from this time was a visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park , and thanks to a trip to my BIL's I've fulfilled my wish to do so at long last. We managed an afternoon visit in welcome sunshine between showers and it soon became clear it's possible to spend days there.  The wide open spaces of the original landscape means huge sculptures can be accommodated without overwhelming their surroundings. All kinds of artists and tastes can be found there, which prompted many a discussion along the lines of 'but is it art ?' It was a thought provoking visit alongside a decent walk and plenty of art we liked as well as what ...

  These tightly clipped trees have brightened many a lockdown walk as they remind me of lollipops. I've spent so much time smiling to myself when I see them that I've totally neglected to identify them. Sometimes it's good to just go with the flow and enjoy things for what they are. A closer look at what lies beneath reveals more formality in the shape of a traditional urn and circles of clipped hedge. These remind me of a similar sight at West Green House , where apple trees and tulips are planted inside similar circles and other shapes to make a spectacular show. I've wanted to do something similar for our front garden for a while, though my attempts at growing enough box cuttings to make a start were a dismal failure a couple of years ago. I think I'll start again with some Euonymus 'Green Spire' instead to avoid the dreaded box caterpillar or blight. I'm also toying with the idea of some Camassia or alliums within the circles and I await further i...

It's the May bank holiday and coincidentally peak flowering time for two of our most iconic spring wildflowers; fritillaries and English bluebells .  It's a good year for the fritillaries at North Meadow in nearby Cricklade, so NAH and I headed out yesterday morning to see them. It's hard to show how marvellous this location is in a photograph as the fritillaries are small and there are dire warnings not to leave the marked footpaths so the flowers can get on with doing their thing. We chose the blue route which is the longest walk around the meadow, around two miles in total. It doesn't encompass them all and soon we were walking amongst thousands of fritillaries, with a pale pinky, purple haze on the horizon showing there were thousands more still to see. It's a few years since we were last there, and I'm sure there were more white forms dotted amongst their darker cousins this time. I haven't managed to find what determines the variation: genetics, or en...

I returned to one of my regular walks last week and found a delightful surprise along the way. It took me most of Lockdown 1.0 to find Westmead's owl shown above as I usually walk on the lower paths from town instead of those by the car park at the top. I now marvel it took me so long because once you know where it is, you can't miss it! It's been joined recently by lots of other wildlife sculptures to form a trail through the newly planted woodland nearby. Luckily this time I've found them just as they're being installed. The robin was the first one which caught my eye as it's easily seen from the Avon Walkway nearby. I simply had to investigate and find them all, as were a family of four whose children were excitedly running to each new discovery as they found it.  Not all of them are installed yet, so this is something to return to another time so I can snap all eleven. There'll be benches installed for us to rest and ponder the view and perhaps stay a wh...

I've passed these on many a walk and thought they must be plastic, but a closer inspection revealed our local high street barber uses topiarised plants to advertise his services. They always make me smile and it's a neat modernisation of the traditional red striped pole which showed barbers used to offer additional services as surgeons. I wonder which tools are used to keep these in trim - garden or barber's clippers? 😉 Hairdressers are set to reopen today in England and I'm looking forward to a haircut later this week. Sadly my hairdresser isn't quite so inventive with their display; they usually opt for one of the burgeoning hanging baskets set to grace the town in a month or so's time. I'm looking forward to both haircut and hanging baskets. Have a great week!

Like many gardeners, Easter is my starting gun for major gardening activities and also like many of them, I always feel a pang of guilt at starting seed sowing now. Everyone else seems to have lots of healthy seedlings and it's easy to be a little envious of their bounty. However, it's best if I ignore that and crack on now instead. I don't have a greenhouse and only a limited windowsill capacity so I've found a later start works better for me. That way everything should be at peak perfection for planting out in VP Gardens at the end of May.  Having culled all the old or unwanted packets of seeds, my seed tin really is full of happiness with the promise of colour and harvests to come. It's looking a little different in there this year as there are as many packets of flower seeds as well as my usual vegetables.  Some of these are earmarked for the newish border at the bottom of the garden. I'm being a little cautious with the revamp here because there's plen...

At least one Knatty Knitter has been at it again in Chippenham with a seasonal postbox covering, just like what happened at Christmas 😍  They really do help to bring a smile to the town and I'll be on the look out for more over the weekend. Have a great Easter everyone x

Last weekend's walk was a new-to-me-route from home and full of surprises. The quest was to find Lanhill Longbarrow, something I've known about for a while and probably Chippenham's oldest feature, as it dates back to between 3,500 and 2,500 BC i.e. Neolithic times.  The first surprise I found was the pictured intriguing stone at the side of the road... it looked ancient - especially as my head was full of images of standing stones at the time - but what looks like a mason's mark towards the bottom made me think it's not quite as old as it might be.   Then I found the footpath to the barrow, which was surprisingly not at the top of the hill where I thought it would be, especially as there's a tell-tale clump of trees, but I liked the view over the surrounding countryside anyway.   As I walked down the hill, I suddenly saw a low-ish mound with a gaping black hole. I had found the barrow! The chamber is one of three the mound is reported to contain, but this is th...

I spent some time this morning looking for a suitable poem about spring or blossom to mark today's World Poetry Day and the first day of spring. For some reason nothing seemed quite right, so I set off on my daily walk to help clear my head and come back refreshed. Little did I know I'd find some quite different inspiration towards the end of my walk. We must have a Dylan Thomas fan amongst our midst, who has hung up various covers of his works along the path by Hardenhuish Brook. A quick look at the pictured work online, and at last I have my poem - albeit nothing to do with spring or blossom - in the form of the extract below. It's the line about seeing the best side of people, not their worst which stands out for me. I readily admit I don't always manage that, but I do strive to see the best in a situation, and that resonates particularly in these strange times... "Every morning when I wake, Dear Lord, a little prayer I make, O please do keep Thy lovely eye On...

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...

  I love how looking for a suitable quotation for a photo and Muse Day can lead on to further investigation... "Bees do have a smell"... do they? Indeed they do, honeybees at least. It's all down to the pheromones they release. According to this article the alarm pheromone which prompts honeybees to attack and sting - sometimes en masse - when threatened is strong enough to be smelt by humans and is similar to bananas. I had to read this quote twice because I'd mentally added 'sense of' before smell. Another quick googling and I've learned their  sense of smell is far better than taste. According to the North Shropshire Beekeepers Association their sense of smell is far greater than dogs and some bees are used to detect landmines. Under normal circumstances this highly tuned sense is needed for pheromone detection and they have smell sensors in their mouths, antennae and the tips of their legs. Back to my photo... I had a wonderful time on Saturday wat...

  ... Happy Valentine's Day 🥰😻

This was a local discovery by some of my friends towards the back end of last year. I knew I had to walk over sometime to see this cheerful tableau for myself and a couple of days ago I found the ideal opportunity during my ongoing quest to walk on every street in Chippenham. I hope it cheers you up too. I wonder what happened to Bill and Ben ?

  Since 2012 the BSBI (the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland) has conducted its New Year Plant Hunt . Wildflower lovers from all over the UK walk round their local patch over the first few days for a few hours at the start of January and record what they see fully in bloom. Overall (and surprisingly), over 500-600 different species may be found depending on the survey year, with around 40 not uncommon on an individual walk. The top 5 finds last year were the dandelion and daisy, plus groundsel, annual meadow-grass, and common chickweed. The counts each year may vary, but the collection of survey information over a number of years helps identify any trends. The project aims to find out how our wildflowers are responding to changes in autumn and winter weather patterns, and over the few years it's been going, changes have been seen already.The use of volunteers as 'citizen scientists', means a much wider area can be covered and in greater numbers than our scientists...

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...

It's time for the annual flower census, where I pay particular attention to what's in bloom at VP Gardens in the new year. It's the only time I do this; my reasoning is there's plenty of interest at other times of the year, and if January has something, then I must be doing something right. As a result it's the only time I can do an exact comparison between the years and it's good to have that. Of course, the weather has a major role to play in what's actually there. There are always some surprises. The main one this year was daffodils in bloom before Christmas. Even more surprising is they've continued to bloom, despite almost two whole weeks of below average temperatures laced with ice and hoar frost. They actually flowered a few days ahead of the snowdrops and I'm pleased to find the snowdrops are now restoring order to the seasonal world with their delightful display both in the garden and on the public land next door. Here's this year's...